How To Connect 4 Dell Monitors to my System - Help Please

[JJ2012]

Help Please!

I have just bought secondhand, 4 Dell monitors: 1x Dell UltraSharp U2713H, 1x Dell UltraSharp U2715H, & 2 x Dell UltraSharp U2713HM. I am going to have them in a setup where there are two above the other two on a stand (hopefully).

What I am struggling with is how to connect all 4 monitors to get the best resolution from all monitors. Some questions I need help with please:

What are the best type of cables to use?
Do I need to add the second graphics card?
Should I just buy a new PC - if so what does it need to have?
Anything else I need to do?


At present I do not play games but may get interested after this is all set up, so happy to upgrade or just get new computer. I don't want to change for a while so might as well do it all know. Budget for new pc would be about £1000-£1500.


My setup at the moment:

CPU: Intel Core i7 2600K
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3P
Memory: 8GB DDR3 1333mhz (2x 4GB)
Hard Drives: Corsair 60GB Force3 SSD S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s, OCZ Agility 3 120gb SSD SATA III, Seagate Barracuda 3TB,
Optical Drive: 22x DVD±RW DL S-ATA
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB + another of the same if needed
Power Supply: Corsair TX750
Sound card: Onboard 7.1 Audio
Case: Zalman Z9 Plus

I am a real novice but would love to try and build a pc if that is cheaper!!! Any help would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Gingerbread]

the 550ti supports only 2 monitors, if you go sli, the number of monitors wont increase. You will need a primary gpu and a second gpu as a dedicated physx device, then you can go for it or you can go for 2 monitors from the 550ti and 2 from the integrated hd 3000 from the i7 2600k.
As far as cables go, for anything up to 1920x1080 vga is enough, above you will need hdmi/dp/dvi.

 

[JJ2012]

Thanks for your answer. Unfortunately I don't quite understand it!

"You will need a primary gpu and a second gpu as a dedicated physx device, then you can go for it"

Could you explain in real easy terms please?

Also do you mean I can put the other 550ti in and attach the SLI cable but only connect two monitors to one of the cards? Don't understand this either:
"2 from the integrated hd 3000 from the i7 2600k"

Sorry, but I really am a beginner and need step by step easy instructions unfortunately!

 

[Gingerbread]

Ok so thing is, if you connect two gpus in SLI mode, then the second one (slave gpu) can't produce display. If you want to have two GPUs, they must not be in SLI, in SLI it's basically 2 gpus running one thing, while if they are not in sli, each GPU will run a something different, that way each GPU will have displaying capabilities.
Your CPU is i7-2600k, it has an integrated GPU which is the Intel HD 3000. It supports up to two Displays. To connect a display to the integrated GPU, you connect it to the I/O ports on your motherboard. Usually motherboards have 2-3 different ports for monitors (for compatibility reasons), unfortunately your motherboard only has 1 HDMI, so the best you can hope for with your current setup is 2 displays in the 550ti and 1 display in the integrated GPU.
If you want to go for 2 monitors, you have to get a second GPU and put it in the second PCI-E x16 slot of your motherboard. But you must not put it in SLI (meaning don't use sli and a sli bridge).
If the second gpu usage is just display, and not gaming or anything, you can get a cheap GPU (like the gt 710) and just use it for display and browsing.

 

[JJ2012]

OK I think I understand a bit more - thank you. So...

I have another 550ti from and old computer I don't use now, so could I put that in the other PC1 slot and connect two of the monitors to that and the other two monitors to the original 550ti?

Will that mean I can run all the monitors at their 2,560x1,440 pixels and will I need to tell Windows 7 to set the monitors to 2,560x1,440 pixels?

My next daft question is:

Do I just connect each monitor to the 550ti cards with whatever cable fits or is there specific way to connect them so they all work together and if so what type of cable(s) do I need?

Mainly I will be using the monitors to just display but hopefully start using Photoshop too.

Going forward, would I be best to get a new motherboard and graphics card(s) if I want to start playing games - if I have time?

 

[Gingerbread]

If you want 1440p you have to use HDMI or DVI dual link (single links support only 1920x1200) or DisplayPort. Best way to go about this is to use hdmis and display ports but problem is that you have one miniHDMI and 2 DVIs so connect the 2 dell-u2713hm via 1 dvi from each card, and connect the other two via one hdmi on each card again.
Gaming on 4 monitors is close to impossible (the middle of your screen would be on the bezel) so for gaming you can use 3 only, also to game at such high resolution you will need SLI gpus and high end GPUs that is.

 

[JJ2012]

Ok thanks.

Gaming not really an issue more just a thought so not bothered about using the 4 monitors for that!

Re the connections would I just be better off buying two new graphics cards to get the best connections and if so what would you recommend? It's more important for me to get the best resolution and use out of the monitors for photoshop and general office type work.

I really appreciate your time and help, I'm certainly understanding more if a bit slowly!

 

[Gingerbread]

Well if you are going to be buying a new gpu altogether I would recommend just getting a high end gpu which supports up to 4-6 displays alone. So if that's the option then for photoshop and similar, since you need the color depth and such you could look into an NVIDIA Quadro or AMD FirePro. And when it comes to that it all depends on your budget. But if colors and professional drivers are not so important you can go for a normal consumer gpu.

 

[JJ2012]

Great. Thank you so much for all your help I really appreciate it. Now to make a decision and check prices!

Thanks again.

 

[Gingerbread]

No problems. If its a professional card it would be way more expensive, that's for sure, that's why first check the benefits of the professional card and see if you really need them. If you don't, then a consumer card is all you need and you can wait 1 month for the new GPUs. They will support high VRAM and will be faster so it's perfect for your use case.

 

[JJ2012]

Great thanks I think I'll wait for the new cards then

 

[Gingerbread]

No problems, feel free to contact me if you have any troubles.

 

[JJ2012]

No problems, feel free to contact me if you have any troubles.

Hi Gingerbread

I installed the other Geforce GTX 550Ti card for now.

I connected the two U2713HM with DVI and the other two monitors with HDMI.

The U2713HM show 2560 x 1440 (native)
The U2713H shows 1920 x 1080
The U2715H shows 2048 x 1152

I cannot get all four monitors to show 2560 x 1440.

Any suggestions?

Thanks