Multimonitor Setup

[iftiq]

Hi,

I've found some cheap second hand 18-inch monitors and I'm thinking of going for a multi monitor setup. At the moment I have a Sapphire HD 4850 Toxic graphics card. It has two DVI ports on the back. I have it hooked up to my computer monitor through a DVI-to-VGA adaptor. I also have my TV hooked up to my computer for watching films and things through a DVI-to-HDMI adaptor. The great thing about my graphics card is that it has some sort of magical malarkey so I get sound on my TV through the HDMI connection as well. Ideally I'm hoping to move to a situation where I can hook up two monitors and my TV as well. I suspect I will have to buy a new graphics card to do this as the one I have at present only has two DVI ports on the back.

I don't really play the latest, greatest games or anything, the main reason why I like my present GPU is because it sends audio over the HDMI as well. I'm entirely satisfied with the present graphics performance. I just need a way to be able to hook up three displays (two DVI and one HDMI) instead of two (one DVI and one HDMI)

So my question is, which graphics card should I get? I was thinking I could just pop in another 4850 (do I need the same one?), if they are cheaply available and crossfire them, would this work? I've also heard that some of the new 5xxx range does something called "Eyefinity" which might solve my problem too. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Ifti

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Hi,

I've found some cheap second hand 18-inch monitors and I'm thinking of going for a multi monitor setup. At the moment I have a Sapphire HD 4850 Toxic graphics card. It has two DVI ports on the back. I have it hooked up to my computer monitor through a DVI-to-VGA adaptor. I also have my TV hooked up to my computer for watching films and things through a DVI-to-HDMI adaptor. The great thing about my graphics card is that it has some sort of magical malarkey so I get sound on my TV through the HDMI connection as well. Ideally I'm hoping to move to a situation where I can hook up two monitors and my TV as well. I suspect I will have to buy a new graphics card to do this as the one I have at present only has two DVI ports on the back.

I don't really play the latest, greatest games or anything, the main reason why I like my present GPU is because it sends audio over the HDMI as well. I'm entirely satisfied with the present graphics performance. I just need a way to be able to hook up three displays (two DVI and one HDMI) instead of two (one DVI and one HDMI)

So my question is, which graphics card should I get? I was thinking I could just pop in another 4850 (do I need the same one?), if they are cheaply available and crossfire them, would this work? I've also heard that some of the new 5xxx range does something called "Eyefinity" which might solve my problem too. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Ifti

You could get an HD5750 or an HD5770 which would allow three monitors to be run from one card or simply get another card although you would need another PCI-E 16X slot.

The cheapest HD4350 would do the job IMHO.

[strikingdistres]

Something else that could also work and could improve your computer overall. You can buy motherboards with onboard vga/hdmi outputs and use them along side your current card. If your motherboard is a bit outdated you could pick up a a more current compatable one for the likes of £50/60 they will be fine for media playback etc and you can use your current card for gaming. I had mine setup at one point where I could watch divx on my tv and play games at the same time with maybe a 30% drop in frames. Make sure to get an ATI mobo there are some 4200 onboards about if you take a look.

[Pob255]

While most graphics card have 3 outputs they can only support 2 dispalys at the same time.
To use eyefinity one of the monitors has to be connected via Display Port (DP) so you'd need a 5xxx series card and a monitor that has dp or an active dvi to dp adaptor (cost around £85 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/188282 )

The simpliest way to do this would be to use a 2nd graphics card or onboard graphics to connect the 3rd display

[Kodbel]

I am having similar Eyefinity issues with my setup. check my thread Instead of an "active dvi to dp adaptor" can't I just use one of these?

[iftiq]

Thanks for the responses. I didn't realize that I could just add any second graphics card. I have an old nvidia card sitting around somewhere, it has a DVI port too, so I could just drop that in and it would all work? I could run three monitors with three desktops? I was almost sure I had to do something with crossfire as I thought you could only use one gpu at a time unless they were linked?Sorry to appear so skeptical, just seems easier/cheaper than I imagined. Thanks all.

[Pob255]

That depends on Your OS, if you're on windows xp or windows 7 they should be able to handle it ok.
However windows vista can only cope with one set of graphics drivers at once, it can still run two seperate cards but ou need to keep them to the same model and series
ie to go with your 4850 get an ati 4350, all you'd need just to run desktop.

Although apparently you can run eyefinity with a cheaper passive display port adaptor.

Something from this list should work.
http://support.amd.com/us/eyefinity/...y-dongles.aspx

[scaryjim]

... I have an old nvidia card sitting around somewhere, it has a DVI port too, so I could just drop that in and it would all work? ...

As pob said, if you're on Vista then no, you can only have one set of video drivers running and that means you can't combine ATI and NVidia drivers. If you're on XP or 7 then you can, BUT do you have the appropriate spare expansion slots on your motherboard for another graphics card? What motherboard do you have, and what spec is the "spare nvidia card". Since you're suggesting crossfiring 4850s I assume you have something appropriate for that?

As an aside, sticking in a 4850 and then crossfiring them would defeat the object, because with a crossfire combination only one card outputs the video, so you'd be back to only having 2 DVIs! But you could put another 4850 in and *not* crossfire them

[circuitmonkey]

It should be pointed out that if the OP only had a spare PCI-E 1x slot, if its open ended (or can be modded to be) there is no reason he couldn't run the lower power card in there.

[iftiq]

Hi, thanks for the all the advice.

I think I've understood how I can make this work. I have an ASUS P5N32 SLI SE Deluxe, which has two PCI-E x16 slots and so should be able to support two graphics cards.

The old graphics card I have is an Asus nVidia GeForce 7600 GS, unfortunately, it is passively cooled which means that it has a large fan style heatsink which makes it impossible to fit two graphics cards on my board at the same time.

So I've decided to go for an ATI HD4350 (this one in particular: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB...-HDTV-DL-DVI-I) in addition to my ATI HD4850.

Then I'm hoping to plug my two PC Monitors into the two DVI ports on the back of the HD4850 and my flat panel TV into the back of the HD4350 via the bundled DVI to HDMI adaptor (which will allow it to carry sound as well as video). I'm running Windows 7, so I'm hoping it will be able to cope with having two graphics cards running three monitors.

The only thing I'm worried about is getting Windows to recognize I want to send sound out of the HD4350, but I found it was quite easy to do this with the HD4850 and am hoping it will not be complicated by having two graphics cards instead of one.

Unless anyone can see any issues with the above setup I'll go ahead and place the order.

[Pob255]

I'm not sure how sound via the HDMI works as I've never tried it.

However this 4350 does have a HDMI output if you want, so no adaptor http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB...Sub-DVI-I-HDMI

[iftiq]

Thanks Pob! I don't know how I missed that. Certainly simplifies things a bit.

One final question, it just occurred to me that I might be pushing my PSU a bit by adding in another graphics card. At the moment I have the following setup:

CPU: Intel E6600
RAM: 4x 1GB DDR2 666MHz
Graphics: ATI Radeon HD4850 (Factory Overclocked)
Motherboard: ASUS P5N32SLI SE Deluxe
Hard Drive: 2x Sata, 1x SSD
Optical: 2x DVDRW
Network: PCI Wifi Card
USB: 2 ports drawing power

I'm planning to add a passively cooled HD4350 (the one Pob pointed out above).

I have an Akasa PaxPower 450w PSU (about 3 years old, I think), which seems to handle my present configuration just fine. Will the addition of another graphics card be too much of a strain?

Thanks,
Ifti