Nvidia GTX 470+3 monitors?

[Abik]

Hi all, with the holidays coming up I was looking into getting two more monitors but I am not exactly sure how I would run 3 monitors off one card.

I know the GTX 470 has two DVI ports and a mini HDMI but I am assuming I cant just plug two monitors in both the DVI ports and one in the mini HDMI.

Is there some sort of adapter out there that one would use to achieve this or would I have to buy another card?

If it is relevant, I do not plan on going 3D.

Thanks for your help!

 

[nforce4max]

You can only use two monitors with your card as it is Nvidia and not ATI. You can add a second card to your machine but it will need to be Nvidia due to driver for the second monitor.

 

[Abik]

If I added another card, would it really matter what card it is? Other than being a Nvidia card of course.

 

[nforce4max]

You can mix them so long it is Nvidia. I have done this my self without any problems.

 

[Abik]

Alright. Ill keep this in mind while I browse around! Thanks for your help!

 

[AG Renagade]

To make use of a second card and SLI it with your first it will have to be another GTX 470. Do what I did with my 470, just buy an EVGA UV Plus. 😉

 

[lucas1024]

To make use of a second card and SLI it with your first it will have to be another GTX 470. Do what I did with my 470, just buy an EVGA UV Plus. 😉

Doing SLI will defeat the purpose, as the goal is to run 3 monitors. SLI will only allow 2 monitors.

Abik, I have a question: are you planning on gaming on 3 monitors? I don;t think that's possible with NVIDIA cards. But if all you need is to stretch your desktop, then any 2 cards will do that.

 

[AG Renagade]

SLI will allow him to expand his desktop. He has a GTX 470, if he used any other card with it then he would only be able to use one display adapter at a time.

And just to let you know, Gaming is possible on multiple monitors and using Nvidia. http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vision-surround-technology.html

 

[Abik]

Yes, I was planning on gaming with 3 monitors. I ended up wanting 3 monitors just because with 2, it is all weird and what not.

 

[4745454b]

SLI has changed to compete with Eyefinity. You can do 3 monitors now. If you just want three screens, any video card (even AMD) will be fine. If you want them to act as one ala Eyefinity, then you need to SLI it with another GTX470.

 

[nforce4max]

SLI has changed to compete with Eyefinity. You can do 3 monitors now. If you just want three screens, any video card (even AMD) will be fine. If you want them to act as one ala Eyefinity, then you need to SLI it with another GTX470.

The problem if he wants to use an ATI card alongside with his GTX470 is that he would have to search for a hack for the Nvidia drivers so they wouldn't disable the ATI card's driver upon start up.

 

[4745454b]

? I thought they only disabled the PhysX part of the Nvidia drivers.

There is the issue of Vista being able to load only one driver. If you use Vista any GPUs you have MUST be able to use the same driver. XP and win7 don't have that issue.

 

[AG Renagade]

I've tried it already, exact same scenario, had a 470 and bought a 5850 to run 3 monitors. Each time i restarted it would disable and sometimes erase the previous drivers. I had to reinstall when switching adapters, it was a pain so i returned the card and just bought the EVGA UV+

 

[4745454b]

What OS were you using? As I said Vista only supports one driver. I've used an AGP Nvidia TNT2 card with a PCI ATI rage card before in the past with no issues. And that was back in the day of crappy ATI drivers.

 

[AG Renagade]

I've tried it on XP, 7, ubuntu.

 

[nforce4max]

Oh well live and learn I guess.

 

[AG Renagade]

Yeah it sucks though, before nvidia used to let you run any 2 cards from the same series together, now it has to be the exact thing.

 

[nforce4max]

Just the same brand but it doesn't have to be the same gen for just the use of more monitors. for sli sadly yes.

 

[AG Renagade]

Yeah they should really go back to the old ways for SLI

 

[nforce4max]

Yeah they should really go back to the old ways for SLI

I still got some 3DFX cards that I occasionally use and the VSA100 was and in some ways the ultimate gpu for multy gpu systems. It is something that makes ones day to see 16 of them in action on a win9x or NT system with full FSAA and not suffer any lag at all.

 

[AG Renagade]

I still like to SLI 9800's with 8800's, those cards were some good stuff.

 

[nforce4max]

I still like to SLI 9800's with 8800's, those cards were some good stuff.

I got two of them my self and they will be good for the job for a few more years 😉

 

[AG Renagade]

Yeah, the 9800GX2 I have lying around still works good for many things.