which card - 3 screens?

[justme05]

help!

I assume i should be looking at pci-express?

I need a graphics card to support 3 monitors. Not for gaming but just standard CAD and drafting.

I seen a matrox that supports 3 screens. Is there a NVidia to support 3 screens?

 

[Dready]

You can use an ATI FireMV 2400. It supports up to 4 DVI or VGA displays.

However it is a 2D card only. No 3D acceleration for games.

I'm planning to have 3 screens on my next box as well, so I think I will go for a dx10 card when they come out for my primary monitor for gaming, and an ATI FireMV 2200 (two monitor support) for the other two screens.

There is also the NVIDIA Quadro NVS 440 PCI Express x1 which supports four DVI displays. It also has 3D acceleration.

 

[enforcerfx]

Could pick up a decent cheap PCI-e card, use both VGA slots. Then buy a cheap PCI card, and use on of the VGA slots for the 3rd monitor.

 

[justme05]

i found a triple head matrox card. Is this ok? I don't think its pci-e but seems to be vga but im not up on this.....is vga ok?

 

[duthoy]

standard CAD & drafting = matrox
no need for hi-end 3D acceleration

 

[Siba]

Haven't heard many people recommend or even mention it, but you might give the Matrox Triplehead2go a whirl. Make sure you have a graphics card that can run non-standard resolutions, and has the horsepower to give you the performance you want.

 

[justme05]

the triple head 2 go device only allows one image to be spanned over three monitors. so i could not have 3 browsers open for example.....if i understand this correctly

 

[Siba]

the triple head 2 go device only allows one image to be spanned over three monitors. so i could not have 3 browsers open for example.....if i understand this correctly

That would be the case if it only stretched the image. The triplehead2go actually presents itself to your computer as a display that is 3 times the normal width of a monitor, I believe. Your computer will think that it is hooked up to a single monitor that is just 3 times as wide. You should be able to have a spanning desktop in that manner, and that would allow you to have 3 browser windows open. I could be wrong, was just throwing it out there to get a suggestion in the air.

 

[yakyb]

im with enforcerFX get your self something powerful for processing then get something cheap to run the third monitor

 

[Dready]

If your displays support DVI inputs, you'll want to be sure you have a card that supports it as well. It makes a huge difference in the image quality.

The ATI and nVidia cards I mentioned above are the only ones I know of that are PCI-e and have 4 DVI outputs. The ATI has no 3D acceleration while the GeForce card supports DX9. However, I've read you shouldn't expect to be able to play games on either.

One thing that concerns me is the new Vista GUI with it's fancy window effects. I don't think you can take advantage of those features with a 2D card.

For this reason, I've changed my mind decided to go with a low-end mainstream dual DVI card, and a nice DX10 card for my primary monitor and for gaming.

 

[skyguy]

Depends if he's sticking with XP or Vista.

I have 3 monitors but have to currently go with 2, since I found out that my soon-to-have 8800 and drivers won't play nice with a cheap DX9 card for the 3rd monitor. Apparently there are problems with the drivers and having a DX9 and DX10 setup. So has anyone been successful in pairing up a DX9 and DX10 card to run 3 monitors???

If sticking with XP, then get any decent vid card with 2 DVI ports. Then just get a cheap NV 5500 to put in the PCI slot to run the 3rd monitor.

Like many other people, I had hoped to use 3 monitors for gaming and other apps, but it looks like we're screwed, especially if we want to go with the horsepower provided by the 8800 series. I've not heard much at all definitively about the TripleHead2Go.......I wish SOMEONE that's used it or seen it could comment. It sounds good, but I've heard of problems.

More people are considering 3 monitor setups........there must be some reasonable solution out there..............

 

[Dready]

I didn't know that about dx9 and dx10 cards being incompatible. hmmmm... that doesn't bode well. In that case, there will be no affordable 3 display option for quite some time. Not if we want to run dx10.

 

[skyguy]

True. My 3rd monitor's gonna have to sit idle until low-mid range DX10 Nvidia cards come out 🙁