Questions about SLI and 4 monitors.

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Tyklfe

[H]ard|Gawd
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Hey guys - I'm looking for a little education and I know I can get it here on the [H].

I'm currently sitting on three monitors, soon to be four, and I'm upgrading my main system. I figure I'm going to need at least two cards to drive those monitors as I don't know of any card that can drive all four, so I figured I'd go SLI while I was at it. My question is: "When two cards are physically connected for SLI, but are processing in 2D mode (ie. the windows desktop) will they utilize all four DVI ports?"


In other words, can I plug two 6600gt's into my system with four monitors attached and expect to see video on all four? Or am I going to have to use a regular PCI video card to support the extra monitors?



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Also - I'm not looking to break the bank with this, but what cards do you guys personally recommend for this sort of setup? I'm leaning towards the 6600GTs, but I'm open to suggestion. Are these worth it?


Thanks in Advance.
Kyle
 
Tyklfe said:
Also - I'm not looking to break the bank with this, but what cards do you guys personally recommend for this sort of setup? I'm leaning towards the 6600GTs, but I'm open to suggestion. Are these worth it?


Thanks in Advance.
Kyle
Click to expand...

Kyle,

To quote Mad Mod Mike from the http://www.slizone.com website:
MadModMike said:
4) Displays: When SLI is enabled, only one monitor can be active. When SLI is disabled in the control panel, multiple monitors can be used. The latest driver does not require a reboot to enable and disable SLI.
Click to expand...

So you can have multiple monitors with an SLI capable system, just need to disable the Mult-GPU SLI gaming mode when not needed for the multiple displays: http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_howtobuild_5.html


The Leadtek that you have a link to are "not worth" it for your needs. The reason is that it's two SLI'd cores on a single board, but you can't currently install two of these at the same time. The result would be two monitors only instead of four.

If you are going 6600GT (good cards, I currently have one) then I'd go with the following XFX 6600GT cards http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150098&ATT=14-150-098&CMP=OTC-d3alt1me

They'll be 99.00 each after the $20.00 rebate on each card ($119.00 at time of purchase per card).

If High speed gaming is also a desire, you can overclock the 6800GS to above 6800GT performance, so two of these may be better for good mid-range gaming performance:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130267&ATT=14-130-267&CMP=OTC-d3alt1me They'll be $164.00 each after the $15.00 rebates.

But stear clear of that Leadtek boar you linked. It won't do what you want.
 
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