3 Monitors, SLI, 3rd vid card?

[libra21]

Hi everyone

I have 3 monitors total for work - 27 inchers. Work from home.
I'm a big gamer. I recently got a 2nd video card to sli. I got it used, 2 older vid cards.
That being said I can't of course run 3 monitors with sli.
Anyway, I only use the middle monitor for gaming

What should I do?
Get a cheap vid card to run the two side monitors I don't game on??
Will that work? Will it give me good performance?

Thanks! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

[doubletake]

What do you mean you "can't of course run 3 monitors with sli"? Of course you can, unless you're running two cards older than the GT200 series? Please provide more specs such as the monitor resolution (i.e. is it a 1080 or 1440 resolution), your motherboard and processor so we can figure out what your options are.

 

[symsus]

Hi, you cannot SLI cards of different models for example:

SLI of 560, 560 and a 570.

 

[Guest]

If you're only gaming on the middle monitor, any decent card will run the whole thing. I would get an R9 270x with 4GB of vram.

If you ever decide you want to game on all three though, you will need a much more powerful card.

 

[doubletake]

Also, you won't need another GPU to drive your setup (again assuming you aren't running ancient cards), you can game on one and have the others be in desktop mode no problem.

 

[libra21]

They are two 460 gtx 1gigram each, so I have them SLI. They are in a new pc I've built that is very high performance in the components. Just using these cards because honestly I don't need more than that for now, so I'm gonna squeeze a little more time out of them.
So I figure I should get a cheap card to run the other two monitors, which I won't be gaming on. I hope that clears things up a bit! Thoughts?

 

[libra21]

What do you mean you "can't of course run 3 monitors with sli"? Of course you can, unless you're running two cards older than the GT200 series? Please provide more specs such as the monitor resolution (i.e. is it a 1080 or 1440 resolution), your motherboard and processor so we can figure out what your options are.

ASRock Z87 Extreme6
i7-4770K Haswell 3.5GHz
2x 460gtx 1gig ram
16gig ram
1920x1080 monitors

 

[doubletake]

Ok, I've already answered your question, but again, you don't NEED anything else to run your setup the way you want, you can have all three monitors plugged in and as long as you don't enable nvidia surround in the control panel they will work just as you want them to, center one for gaming, the other two for desktop. Games WILL NOT LAUNCH on all three monitors, just the primary one. So you're already set.

If you still absolutely don't believe me, then for peace of mind, you can do this: plug only two monitors into your GPUs, then plug the third one into your motherboard so it runs off your CPU's integrated graphics. So you already have a third GPU to run them like you want, even though you don't need it :V

 

[Niculae Ionescu]

I know that when you SLI 2 cards, the ports on the second one dont work anymore. Am I wrong ? So he does need a third video card afterall for the second and third monitor (maybe a Gig 8600 silent ?)

 

[Guest]

I know that when you SLI 2 cards, the ports on the second one dont work anymore. Am I wrong ? So he does need a third video card afterall for the second and third monitor (maybe a Gig 8600 silent ?)

Yes they do. I've got two monitors plugged into my top card and the third in the bottom. All three are DVI.

 

[doubletake]

I know that when you SLI 2 cards, the ports on the second one dont work anymore. Am I wrong ? So he does need a third video card afterall for the second and third monitor (maybe a Gig 8600 silent ?)

Yes they do.

This.

 

[libra21]

I know that when you SLI 2 cards, the ports on the second one dont work anymore. Am I wrong ? So he does need a third video card afterall for the second and third monitor (maybe a Gig 8600 silent ?)

You are correct about this. The other replier doesn't seem to understand this. Sure they can run multiple monitors BUT NOT if they are configured for SLI the only 2. So my thought is to get a pretty cheap vid card for the other 2 monitors that I'm not gaming on, since I only use browsers, excel, and so forth. What ya think

 

[doubletake]

Ok nvm, I hadn't noticed before that you can't run all three displays while running SLI as I only game on either one monitor or all three and then reactivate all three when not gaming, but this still shouldn't be an issue. Like I've already said, you don't need another GPU as you ALREADY HAVE ONE ON YOUR PROCESSOR. Just hook up your third monitor to your motherboard's DVI/HDMI and use that to drive your display. That's one of the selling points of the Z series chipsets, being able to use your iGPU alongside dedicated ones.

