Hi,
we have just setup a new set of computers in our office just to find out, that our sys admin shouldn't be trusted. He installed a NVIDIA 8400 GS and claimed that it would be possible to use it together with 3 1080p displays connected via VGA, HDMI and DVI. I was very skeptical when I heard about that for the first time and now, as everything is set up and not working he told me to to find out what would be the best way to get things going.
Requirements: Power 3 displays all with their native 1080p resolution. Two of them (connected with DVI or VGA) will be on all the time and are of the same model, the third one is actually a TV screen (HDMI) that is shared among two PCs and its usage as a TV set.
From my point of view there are several options:
- Buy a second cheap NVIDIA card to get the third display working. Problem is that the motherboard has only a PCI-E 1x and a conventional PCI slot and I couldn't find a PCI-E 1x card...
- Use a USB to DVI adapter. That option seems to be quite cheap (around 40€) but I've heard they don't really work very reliable and most of them can't go to 1920x1080 (especially cheap ones).
- Buy a new low-end AMD card with an acitive Displayport to DVI adapter and create a "shared" eyefinity screen. The problem with that solution is that I'm not sure if cheap cards like one based on the AMD HD 5450 chipset are able to control a screen of 5760x1080...?
What would you do? As usual, budget is limited (we are a non-profit organization), time is short and people are already annoyed because nothing is working the way it should. I don't want to make a mistake and buy new stuff that again turns out to be not working, so any help is appreciated!
Greetings and thanks in adance!
we have just setup a new set of computers in our office just to find out, that our sys admin shouldn't be trusted. He installed a NVIDIA 8400 GS and claimed that it would be possible to use it together with 3 1080p displays connected via VGA, HDMI and DVI. I was very skeptical when I heard about that for the first time and now, as everything is set up and not working he told me to to find out what would be the best way to get things going.
Requirements: Power 3 displays all with their native 1080p resolution. Two of them (connected with DVI or VGA) will be on all the time and are of the same model, the third one is actually a TV screen (HDMI) that is shared among two PCs and its usage as a TV set.
From my point of view there are several options:
- Buy a second cheap NVIDIA card to get the third display working. Problem is that the motherboard has only a PCI-E 1x and a conventional PCI slot and I couldn't find a PCI-E 1x card...
- Use a USB to DVI adapter. That option seems to be quite cheap (around 40€) but I've heard they don't really work very reliable and most of them can't go to 1920x1080 (especially cheap ones).
- Buy a new low-end AMD card with an acitive Displayport to DVI adapter and create a "shared" eyefinity screen. The problem with that solution is that I'm not sure if cheap cards like one based on the AMD HD 5450 chipset are able to control a screen of 5760x1080...?
What would you do? As usual, budget is limited (we are a non-profit organization), time is short and people are already annoyed because nothing is working the way it should. I don't want to make a mistake and buy new stuff that again turns out to be not working, so any help is appreciated!
Greetings and thanks in adance!
I acutally don't care if it's one giant surface or three extended screens, as long as it's working. We are only going to run Office applications like Outlook, Word and a web browser on it. Maybe one or two youtube videos but that's not an official requirement, if you know what I mean ;-). Are there any drawbacks with the large surface expect maximazing a window is going to max it over both displays?
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