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Hi all,
I currently have a 9600gso graphics card which is running 2 monitors. I want to add a 3rd monitor via the means of another graphics card. My motherboard supports tri sli, so am i right that i just need to add another graphics card for the 3rd monitor?
does it have to be the same one again or can i use another, and if yes which one?
thanks!
As long as you have enough PCIe slots it doesn't matter whether your motherboard supports SLI or Crossfire, because you're going to run them as two separate graphics cards. It's probably safer to use a card which has the same driver, to avoid conflicts, but that leaves you pretty much the entire NVidia range! What are you planning on using the extra monitor for? If it's just desktop stuff there's probably not much point spending for anything above a 9400GT tbh...
SLi is only required if you intend to combine the two GPUs into one in order to boost the power of the driving card. Some cards are two GPUs in SLi, like my current one. Since you intend to run another moniter of the second graphics card you will be unable to place it in SLi with the first GPU. (Each GPU, with some exceptions, can only support two moniters) because placing it in SLi will disable the ports on the back of the card in favour of the master card.
Scaryjim and nightkhaos pretty much covered it all.
I would emphasize the point about which card to get though. It will need to be one that is covered by exactly the same driver package as your current card. If it is an identical card then all the better, but that isn't needed, just makes thing tidy in my mind :)
As an example, I have a Quadro NVS290, I couldn't use any old Nvidia card, I would need to use another Quadro to add a third or fourth monitor (current card handles two, the Quadro system can handle something like 16 monitors). Quadro's use a different driver pack to the consumer cards.
I personally recommend you get a 260 216 as your primary GPU, and use the current card as the secondary. This XFX one is quite popular. It also came with FarCry2, but now it comes with the Terminator game, Grr. :(
Unless you need any better 3D performance, just buy another 9600, nice and cheap these days:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB...-DL-DVI-I-HDTV