[Solved] 4 Monitors - 2 Cards or 1?

Hello everyone.

I would appreciate some input on what to select. A friend has asked me to build him a new system for his online stock trading.

He wants to run 4 monitors that are made by Viewsonic. He has 2 of these now, and wants to purchase 2 more. The each have a single DVI & HDMI input.

ViewSonic VX2450wm-LED Black 24" (23.6" Vis) LED Backlight LCD monitor

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] Tpk=vx2450


I have not committed on the rest of the build, but will probably go with a Core I5 Sandy Quad, 16GB of memory and 750-850w power supply. Since the monitors are the main issue, I figure I will select the video cards and then a MB/CPU to support them.

The use will be strictly for trading, no gaming or any other uses.

That said, is it better to drive the 4 monitors off of one 6870 like this one:

XFX HD-687X-CNFC Radeon HD 6870 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814150563


Or better to run off of two separate cards like these:

EVGA 01G-P3-1556-KR GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) FPB 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130625

Price isn't an issue, but don't want to blow my friend's money unnecessarily.

I'm not stuck on either of these cards, so any other suggestions would be appreciated.

If all he's doing is stock trading you don't need cards anywhere near that level. You definitely don't need that much memory, a core I5, or a 850W power supply. If he's going to game or something fine, but for stock trading all you are doing is glorified web browsing on an extended desktop. For something like this i would think a better priority would be low power usage. This should really be a very very cheap system, minus the monitors.

Keep in mind with an AMD card you will need to buy display port/HDMI adapters if the monitors only support DVI. A 6750 with 4 outputs should be suffcient. or any 2 cheap cards that can support 2 monitors.

I agree with the first two comments. Stick with your build idea and get the non gaming card and buy two of them. That way you arn't dependent on just one card, and God for bid one card goes out you still have one up and running.

I think the 850w PSU is a bit overkill but the i5 is ok. You won't over work that CPU. Temps keep cool. Even though he might not game but might get into a hearts game or chess while working. You never know. All this is food for thought and good luck

The Sapphire Flex is the best option for this case:
1 single card can support 4 monitors ( 3 out of the box & 4th need display port to DVI active adapter ).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102938
Display Port to DVI Active adapters are like these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814999030

another option:
1 single card can support up to 5 monitors ( in case he wants a 5th one in the future ). 3 out of the box, the 4th & 5th monitor via mini display port to DVI active adapter ).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102924
mini Display Port to DVI Active adapters are like these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6834997553

The adaptors I posted are just samples. Please check reviews to make sure that you do not get passive adaptors which will not allow simultaneous activation of the 4th or 5th monitors.

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Best answer selected by pwpc.