Looking for a card to run 3 monitors

[Tinker]

Will be getting my 3rd 24" monitor shortly.

After playing BF3 and Crysis with different setups, I am not into Sli mode anymore. I was to go for a GTX580, but a friend recommended a Radion 6950 However this does not fit on my motherboard.

Not looking for the best possible performance, just a good card that will handle it fine at a reasonable price, anyone have any ideas on a card to run 3 x 24" on a X58 Sabertooth motherboard?

[Zeealex]

why wont the 6950 fit? out of interest?

[Tinker]

I see the small gap in the bottom golden pins strip that seats in the slot, is in a different place to all my cards, they are all near the center. The gap is at the end with this.

[Zeealex]

i see, seems pretty normal to have them at the end, it's part of the PCI-e interface. i would have thought anyway unless i'm completely misunderstanding the particular gap

GTX 580/590 seems pretty alright though i you just want it to run fine. shouldn't have an issue.

Edited January 3, 2012 by Zeealex

[Halli~SPARTA~]

I thought 3 true monitors needed at the least sli but I could be wrong.

My brother has a racing sim set-up with 3 monitors 22' using 2 gtx260's so todays cards should rock & roll over that set up.

I can say his little set up runs BF3 fine and is very cool sitting in the seat...........hell I would like to watch a movie sitting there.

[Buehgler_AS]

If you want to stay with NVIDIA, then to run 3 monitors you will need two graphics cards. If they are the same and operating in SLI, then you can use "NVIDIA surround", which should give near full graphics performance across all three monitors. However, this is somewhat of a niche setup and may have some issues. The other alternative, is to get one very good NVIDIA card and some other card (e.g. a low end card) and to use SOFTTH to do the triple head rendering. If you do not want a second graphics card, but still want to stick with NVIDIA, you can also look into a Triple Head 2 Go device from Matrox. Finally, if you are up for switching to AMD/ATI for your graphics card, then I think Eyefinity will easily let you drive as many monitors as you can plug into the cards you have.

As far as I know, the 6950 should be 100% compatible with a MB that will support a 580.

[Tinker]

Cheers Buehgler,

As far as I know, the 6950 should be 100% compatible with a MB that will support a 580.

Yeah just me being a numpty. Cleaned the other PC at weekend and that 1 has different pci slots, not this. So the card I listed is good for me.

If you want to stay with NVIDIA, then to run 3 monitors you will need two graphics cards. If they are the same and operating in SLI, then you can use "NVIDIA surround", which should give near full graphics performance across all three monitors. However, this is somewhat of a niche setup and may have some issues.

Tried Sli here with 2x460GTX and the PC goes from being silent even after hours of gaming, to sounding like a generator is running, after only minutes of gaming. Want to stick with the 1 card.

Been recommended Radeon 6970 few days to ponder on it until the deal ends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV3LNjY9-ms&feature=fvwrel

Preview: MSI R6970 Lightning TwinFrozrIII - Super OC edition HD 6970 2GB!

Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9iSPoG6sW8&feature=related

[CR6]

Hi Tinker

I have an ASUS ATI 5870 1GB in my home gaming rig which is one gen before the one you are looking at. It is a very nice card and one of the things I really like about it is that it reasonably quiet, even under load. It could be because of ASUS DirectCU cooling (copper) etc.

Essentially, I think the GPU manufacturers supply the GPU/PCB and the graphics card company sticks on whatever cooling solution they have.

So you should see if there are some reviews out there that compare dB levels as it may vary with which brand card you buy.

A few things to note:

- What kind of inputs do your monitors have? The card you are looking at has 2 DVI and one HDMI output. I'm not entirely certain if it can run 3 monitors, but perhaps it can without Eyefinity - I've never tried more than 2 monitors.

- I recently bought 2 ViewSonic 24" with HDMI inputs, and no DVI inputs. (Perhaps this is the way of the future with newer cards having HDMI outputs and concerns over pirating hi-def content over the computer.) One major thing that threw me for a loop for a few hours was when I first hooked up my monitors to HDMI, the image was smaller than the actual screen. Turns out you need to install the Catalyst Control Center and adjust the Overscan option. I did not have this problem with another system I built with an Nvidia GF 550 Ti direct to HDMI monitor. Perhaps it's just an ATI thing.

- The ASUS Radeon 5870 is a very long card too. It ended up squishing a couple SATA cords I have connected at the far end of my mobo. Fortunately I just stuck it in not very elegantly (basically with brute force) and my SATA HD/SATA optical burner/video card seem to all be working so far ...

[Tinker]

Not too sure what THIS is, but apparently it will solve any issues.

one of the things I really like about it is that it reasonably quiet

Yep, I like the PC to make no noise at all, which it does right now. I can sacrifice a few FPS.

Should have the 3rd monitor next weekend. I`ll try it first in Sli with my 2x460 cards, just for racing. If it cries like a baby then will try a new card.