want to run 3 or 4 monitors

[HeavyF]

I was wondering what would allow me to be able to run three or four displays? Do I need a video card with three DVI ports (if there are any)? Can I run 4 monitors with two graphics cards in the same case, sli or not? I am completely clueless on this. I've never had a reason to run more than one display. Thanks

 

[harty23690]

Get a Matrox triplehead to go.

You plug it into your graphics card and then into the 3 monitors.

You also dont need a crazy GPU to power it. Theres a full exhaustive list of GPUs that are compatible with it on the matrox website.

4 monitors....there i suppose you could use 2 GPUs and just not enable SLI/Crossfire. Not sure if it would work tho.

 

[sirrobin4ever]

This is actually quite easy. Any decent modern video card will have two video outputs. (Not three outputs- the only card I know of that supports 4 is a Nvidia Quadro; and they cost mucho dinero) Hook the Primary and secondary monitors up to your best video card. Easy.

As for the third and fourth cards, this is a little more tricky.
Is your system AGP or PCI Express? (I will assume PCIx because you mentioned SLi)
What do you plan to do with these displays? What resolutions are these displays?
If you plan to run web pages or something not demanding on a low resolution, you could just buy an older PCI (Not Express) card for really really cheap and run them on this. If the resolution is higher, or you plan to game, etc., you should invest in a higher end PCIx card.

As for SLi, it will NOT run more than 2 monitors at a time. Just FYI.

Best of Luck

 

[HeavyF]

Thanks for the tips.

The Matrox TripleHead To Go looks interesting. cost seems ~300. Would probably be great for gaming as well as other apps... and I do some gaming (not much).

The Quadro NVS 440 can do 4 displays but is really geared for ONLY 2D. Since this would be my primary app, mostly video and sound editing (lots of channels), this is fine. I have a question regarding the outputs:

What are the practical implications of DMS-59 connections. Do I have it correct that I will need an adapter to go from DVI to DMS-59 and if so, is it a Y type split adapter?

Thanks again