Can my system run 8 monitors

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JasperR

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Apr 20, 2015
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Hi,

I am about to purchase 2 EVGA GTX 960s 4GB so I can have 4 monitors on each GPU. My setup will be:

Noctua NH-D14
2x EVGA GTX 960 4GB
i7-3770k
OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W
Aerocool XPredator Black Edition Black
128GB SSD on C: drive
1TB HDD on D: drive
Asus Sabertooth Z77 mobo (1 GPU slot is broken)

1x 29" monitor
3x 27" monitors
3x 24" monitors
1x 22" monitor

Do you see any issues with this?


Thanks in advance,

Jasper
 
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8 Screens for real or trolling?
 
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Is this for gaming or high fps?
 
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I am serious.
http://i.imgur.com/dg2EWcN.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/f9zz5GB.jpg



I will have the following connectors from my monitors:
2x D-Sub (VGA), DVI-D on the 24" monitors (not on the screenshot, they will arrive later and replace the 2x 20" on the wall)
1x Display Port (required on the ultrawide monitor, as far as I'm aware?) on the 29"
2x DVI, VGA on the 27" monitors
2x VGA on the 20-22" monitors
1x HDMI, HDMI, D-Sub (VGA) on a 27"

I think that's it. As for the GTX 960, it has the following ports (if I buy 2, that is):
2x HDMI
6x Display Port
2x DVI-I

This is the card I am planning to buy (first one, attach 4 monitors, confirm it runs well, then buy a 2nd and attach another 4).
https://www.alternate.nl/html/product/information/page.html?event=search&articleId=1193101




This is mainly for work, running applications such as Visual Studio. I will be casually playing some games here and there like World of Warcraft, but I don't need to spread it out over all the monitors or anything like that.
 
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if 1 GPU slot is broken, depending on which one it is, you won't be able to run both GPUs at x8 PCI lanes.

Slot 1: x16/x8
Slot 2: x8/x4
Slot 3: x4
 
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then yes the gtx 960 will work if you buy the ones with the proper display ports.
 
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It's the one in the middle. The brown one on this picture:
http://i.imgur.com/JtdTTE0.jpg
As you can see, I run 2x GTX 650. One in the top slot and one in the bottom.
Are you saying I can not use both cards? 🙁
P.S. The way I tested was simply put the bottom GTX 650 in the middle slot and start the PC. Speccy does not detect it and the attached monitors don't give a visual either.



I was planning to buy a bunch of VGA/DVI to DisplayPort converters. That should work too, right?
 
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As far as I understood, only one card's performance would be used anyway since I don't run them in SLI (reason is because, afaik, when using SLI it only uses the monitor outputs of one GPU). Isn't that correct?
 
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Well, you're going to need a few adapters considering you have 1 displayport monitor, and 6 displayports. Combined with 2 DVI out and 4 DVI monitors, a lack of d-sub output, and gosh, this is a mess.
 
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yes, each card will run the monitors that it's connected to, which if you're just doing regular non-gaming applications it shouldn't matter much about the x4 lanes available.

Just make sure that if you are planning on gaming or doing any more GPU-intensive applications, plug those monitors into your top GPU, not the bottom GPU.
 
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4 or 5 converters. Might end up "only" using 6 or 7 monitors, not entirely sure yet.
Since it says you are a GPU expert, would you advice a different approach? The reason I want this many monitors is because I like the grid-system you get from multiple monitors, the looks and multi-tasking. Gaming would only be done on a single monitor and only once or twice a week.



Sounds great. Thanks for the heads up!
 
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Large numbers of adapters can get confusing for both the displays and the GPU, but it's something that can be worked out.

I typically advise no more than 6 monitors unless you're doing a simulation rig (which would call for beefier GPUs anyways).

Beyond 3 monitors there's a sharp dropoff in productivity due to the natural tendency to orient ourselves along a 2 dimensional horizontal plane.

Monitors can border these 3 "main" monitors in cardinal directions and retain some usefulness for peripheral vision/comparisons. Thus for an 8 monitor setup you can have 3 over 1+3+1 and still gain small benefits from it, but more than 1 secondary monitor/main monitor gains little benefit.

Thus it is better to have either a 3 over 3 configuration for comparisons or a 1 over 1+3+1 for distinct less important screens.

You can throw in a 40"+ TV for free that doesn't count towards utilized monitors, it's used to show things to guests or sit back and watch youtube/netflix/movies from a couch (Your 29" monitor borders this category).
 
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I see.
6 monitors might not even that much of a bad idea. I could add a 7th monitor using an HP USB Graphics Adatper which I have laying around (I know, it's ugly and bad practice and etc., but it works to display music playlists and chat windows).

So let's say I were to look at 2 GPU's with 4 GB of memory total to run 6 monitors (so at least 3 slots each I guess), what would you personally advice me to do? I prefer not to go above 500 euro total.

If you could make a short list of your personal "preferences", that'd be amazing.

Thank you so much for all the help and advice everyone, I appreciate it big time! Without you I would have probably wasted a lot of money by making bad choices.

P.S. I don't want a single big monitor. It's just not what appeals to me; I like the "wall" idea and I love having the possibility of throwing different applications on different monitors, spreading out and allowing great multi-tasking.
 
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Assuming the biggest best connected monitors will be used, the following connectors are needed.
DVI x 4
HDMI x 1
DP X 1

By this criteria and a 500 Euro price limit, you really only have limited options to go with, as the 270x only has 2 clock generators and needs to do Eyefinity over DP hub.

There's the GTX 760, and the GTX 960

http://de.pcpartpicker.com/parts/compare/evga-video-card-04gp42768kr%2Cgigabyte-video-card-gvn760oc4gd%2Cgigabyte-video-card-gvn960wf2oc4gd%2Czotac-video-card-zt7040610p/

I'm a big fan of the 760 for the price and simplicity of SLI 2D Surround compared to the 960. Fill up the leftmost "primary" card, and put 2 DVI cables into the second one.

Going by German Euro prices, you can get pretty close to 500.

You're going to need to upgrade your PSU, is the problem if you want to stay low priced... You just don't have the Power connectors on that model if I am looking at the right PSU.
http://www.amazon.com/FirePower-ModXStream-Semi-Modular-Performance-formerly/dp/B001IZ7MHU

So no matter what, your budget is shot if you want to stay <500. But <600 may be doable.

You'll need something with at least 4 PCI-e 6+2 connectors, minimum 600 Watts. Since it isn't listed on PCpartpicker, it's really hard to find these things.

http://de.pcpartpicker.com/part/xfx-power-supply-p1650gts3x

Here's one that looks promising.
 
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