1 big monitor vs 2 smaller monitors

[dumpy2]

Hello,

I am planning on building a new set up for graphic / web design. Basically, I am teetering on 1 big monitor / tv 28" or 32" or 2 smaller 22" or 24" monitors. I have never run a 2 monitor set up before, I don't know much about it.

Do you have to be SLI to run 2 monitors?

Just some other things to keep in mind:

I will also be using this for playing pc games / hooking up my 360 to it.
I am a student, so budget will be a factor (why i was thinking about getting say 1 24" monitor now and purchase another later when i have extra funds)

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[outlw6669]

I would recomend 2 22" or 24" monitors (or a mix of them). One high quality monitor for the graphic design and one TN monitor for gaming on.

You should have much better color acuracy on a quality monitor than on a TV.

Currently, SLI dose not support multi displays. With a SLI setup, you must disable SLI to use the second display.

 

[jitpublisher]

1 big or 2 smaller is pretty much personal preference. If you are running multiple apps at once, 2 monitors is nice to have. You can game on 1 and work on a project on the other.

You CANNOT run 2 monitors in SLI mode.
SLI mode enables 2 cards to work together to power 1, and only 1 monitor.

You can run 2 monitors on a single card, or 2 monitors on 2 cards.
Nearly all modern mid to high end video cards have 2 vga outputs for dual monitors.

 

[CNeufeld]

Personally, I'd go with two decent sized monitors (like 24's), for several reasons.

1) 1 big monitor will likely be more expensive than two small ones.
2) You get more usable screen real-estate with two small monitors than one large one.
3) For playing games, you'll run a game on one of the smaller monitors (typically). This means your graphics cards don't need to be able to handle the higher resolution of the larger monitor for playing games, just the resolution of the smaller monitor. This makes it more likely you'll be able to play without additional hardware (like SLI or triple SLI), or reduced image quality settings.

And no, you don't need a special setup to handle two monitors. Almost all graphics cards now come with dual DVI connections. Plug one monitor in each connection, and you're off. You may want to look into some software like UltraMon to use your monitors to their fullest capability (puts a taskbar on both monitors, allows you to set different wallpapers on each one, etc).

Keep in mind that while there's only a 2" diagonal difference between the 22" and 24" monitors, there is a bigger difference in resolution. The 22's are usually 1680x1050, while the 24's are 1920 x 1200 (compared to the 30's at 2560x1600). So you'll want to look at each size you're thinking of, at approximately the distance you'll be working with them, to determine what size/resolution you like. Icons and text will appear smaller on the 24's than on the 20's for the same display settings.

Clint

 

[jerrardo]

The resolution of a 22" widescreen (1680 x 1050) or 24" (1920 x 1080) monitor is similar to that of a big lcd tv, if not higher. You're not going to be able to fit more on a big lcd tv, but things will be bigger. You can get a 30" monitor with a resolution of 2560 x 1600, but they're well over $1,000 and it would be much cheaper to get two 22" monitors. If you do go with an lcd make sure it's HD 1080 (1920 x 1080), and no 720

Most video cards have two outputs. Assuming your monitors support DVI then you should get a card with 2 DVI outputs, but you can always use an adaptor if the outputs are VGA.