Complementary card for my on-board video

[mahelious]

I purchased a Foxconn A7DA-S motherboard last year with an on-board ATI Radeon HD 3300. I've had it running my dual monitor setup since and I have been pleasantly surprised at how far on-board graphics have come.

Recently i've decided to make the jump to a triple monitor setup and i'm not sure how to go about it. The motherboard has 2 PCI Express 2.0 16 slots, but if it's possible to run one video card in tandem with the on-board video I would prefer that. Have any of you had a good experience with an on-board video card and a PCI Express 2.0 x16 card?

In case you wonder, I am not looking for a killer performance system, just something for business/school work and occasionally a round of Team Fortress 2.

 

[shadow187]

If you're looking for Tf2 on a 5k1k resolution, you're going to want an HD5770 as a minimum.

If you want to play Tf2 on one monitor yet browse on the other two, get an HD5750 or HD5670.

 

[mahelious]

Those are all very good GPU's, but thats not what I asked. Do you have personal experience running any, or all, of those cards with a on-board graphics chip?

 

[hallowed_dragon]

Those are all very good GPU's, but thats not what I asked. Do you have personal experience running any, or all, of those cards with a on-board graphics chip?

To run a discrete GPU you will have to disable On-Board GPUs (except in the case of Hybrid Crossfire - which in my opinion is only a waste of money and the performance is unacceptable for games). But a low powered 5xxx GPU and be done with it.

 

[dougie_boy]

ive only dabbled with onboard graphics and discrete cards and in the past it either has not worked or the work around have been a nightmare.

in the office (prior to the 5xxx ati cards) when we needed 3-4 screens we always used a pair of discreet GPUs, like the 250s in SLI. it was easy to setup and worked fine.

the route with the least headaches is the 5xxx series which have some cheap cards with 3 monitor support.