How Realistic Is Multi-Monitor Gaming On A Budget?

[lunyone]

Sorry plain text of build below:

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/kqFNWZ
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/kqFNWZ/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 760K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor ($78.98 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus A88XM-A Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($62.99 @ NCIX US)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial M500 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($80.98 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 270X 2GB Dual-X Video Card ($154.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Acer S220HQLAbd 60Hz 21.5" Monitor ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Monitor: Acer S220HQLAbd 60Hz 21.5" Monitor ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Monitor: Acer S220HQLAbd 60Hz 21.5" Monitor ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $782.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-08 23:04 EST-0500

 

[huilun02]

All I want is a single 60Hz 1080/1440p IPS with Freesync.

Affordable frame sync for the masses.

Adding a proprietary $200 module would essentially double the price of a regular panel. That is not affordable. Having it only on premiumy 144Hz flagship models doesn't help with widespread adoption either.

 

[groundhogdaze]

Anyone gaming with three 2560x1600 monitors? I've got two but considering getting a third after reading this article, but that's a lot of pixels to push.

 

[Onus]

I've contemplated the "budget" issue for a day or two, and decided I don't have an issue with how this article was done. If you allow that a higher-end CPU and other parts puts the bottleneck on the graphics card, I think the tests are valid; either of these would be likely cards in a "budget" machine; the question becoming "Ok, I've built this, can it also handle three displays?" The answer is "sort of, but you'll want to upgrade when you can." To that end, a followup would be good. How many steps "up" do you need to get at least "Medium" settings, and how many for "High?" Yes, you can "sample" multi-monitor gaming with the tested cards, but you'll want better to really get into it.

 

[jjb8675309]

How many steps "up" do you need to get at least "Medium" settings, and how many for "High?" Yes, you can "sample" multi-monitor gaming with the tested cards, but you'll want better to really get into it.

This about sums up my thoughts. I found that a gtx 680/3570k can push medium/high settings @ 5670x1080p with reasonable AA settings in most games, some games higher.

 

[RedJaron]

they were looking to see if you can do it on a low budget. not mid to high, LOW budget

Budget gaming on this site tends to mean a $500 - $600 gaming rig on a single display. You can easily get respectable med-high gaming performance for that much money. So if that experience is your baseline, I'd assume you'd want similar performance if you stepped up to three screens. Trying to squeeze two additional monitors into a $600 budget is the same as squeezing in a 4K monitor into a $1000 mid-range gaming rig budget. Yes, you can do it, but you're surrounding yourself with a whole lot of poor quality pixels.

As an experiment, this is just fine. But to get better real-world applications, this needs to explore just how much horsepower it takes to replicate that single-screen $600 budget system experience across three screens.

I mean, with $400 invested in monitors, would the difference between a $100 R7 260X and a $190 R9 280 really be that big a deal?

Exactly. When you already have that much money in displays, does this idea really translate to the "low budget" category anymore? The total money involved here is closer to $1000 than $500, so it's more like a mid-range gamer. Either that or we divide budget, mid-range, and extreme into single-display and multi-display groups.

Does anybody use 3 monitors in portrait orientation? I don't have a 3 monitor setup, but if I did, I think that is the way I would go. Are there any pros and cons to either a portrait or landscape orientation.

I've mixed portrait and landscape displays for work for nearly 10 years, but I've never tried portrait for gaming. Mixing three 1080 screens like that gives you a 3240 x 1920 display, which is a 27:16 aspect ratio ( 1.6875.) That's about halfway between the typical 16:9 and 16:10 screen you're already using ( three 16:10 screens results in a 15:8 or 1.875. ) That's just a little smaller than a 4K display, except you'd have bezel gaps. I think the gaps would be disconcerting at first since we're used to landscape displays on so many things, but I suppose you could get used to it.

 

[oni666uk]

£150 for a water blocked Asus 7970 off of ebay, £25 for 2x 1680x1050 monitors from ebay and £80 for a 1080p monitor elsewhere, run them all at 5040x1050. And it runs everything fine. Even newer stuff like Farcry 4 and Elite Dangerous at near to max settings (albeit without AA).

 

[ptmmac]

I think this article will need to be revised when the 960 comes out next month. There is no doubt that Nvidea kept some of their powder dry for January. The 960 will offer better than 770 performance with a 600 watt power supply. The addition of a second card in 6 months could better the 980 in a similar power envelope. The $750 system that can drive 3 screens or a 4K monitor would give you a Multi monitor system for $1250.

 

[Onus]

Actually, I'm hoping the GTX960 will run on a 450W PSU. If it comes in at a decent price, I could see one of these in my future.

 

[RedJaron]

Actually, I'm hoping the GTX960 will run on a 450W PSU. If it comes in at a decent price, I could see one of these in my future.

I'd love to see that happen, as well as the price point it's released at. Very intriguing how these prices will effect the Radeon 300s. I'd love to upgrade my 6870, but as of yet I haven't been able to justify the money since it isn't lagging that much in the games I have.

 

[Seth L]

@simon4ok
Probably an MST Hub. They split 1.2a display signals into 2 to 4 different displays.

 

[maestro0428]

I would love to see a mid priced face off as well. Maybe that is something we can do in the future. I too am excited to see what the gtx960 will bring, especially in SLI.

