4-6 monitor graphics card for Dell Inspiron 660

[Guest]

Dear Gurus,

My Dell Inspiron 660 desktop is currently hooked up to 2 monitors using its onboard Intel graphics. I'd like to connect a total of 4, and if possible, 6 monitors by adding a separate graphics card (I won't be doing any gaming, only stock trading, so I am not looking for a very hi-end card). The desktop has one pci-e x16 (2.1) slot, so I guess I can only have a single card, something like this 6-monitor card from Amazon. But this one is too long and too wide for my machine - 10.5 X 8 X 2.5in according to Amazon, whereas there is at most 9.5in clearance above the pci slot between the back panel and the hard drive wall (and about 6in depth - see the picture below). Can anyone here suggest an alternate smaller-sized card that fits my machine? I replaced the Dell's 300W PSU by an Antec 550W PSU, hopefully this will be enough. My other question is that all these modern cards seem to be pci-e 3 compatible, whereas Inspiron 660 has pci-e 2.1 slot - will that be a problem?

Thanks a bunch,
Manojit

 

[nokiddingboss]

the cable management has rooms for improvement. as for your question, pci-e 3.0 cards are backwards compatible to all previous pci-e implementations. you want an amd card if you want a hassle free multi monitor support courtesy of eyefinity.

 

[noidea_77]

Relocate the harddrive to the spare space below the DVD-Drive cage and uninstall the original cage.

 

[Guest]

Thanks to both of you for your comments. I am a total hardware noob, and my tinkering experience is limited to only replacing the PSU (hence the messy cables). As for relocating the hard drive, I won't know which screw goes where. So I guess my options are pretty limited, in which case to make the most of what I have, I am now thinking of getting a 3-monitor card that hopefully is small enough (<9in long and <6in wide) to fit inside my case. Can anyone suggest the type of card I should look for? I have 2 monitors, one with a VGA and the other with HDMI+VGA input, and from what I learned in this forum and elsewhere, at least one of the connections in such a card will be DisplayPort, so the third monitor I should buy needs to have a DP input - correct?

Thanks again.

 

[Guest]

To answer my own question, I managed to connect 5 monitors (three Acer 24", one HP 23", one Dell 19") to my Dell Inspiron 660 by using this card, which comes with 1 miniDP and 4 DVI-D ports (I bought it for $179, looks like the price has just gone up). The card is about 8" x 4" (size of a standard video card), which fitted nicely in the pci-e slot.