GTX 460 / 5850 - Dual monitors & TV out

[Punto]

Hi there guys,

It's that time again and I'm gearing towards buying and building a new mid-range system mainly for casual gaming / browsing / multimedia and was just looking at graphics cards and came unstuck with a question I had.

I'll be looking to run two 22" monitors (one for gaming and the other for web browsing simultaneously) and every so often will output from my graphics card to my plasma to watch a movie/episode.

I was just wondering if this is possible with either of the cards mentioned in the title? Ideally I want the two monitors and tv to always be connected and don't want to be hot swapping cables etc? If neither are appropriate then any alternative suggestions would be appreciated!

I've been on google for a good 30 minutes trying to find an answer and either it isn't out there or i'm not that great at 'googling'; if it's the latter then I apologise!


Thanks for reading and any advice!

[kalniel]

Both cards can do that fine, presuming the plasma is HDMI and your monitors are DVI. You'll have to select monitors in software, but you can leave the cables plugged in.

[dcwt2010]

5850 is a bit too pricey at the moment, I wish I had put off upgrading till the GTX460 came out because that has the best price/perf ratio for mid-high cards. So it really just depends on the budget you have but Nvidia have my vote.

[Punto]

Cheers guys, I was leaning towards the 460 because as you've said, it does seem best value for money.

So just to confirm if I got a gtx 460, I could have 2 monitors connected via DVI and game in one of them whilst simultaneously browsing on the other monitor?

Thanks for the help!

[dcwt2010]

Cheers guys, I was leaning towards the 460 because as you've said, it does seem best value for money.

So just to confirm if I got a gtx 460, I could have 2 monitors connected via DVI and game in one of them whilst simultaneously browsing on the other monitor?

Thanks for the help!

That certainly is possible though I'm not sure how much impact it would have on performance but probably not at a lot if your other screen is just for web browsing.