Adding three (or four) monitors to a PC.. Use Matrox Peripheral or go SLI?

[liddlefeesh]

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone can offer me a little bit of advice.

I'm running Vista x64 with an ATI Radeon HD 4850 running two monitors, and I'd like to add two more. Currently I have a Dell 2405FPW 24" TFT on the primary DVI and a cheaper CIBOX 22" on VGA both monitors are running off the same graphics card.

Now I know the Matrox TripleHeadToGo/DualHeadToGo device can split one of the cables into a much wider display for multiple monitors but the cost (around £100) is about the same as getting another ATI Radeon HD 4850. Another card would be much more powerful and give more bang for buck. Plus, I could connect a second card to my existing one in Crossfire for an added performance boost that I wouldn't get from the Matrox.

Questions:

1. Could I use two 4850's connected in SLI configuration to power three or four displays?

2. Could I use a secondary (PCI?) graphics card which is much weaker/cheaper than a second 4850?

3. Why buy a Matrox Dual Head to Go for a desktop workstation instead of a second graphics card?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[liddlefeesh]

I've managed to (partially) answer my own questions but would still value the opinion of other users.

1. No. But I've read that it's possible to switch crossfire on and off (although this would disable the side displays if the primary card drives the center display)

2. There's a solution called "Software TripleHead" - not completely reliable.

3. Still don't have an answer to this one.

All I want to do is add another 24" (or 22") display to my desktop. I don't want to use Matrox Triplehead (large and differing resolutions).

[Jay]

why not try the USB EVGA external graphics cards? you can use upto 16 I think!

[liddlefeesh]

Isn't the resolution of those limited to 1600x1200?

I need 1680x1050 and higher. Preferably with DVI.

It's a shame I can't pick up a generic ATI "slave" PCI graphics card for extra monitors

[Jay]

yes, your right.

Good point.

[finlay666]

It's a shame I can't pick up a generic ATI "slave" PCI graphics card for extra monitors

AFAIK you can just use a PCI card, or an ATI pci-e card, so about £20

don't link them in crossfire (SLi is Nvidia terminology) or you limit yourself to 2 screens I think

[liddlefeesh]

Thanks for your advice, Finlay,

I'm concerned about possible driver issues if I use different cards, so I might just pick up another (PowerColor) 4850 and crossfire them. I've read that you can enable and disable crossfire support from the catalyst control panel.

[finlay666]

I wouldn't know myself as I only have 1 graphics card

You can use any make of 4850, so save some money really

what monitors/use would they be?

[liddlefeesh]

Currently using:

Dell 2405FPW 24" monitor @ 1920x1200 (DVI)
CIBOX 22" monitor @ 1650x1080 (VGA)

Used mostly for software development work (multitasking). Flight Simulator and some other games also.

So can I pick up the cheapest 4850 that I can find for the crossfire slave card? That should help shave a few bucks off the system total price.

I'm planning to replace the central Dell FP2405FPW 24" with a Samsung SM245B 24" as the primary. That gives me two 24" monitors. The Samsung is a cheaper panel technology (TN) than the Dell (vertical alignment thingy..?) so that one goes in the center and the dell to one side. Both displays run off the existing 4850 card.

I was planning to purchase another 4850 and add in crossfire and put the old CIBOX 22" onto it, (and possibly another monitor when budget/need allows). When running a game, the CIBOX running on the slave card would have to go off; but this isn't a problem. Since I'm developing software for these games, I won't be running the games across multiple screens, the secondary screen on crossfire would be used (as it is currently) for debug information.

Thanks very much for your advice.

[G4Z]

I have done this in the past with a PCI-e primary card (X1900XT) and a second PCI card (9250). Allows you run 3 or 4 screens no problem, in fact my mate has a setup with 5 screens using 3 graphics cards. If you wanna play games on all screens it then obviously this isn't going to work great. But I was able to use mine to play dual screen supreme commander.