Cheap 4 display graphics card

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MrHood22

Supreme [H]ardness
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Aug 21, 2007
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I'm having a lot of trouble finding a 4 display graphics card for my work machine. Long story short, I got the go ahead to get a new PC at work. Budget was $3k and it must be from Dell. I had a good idea of what I wanted (nice CPU, 16gb ram, SSD, etc). I settled on an $1500 x51 (Alienware line) that had everything I needed minus Windows 7 Pro which can be had for $140.

I pass it to the top dogs and they give it the thumbs down "because it's a gaming computer". They price out a T6700 (business class) with the same hardware (with an Xeon, without a good graphics card) for $2800. So since it will only display 1 monitor they want to swap out the graphics card. Dell offers about 10, 3 of which will do 4 display. One of the cards will add $2200 to the order price so that's out. The other one will add a 4 month delay to the delivery date. The final option was just 2 cheap cards in XFire so they went with that. Dell contacted us and said we can't do that. Now we'd like to look in to just buying it as is ($2800) then buying a GPU separately.

I'm having trouble finding one that supports 4 displays and isn't designed to be a work horse. I know my GTX 760 is capable but I don't think they want to spend ~$200+.

TLDR:
-Priced out new PC for work. Marketed as a gaming computer so bosses don't like it.
-Bosses price out similar computer for +$1000 the price.
-New PC does not have a GPU capable of 4 displays. No feasible options from Dell (price, delays, etc).
-All the 4-display cards I see are heavy duty ones for gaming which puts it out of the price range.

Suggestions?
 
What is the budget for the GPU? The GTX 750 Ti can be had for around $140 and can drive 4 displays. While the GTX 750 (non-Ti) is cheaper, it only supports 3 displays max. On the AMD side, the R7 250X and up support 4 displays using DisplayPort, and they can be had for as little as $80 US.
 
cortexodus said:
I had a similar issue and asked [H] the same question a while back. Maybe there is something in that thread that will help you.

Ultimately, I just rigged up the four heads 2x to discrete and 2x to on-board. More than sufficient for development work in my case.
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Unfortunately it doesn't have on-board graphics and the Xeon don't handle graphics like an ATU chip.

Armenius said:
What is the budget for the GPU? The GTX 750 Ti can be had for around $140 and can drive 4 displays. While the GTX 750 (non-Ti) is cheaper, it only supports 3 displays max. On the AMD side, the R7 250X and up support 4 displays using DisplayPort, and they can be had for as little as $80 US.
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There really isn't a budget. Not to say I can spend $500. They just haven't put a price on it. If I had to guess I'd say they'd be fine with spending up to $130.

Will it matter if 2 of my monitors are VGA only? The other 2 are more modern and have VGA/DVI. I know I can get adapters but I thought I had heard something a while ago where GPU's have trouble managing Analog displays if it's a 3/4 monitor setup
 
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hcforde said:
Not sure if the 750ti can do 4 but it has a DVI, HDMI & DP ports

You can get a standard 3 port card and then also use a usb video card. >> http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Supporti...=UTF8&qid=1394819781&sr=1-&keywords=usb+video

Many different manufacturers make them, some cost more and some less.

Look at the NVS line from Nvidia they have 4 port cards. pricy but they di the job
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They don't really want to spend ~$120 on a graphics card so they decided to buy two Quadro NVS 310's (2 x $85) :rolleyes:

It's through Dell so I'm sure those cards are $100 each lol.

As I said in the OP, the computer I speced out was ~$1000 cheaper and more powerful but it's marketed as a gaming computer.
 
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MrHood22 said:
They don't really want to spend ~$120 on a graphics card so they decided to buy two Quadro NVS 310's (2 x $85) :rolleyes:

It's through Dell so I'm sure those cards are $100 each lol.

As I said in the OP, the computer I speced out was ~$1000 cheaper and more powerful but it's marketed as a gaming computer.
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That is a real shame... Did you explain to them how hardware is not specific to any task regardless of marketing? Or how consumer-level "gaming" hardware can do the same tasks better than "business" hardware? I think I would have written an extensive business justification with an emphasis on how they would be saving money while making you more productive.
 
Armenius said:
That is a real shame... Did you explain to them how hardware is not specific to any task regardless of marketing? Or how consumer-level "gaming" hardware can do the same tasks better than "business" hardware? I think I would have written an extensive business justification with an emphasis on how they would be saving money while making you more productive.
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In theory that's an excellent idea. During execution you come off as a know it all. It's hard to correct your boss and the head of IT (only IT person though). My boss was nice enough to explain to me the difference between RAM and a hard drive. I'd look like a dick if I said I'd been building computers for almost 10 years. In an email chain he asked the IT lady if she needed to order a NIC card (he called it "lan port" or something) separately because he wasn't sure if computers came with them.

The IT lady isn't much better. I tried to explain port forwarding to her and her mind was blown.
 
MrHood22 said:
In theory that's an excellent idea. During execution you come off as a know it all. It's hard to correct your boss and the head of IT (only IT person though). My boss was nice enough to explain to me the difference between RAM and a hard drive. I'd look like a dick if I said I'd been building computers for almost 10 years. In an email chain he asked the IT lady if she needed to order a NIC card (he called it "lan port" or something) separately because he wasn't sure if computers came with them.

The IT lady isn't much better. I tried to explain port forwarding to her and her mind was blown.
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I guess that's true if you like your paycheck ;). Head of IT probably hasn't had his hands in a computer for at least 30 years :rolleyes:. I remember trying to get hardware upgrades moving before and feeling beat up afterward. If it wasn't for HIPAA we would still be running on 12 year-old hardware...
 
Armenius said:
I guess that's true if you like your paycheck ;). Head of IT probably hasn't had his hands in a computer for at least 30 years :rolleyes:. I remember trying to get hardware upgrades moving before and feeling beat up afterward. If it wasn't for HIPAA we would still be running on 12 year-old hardware...
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Yeah it puts me in a tough spot. I was in IT before I got in to Software Engineering so I know how big of a pain in the ass it is to have someone come in and tell you how to do your job. I try to keep it to myself but sometimes it's hard to resist. Right now our servers (500gb) are running at 10gb free. It enrages me to see those red bars each time I open 'My Computer'. But as you said, paychecks are nice.
 
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