3 Monitors????

[yarricc]

What would you recommend for being about to run 3 monitors at once???

 

[jt001]

You weren't really specific with your question but here goes; no consumer graphics card has more than 2 heads so you're gonna need 2 cards. What will you be doing with these monitors more specifically? I personally think gaming across 3 monitors looks amazing but it's a hassle to set up.

 

[HeavyF]

You have a couple of choices. For ~$300 you can run a matrox tripleheadToGo- which is excellent for gaming. For ~400 you can run a Nvidia Quadro 440 nvs which will allow you to have 4 displays of atleast 1920 * 1200- note that this is a straight 2d card if there ever was one so unless you are seriously a video/audio engineer,editor you may want to look elsewhere. Still, if you REALLY need desktop display... go for the nvs 440. If you are like most people, just stick to the great dual display support of all modern cards,

 

[truromeo4juliet]

For ~$300 you can run a matrox tripleheadToGo- which is excellent for gaming.

it's good for everything, really... but it allows you to run 3 monitors from one VGA port, with a max resolution of 3840 x 1024... it has software that can trick windows into maximizing application windows into each monitor so that they don't span over all 3 at once... it's good for gaming because windows sees everything as 1 large monitor... it's good all around... prices online start at roughly $230...

i have my 3 18.3" LCD monitors with optimal resolution @ 1280x1024... i'll be ordering my Matrox Triplehead2Go on tuesday, for UT2K4... cheers

 

[Bear17]

For ~$300 you can run a matrox tripleheadToGo- which is excellent for gaming.

it's good for everything, really... but it allows you to run 3 monitors from one VGA port, with a max resolution of 3840 x 1024... it has software that can trick windows into maximizing application windows into each monitor so that they don't span over all 3 at once... it's good for gaming because windows sees everything as 1 large monitor...

Does anyone know how well this will work (max resolution of 3840 x 1024 across 3 monitors) if you use different size monitors? I am looking to also run three monitors for gaming, but the center monitor will be a 22" wide screen and the two side monitors will be smaller 15" screens.

If this would not work well for that setup... and using two cards would be better.... then I take it one card would be the center and one side, and the second card would be the opposite site? I cant have one card only be the center (more powerful) and the second card be for the side monitors can I? In a situation where someone is using three monitors with two cards, will many games even work with this setup? Does not the game need to support this?

 

[steviep831]

Bear,
As far as I know, you can not run multiple monitors (more than one) with VGA cards in SLI mode so you'll lose the acceleration of SLI. That may not be important to you though. I've got a 22" and a 19" and I can only run the two of them when I turn off SLI (only one graphics card).

Also, as far as the different sizes, I think appearance-wise, you'll want to have all monitors the same size. Also remember that different monitor's LCD color, brightness, etc. look differently. You may be able to remedy this though if you had something like the Colorvision Syder that can adjust the colors and brightness effectively. Then you could possibly get the monitors to match well.

 

[theaxemaster]

What would you recommend for being about to run 3 monitors at once???

If you have PCI-E, I'd get a second card. Its an order of magnitude simpler to do and you'll have the extra HP another card in crossfire to drive the monitors. I wouldn't recommend the matrox triple head unless you're not doing anything 3D, and even then, for the price of it you can get another card. Its a decent option if you don't want to upgrade your motherboard too, but you can get another X1800XT and motherboard for about the price of it. Plus you've got the driver and software support.

 

[twenty8special]

What about having a second PCI-e x16 video card, but not in SLI or crossfire? For my work, I am using a Quadro FireGL 7100 for my two monitors, but want a third. I have another video card, but its not the same... heck not even same chipset manufacturer. Its a GeForce 6600. Any idea if I can get both working at the same time for 3 monitors?

Thanks

Joe Mac