Suggestions on building a system

[PushHands]

It has been a lot of years since I've been up to date on the most current hardware standards and just know enough to be able to put things together (like legos)

I deal with quite a bit of graphical information at once so need large monitors, and would like two 30" monitors but can't justify spending that much. So I'll be most likely buying:
* Hanns-G HZ281HPB 27.5'' 3ms Full HD 1080P HDMI WideScreen LCD Monitor (two). Hey, it's on sale (with good reviews)!
* TRENDnet TEW-623PI IEEE 802.11b/g, IEEE 802.11n (draft) 32-Bit PCI. Nice, it's on sale (with good reviews)!

In terms of the video card, for every day use, I'll be mostly looking at charts all day so almost any video card will do. Will need the video card to be able to drive both monitors. Would like to be able to watch HD movies on the monitors and maybe some HD video editing as well. The following video came to mind, can you guess why?
* HIS H577FK1GD Radeon HD 5770. It's on sale (sort of) and has good reviews!
Will have to look up what "CrossFireX Support Video Card w/ Eyefinity" means. Looking down the road a year or so, there is a possibility of going with two 30" monitors. At which time I will need a card (actually two) that supports Dual-Link DVI to run the resolution at 2560x1600 on each monitor. I'm not familiar with Dual-Link DVI but the HSI the max resolution is 2560x1600. Ideally I'd like the video card I'm purchasing now to have the ability to be reused and I would only then need to buy an additional Dual-Link DVI capable card. Need a bit of help on the video card department. For instance, how do you know by looking at the specs of a video card whether or not it is Dual-Link DVI capable? And if it is, safe to assume the card could do dual monitor on a standard 24" monitor?

I am a big fan of the small form factor Shuttle computers, and am currently looking for one (suggestions?) May have to compromise on the size a bit in order to have the option to just stick in a second video card to drive the larger 30" monitors (if I ever decide to upgrade). Won't be overclocking anything, just want a stable system that is relatively small and quiet without spending more than is necessary.

Open to all suggestions, inputs, advice, etc.
Help me get a system together Anandtech!

/edit: will be adding some additional things as well:
* APC BR1500LCD. Used to own one (and it has good reviews!) :laughing

 

[mfenn]

Are you looking for a full system? If so, please answer the questions from the sticky.

Regarding the monitors, you are aware that the screen size has nothing to do with how much you can fit on a display, right? Those 27" 1080P monitors don't have any more or less screen real-estate than any other 1080P monitor.

Regarding the GPU, pretty much every Radeon 5000 series card has the same ability to drive multiple monitors, so you don't need a 5770. A cheaper card will do. I bring this up because while that 5770 has two dual-link DVI ports (you can tell by the number of pins), I don't think that it actually has enough TMDS transmitters to drive two dual-link displays at once. You may want to consider getting something small like a 5450 on the assumption that you will need to get another to drive the 2nd 30" display. Also, Eyefinity and Crossfire don't have anything to do with driving multiple monitors for desktop use.

 

[ther00kie16]

The 5770 does have enough to drive 3 30", as do the 5800. I'm uncertain about lower cards but I do know not all of them support eyefinity.
In fact, 5870 eyefinity 6 and 5770 eyefinity 5 (powercolor's design) can each support 6 and 5 30" displays, respectively.

If you don't need higher than 1920x1200, you can try the 5770 flex http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102906 which supports 3 DVI + 1 DP natively so no need for adapters. Downside is only 1 of the dvi supports > 1900x1200 resolution.

Best option may be to buy a motherboard with integrated graphics (with dual-link dvi if you choose to go to 30" later) and a low-end gpu with 2 dual-link dvi. If you aren't gaming or don't need to span programs across all windows, there's no need for eyefinity.

 

[Davidh373]

Any Card that has two video outs will have enough power to view stuff on the monitors, it's the content on the monitors that matter.

Aside from the content you need to list from that sticky, be specific about what apps you'll be using. If you are looking at Adobe CS5, you'll want to go NVidia to unlock Mercury Playback.

 

[mfenn]

The 5770 does have enough to drive 3 30", as do the 5800. I'm uncertain about lower cards but I do know not all of them support eyefinity.
In fact, 5870 eyefinity 6 and 5770 eyefinity 5 (powercolor's design) can each support 6 and 5 30" displays, respectively.

If you don't need higher than 1920x1200, you can try the 5770 flex http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102906 which supports 3 DVI + 1 DP natively so no need for adapters. Downside is only 1 of the dvi supports > 1900x1200 resolution.

Best option may be to buy a motherboard with integrated graphics (with dual-link dvi if you choose to go to 30" later) and a low-end gpu with 2 dual-link dvi. If you aren't gaming or don't need to span programs across all windows, there's no need for eyefinity.

All 5000 series GPUs have the save video output capabilities (ok, besides the 5870 Eyefinity 6 edition). They do, however only have 2 TMDS transmitters, both of which are needed to drive a dual-link display. Yes, he could get an active DP to dual-link DVI adapter, but why do that when the adapter is $100 and a 5450 is $30?

