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Dual Monitor setup Motherboard Advise Needed. Q6600 processor.

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Time4aMassiveOC

Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2004
Location
The CircuitCity FireDog House
heya everyone, my little borther runs dual monitors but he is having issues with crashing whenever it uses its video moderately.

he has a q6600, 6GB ram, xp64, 6800 pcie & x1600 pci,


so he wants to buy a nice graphic card setup so he can run 2 or 3 cards (he just wants to be able to run the resolution and monitors and do whatever he likes)

so i was thinking two 4850's. 2x200$=400 since his budget is 400$ish for the cards. and that seems to be the price to performance deal atm.

and then getting this dfi board that does pcie 2.0 at 16x/16x

DFI LP LT X48-T2R LGA 775 Intel X48
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136046


but he may eventually get a third monitor. so i was thinking maybe 3 x 8800GT's (if 3 cards are nesisary for three monitors.) which i could get for around 130$ each so that would be 3x133$= 400$ and they would still be very decent performing cards.


EVGA 512-P3-N802-AR GeForce 8800GT Superclocked 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130319



i am still torn between using evga cards with the evga board, or just using the very slightly faster



ZOTAC ZT-88TES3P-FCP GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500006



and i was thinking id get this motherboard NV sli @ pcie2.0 16x 2.0/16x 2.0/ 16x

EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188024




in any case what are the pertinant points of using a multi monitor setup? can you use SLI or CF and still use 2 or more monitors?

or do you have to use the cards without running in SLI or CF? meaning 1 card per monitor?

if this is the case do people regularly switch back and forth from sli/cf to multi monitor and back again?

<------multi monitor newbie

thx guys!
 
I was under the assumption that 2 video cards can support 4 monitors. I have one 4870 and I run two monitors fine. In that case, I would go with the two 4850's.
 
thanks for the reply, my brother ended up buying the nvidia motherboard since i didnt know but he already has 3 monitors. so now its really a question of what card setup will perform best with 3 monitors?

3x 8800gt for around 400$

or

2x gtx260 for around 475$


he runs them all as a workspace so he can do lots at once. each has a resolution
1250x1800 he doesnt nessisarily game alot but he want to be able to pretty much do whatever he wants with it , like setting up a 3 screen videogame for fun.


i think i possibly am in the wrong section now that the motherboard isnt in question. ill go post in the video
 
If you are using two monitors, you'll want two cards, as each card can drive two monitors. If he is going to game, it is only going to be on one monitor, or all three if you get a matrox triple head unit. They are expensive, and run about $300. product page. With 3 8800GTs, you can SLI two cards and run the main display, using the left over card to power the other displays. However, with this route you would be better off with a weaker third card. With two GT260s, you can SLI them for one display, or use them seperatley, but again, that would be a waste.
 
For triple monitor gaming absolutely need great cards..
But in reality

one great video card for the main monitor and one cheap one for the other 2 is plenty


I used to use a 7900 for gaming and a x1300 for my other two monitors

(At one point I was using an 9600pro for gaming and a radeon 7000 pci card and a geforcemx2 pci card for 5 monitor fun :) )
 
1 strong card for gaming, and some other crap card to run the extra monitors
 
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