Multi-head system

L

Lich

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 23, 2005
Messages
487
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To help ease my workflow I decided to put my other monitors to work. Right now I have a P5b Deluxe with an NVidia 7300GS that has the DVI out and the VGA out. The dual monitor setup is working good but I'd like to add 1 or 2 more, since I don't have on board video can I purchase another PCI-E Graphics card and put it on the pci-e 1x slot without needing SLI or Xfire like I could with a PCI card? Would I need to go with an all ATI/nVidia setup or should anything else I get work out just fine?
 
Yeah, just add another card and your good to go... and to prevent possible driver conflicts, stick with nvidia... I realize there are some who have had no problems mixing nvidia and ATI.. but I have also seen many reports of driver conflicts as well.......
 
As mentioned, just pop it in! It could be another PCI-e card, or even an older PCI card. I have mixed brands, but would stick with one brand, so both can use the same driver. I had the best luck with mixed brands when I would let the secondary card run on the drivers that came with the OS. Since it was a secondary display and older card, the newest and greatest drivers weren't an issue.

You might be surprised, the old Vanta nVidia cards work GREAT as secondary display cards and can use the old PCI bus. When all you need is to throw your email or some palettes on the other monitor, 16mb will do just fine! I have a Voodoo 4 4000 card that I keep around just for such use. It is ancient, but you would never know the difference when it is in with my 7800GT! (just don't game on it) ;) SLI doesn't play into the equation at all when you need each head to run a separate display.
 
Those parhelia cards from Matrox are also good, they were the native 3 monitor adapters. They work well for non-gaming machines, and want a single-card solution.
 
ok cool I knew I could throw a PCI card in there but I was wondering about pcie as I haven't done that yet with the 2 video cards. I just don't want to give up a PCI slot if I don't have to. Very cool, thanks guys.
 
putting a normal pci-e card on the pci-e-1x slot isn't possible, but I guess you meant the other pci-e 16x slot with 4x signal. ^^;
there are some pci-e 1x cards available like the Quadro NVS 290 in case you also want to use the pci-e 1x slot for two or four (Quadro4 NVS 440/FireMV 2400) additional monitors.
 
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