For the record, I run the system in the article with a 780gtx sc and it runs the games I play at decent settings at the full 5760x1080p. I would love to be able to turn the settings all the way up, but I trade that luxury for the super wide view. I tried to go back to a single 30" and I just couldn't do it.

 

[zero2dash]

Tried this a few months ago - went from 1 27" 1080P to 3 22" 1080P with 560Ti SLI - then sold all and went back to 1 27" 1080P now pushed by CF R9 270.

NV Surround has a lot of issues, and it sucks for desktop productivity. The only thing that (somewhat) fixed it was buying DisplayFusion, but even then there were still issues. And NV doesn't seem to be keen on making switching from NVS to normal 'enable all displays' mode without having to close all your open applications down to do so, and still not really having a working hotkey solution to do so (the only NVS hotkeys being able to switch from 1 display to 3, but not switching the modes).

I decided that it wasn't worth the performance hit of having to run games on Medium or Low to span 3 displays....I'd rather have the increased graphical bells and whistles on 1 display. I somewhat miss the productivity of having 3 displays, but have somewhat pacified myself there by using Dexpot.

 

[EasyLover]

Great work. It will definitely affect on giving recommendations on the forum in a more confident and proven manner plus it is an eye opener for gamers who may simply ignore ow to mid GPUs with thinking that they are not well equipped for gaming.

 

[santiago7245]

Meh...I'd rather buy a nice '27 LED with 144hz refresh.

 

[Ogrodnik]

For about two months, I'm using eyefinity setup myself. It was really cheap (considering the amount of fun it gives).
My single 1440x900 LCD wasn't enought, so i decided to go for multi monitor setup.
Two used, pretty much the same as the one i was using, LCD's costed about 50$. For that resolution (4320x900) I have Radeon 7950, again it was a used one for ~150$ (pretty much price of a new 260x/750ti). Last expense was ACTIVE DVI->DisplayPort Adapter, about 20$. Even with that crappy monitors of mine, gaming experience is on far different level.
Most of my games are working on High/Ultra settings with no AA enabled on 7950 + FX-6300@4.5. (bioshock infinite, shadow of mordor, grid autosport, civ:be, (wolfenstein:no is somehow the most demanding game of this,working on ~medium/high set, weak cpu must be the reason of it).

 

[S_Whitestine]

I had been contemplating doing a triple monitor setup for almost 6 months, and I finally bit the bullet myself about a month ago. I have to say I'm sorry, but all this article proved is that you CAN'T do a budget triple monitor setup... on 3 1080 monitors. Reference the numerous times he dropped the resolution to "4800x900". Yuck.

What would have made MORE sense is to game these two cards on three 1280x1024 monitors. 3840x1024 should be more doable on these budget cards and retain a smooth framerate vs eyecandy balance AND you still get that 3 monitor goodness.

For the record I decided it was worth the wait to triple monitor properly, and so I saved up for and bought SLI gtx970's and 3 Asus VN248h-P IPS panels. Needless to say I don't have to drop my resolution. Granted I know my gear is more than the scope of what this article's purpose was, but in my personal opinion, three monitors is something I don't think I'd h ave enjoyed had I tried a similar budget build as proposed in this article.

As a side note - As someone else previously mentioned I also took the 2 outside monitors and placed them so that they were slightly behind the middle monitor overlapping bezels so that now there is visually only 1 bezel separating the monitors rather than 2 side by side. It's very easy to "lose" the bevels and not even notice them while gaming

 

[Jacob Bodine]

"Eyefininty is not as easy to configure" It's literally 3 buttons to set up. It works amazingly well.

 

[jjb8675309]

How well does Eyeinfinity work in terms of frame latency as compared to similar NV cards?

 

[bmguyii]

I've seen USB 3.0 docking stations like DELL D3100 that can support 3 monitors over USB3.0. Is gaming possible using this setup? The reason I ask, is if so, one could build a fairly cheap 4 computer by 3 monitor KVM using a D3100 and a manual USB3.0 switch (not hub) [saw a few 4 port on the net, 2 port more common]

 

[maestro0428]

As far as frame latency, I think Nvidia is better, but don't quote me on that. Ill look into it.

As for productivity issues with either software, the only problem I have had is that some software opens stretched all the way out. Easy fix. Other than that, I have been impressed with both companies progress.

 

[woj666]

No one has mentioned DPI. If you sit too far away from a 4K monitor you are wasting DPI. I sit 3 feet away from my 5040x1050 triple monitor with a 54 inch effective display which turns out to be "retina".

 

[Onus]

Ok, so the single R7 260X is marginal at best. What happens if you add another for Crossfire?

(SLI is not an option for the GTX750Ti)

 

[jjb8675309]

I'd be worried about the frame time variance for a mid-low Crossfire solution. It would be interesting to see what kind of numbers it could do though. I have a pair of 7870s lying around and I am getting increasingly interested in trying something. The CPU would be an FX 8350. Last time I tried crossfire it was with 6870s and the results were far from desirable regarding frame time variance and microstutter. I'd like to think that AMD has come a long way with this but hesitant at the same time.

 

[Onus]

It would be a worthwhile test! Omega is supposed to fix frame pacing issues, and adding a second card seems like a realistic way a budget gamer might be upgraded.