 

[libra21]

Ok nvm, I hadn't noticed before that you can't run all three displays while running SLI as I only game on either one monitor or all three and then reactivate all three when not gaming, but this still shouldn't be an issue. Like I've already said, you don't need another GPU as you ALREADY HAVE ONE ON YOUR PROCESSOR. Just hook up your third monitor to your motherboard's DVI/HDMI and use that to drive your display. That's one of the selling points of the Z series chipsets, being able to use your iGPU alongside dedicated ones.

Wow you really have to believe you are right don't you. I'd rather not put any additional stress on my motherboard and certainly processor than I need to for longevity. I'll spend a whole $35 on a vid card.

 

[doubletake]

I don't see why you think this is a bad idea, once again, that is one of the main selling points in getting a Z series motherboard, being able to use iGPU and GPUs together. If you think using a natively supported feature directly promoted by Intel is a bad idea, then w/e. You'll be putting more stress on the motherboard by running more power through another PCI-E slot than from running integrated graphics :V

 

[Guest]

I know that when you SLI 2 cards, the ports on the second one dont work anymore. Am I wrong ? So he does need a third video card afterall for the second and third monitor (maybe a Gig 8600 silent ?)

You are correct about this. The other replier doesn't seem to understand this. Sure they can run multiple monitors BUT NOT if they are configured for SLI the only 2. So my thought is to get a pretty cheap vid card for the other 2 monitors that I'm not gaming on, since I only use browsers, excel, and so forth. What ya think

What don't I understand? He said that when you SLI two cards, the second card's ports stop working. That is not correct. I have two 660TI's in an SLI. I have monitors plugged into both cards. The ports on Both cards are working.

 

[doubletake]

I know that when you SLI 2 cards, the ports on the second one dont work anymore. Am I wrong ? So he does need a third video card afterall for the second and third monitor (maybe a Gig 8600 silent ?)

You are correct about this. The other replier doesn't seem to understand this. Sure they can run multiple monitors BUT NOT if they are configured for SLI the only 2. So my thought is to get a pretty cheap vid card for the other 2 monitors that I'm not gaming on, since I only use browsers, excel, and so forth. What ya think

What don't I understand? He said that when you SLI two cards, the second card's ports stop working. That is not correct. I have two 660TI's in an SLI. I have monitors plugged into both cards. The ports on Both cards are working.

He means having SLI enabled and running 3 monitors NOT in surround, just 1 primary and 2 extended. For that, it's true you can't plug monitors into the second card while in SLI as they will not be enabled for anything but surround, but if you disable SLI it then activates the third display. I still don't get why he doesn't want to run a monitor off his iGPU, but I guess he doesn't mind paying to replicate functionality he already has.

 

[Guest]

I know that when you SLI 2 cards, the ports on the second one dont work anymore. Am I wrong ? So he does need a third video card afterall for the second and third monitor (maybe a Gig 8600 silent ?)

You are correct about this. The other replier doesn't seem to understand this. Sure they can run multiple monitors BUT NOT if they are configured for SLI the only 2. So my thought is to get a pretty cheap vid card for the other 2 monitors that I'm not gaming on, since I only use browsers, excel, and so forth. What ya think

What don't I understand? He said that when you SLI two cards, the second card's ports stop working. That is not correct. I have two 660TI's in an SLI. I have monitors plugged into both cards. The ports on Both cards are working.

He means having SLI enabled and running 3 monitors NOT in surround, just 1 primary and 2 extended. For that, it's true you can't plug monitors into the second card while in SLI as they will not be enabled for anything but surround, but if you disable SLI it then activates the third display. I still don't get why he doesn't want to run a monitor off his iGPU, but I guess he doesn't mind paying to replicate functionality he already has.

Appreciate the response. Now I get it.