 

[ther00kie16]

All 5000 series GPUs have the save video output capabilities (ok, besides the 5870 Eyefinity 6 edition). They do, however only have 2 TDMS transmitters, both of which are needed to drive a dual-link display. Yes, he could get an active DP to dual-link DVI adapter, but why do that when the adapter is $100 and a 5450 is $30?

He hasn't bought the monitors yet. And if he were to go up to a 30", it'd probably have DP. I was merely providing facts.
My actual recommendations, if you read my post, were to get the 5770 flex if he really wants a 5770 with eyefinity, or get a mb with igp and a low end gpu if stretching across all 3 displays isn't necessary.

To clarify, there are plenty of Radeon 5000 cards without eyefinity support. All of the ones with only VGA, DVI and HDMI don't support eyefinity, which accounts for about 60 cards on newegg, 2 of which are even 5770 surprisingly.

 

[mfenn]

He hasn't bought the monitors yet. And if he were to go up to a 30", it'd probably have DP. I was merely providing facts.
My actual recommendations, if you read my post, were to get the 5770 flex if he really wants a 5770 with eyefinity, or get a mb with igp and a low end gpu if stretching across all 3 displays isn't necessary.

To clarify, there are plenty of Radeon 5000 cards without eyefinity support. All of the ones with only VGA, DVI and HDMI don't support eyefinity, which accounts for about 60 cards on newegg, 2 of which are even 5770 surprisingly.

I think you're a bit confused about Eyefinity. All 5000-series GPUs have the same output crossbar, no matter which physical connectors exist on the card. There is nothing stopping you from doing Eyefinity with a VGA, DVI, and HDMI display.

It has the same number of functional units and the same memory interface running at the same speeds, making [the 5450] the closest thing yet to a 4000-series card with DX11 + Eyefinity functionality.

 

[ther00kie16]

I think you're a bit confused about Eyefinity. All 5000-series GPUs have the same output crossbar, no matter which physical connectors exist on the card. There is nothing stopping you from doing Eyefinity with a VGA, DVI, and HDMI display.

I know what you are saying and ATi is a bit unclear as to how it wants to market Eyefinity so retailers basically take it to mean grouping of multiple displays into 1 large display.
So for example, if you go to a video card manufacturer and check out their cards, those without DP will not have Eyefinity as one of its features such as below:
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?leg=&psn=000101&pid=316
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?leg=&psn=000101&pid=312
Same thing at newegg. They don't advertise Eyefinity for those without DP:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...603&IsNodeId=1

For gamers, this definition of Eyefinity is much more useful and clear when trying to determine what they want.

And for this definition of Eyefinity, it's impossible (well, not without some ingenuity such as in the flex 5770) to group 3 displays without DP because there are only 2 clock sources for DVI/HDMI and VGA definitely doesn't derive from the DP output.

 

[mfenn]

I know what you are saying and ATi is a bit unclear as to how it wants to market Eyefinity so retailers basically take it to mean grouping of multiple displays into 1 large display.
So for example, if you go to a video card manufacturer and check out their cards, those without DP will not have Eyefinity as one of its features such as below:
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?leg=&psn=000101&pid=316
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?leg=&psn=000101&pid=312
Same thing at newegg. They don't advertise Eyefinity for those without DP:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...603&IsNodeId=1

For gamers, this definition of Eyefinity is much more useful and clear when trying to determine what they want.

And for this definition of Eyefinity, it's impossible (well, not without some ingenuity such as in the flex 5770) to group 3 displays without DP because there are only 2 clock sources for DVI/HDMI and VGA definitely doesn't derive from the DP output.

First, you can do Eyefinity with 2 DVI and 1 VGA. It's not a recommended setup because the VGA display will always be slightly fuzzy (becuase it's y'know VGA).

I get where you're coming from, but the OP is not a gamer, he just wants to use 2 30" for multimedia/productivity. The fact remains that because of the clock source limitation, the OP is IMHO better off getting 2 cheap cards, one for each monitor.

 

[ther00kie16]

First, you can do Eyefinity with 2 DVI and 1 VGA. It's not a recommended setup because the VGA display will always be slightly fuzzy (becuase it's y'know VGA).

I get where you're coming from, but the OP is not a gamer, he just wants to use 2 30" for multimedia/productivity. The fact remains that because of the clock source limitation, the OP is IMHO better off getting 2 cheap cards, one for each monitor.

ATi isn't pushing Eyefinity as anything else but for gaming. And Eyefinity isn't necessarily just 3+ displays. Therefore, other cards are capable of what you describe as Eyefinity, which isn't advertised as so, but for only 2 displays. So Eyefinity, for all practical purposes, is defined as grouping multiple displays into 1 large display since that's what everyone advertises it as. Yes, you can do Eyefinity if you have passive HDMI->DVI and DP->VGA adapters but that's still using DP. Fact remains that unless you somehow split the clock source such as Sapphire did with Flex, in which case only 1 DVI is capable of 2560x1600 and the rest only 1920x1200 because of the split source, you can't do Eyefinity without using a DP.

Also many of the cards that have VGA, HDMI & DVI have reviews stating that they don't support all three display outputs, hence no Eyefinity in whatever sense of the word since it doesn't offer older products don't. So best bet for people who want three displays are eyfinity cards (flex 5770 is a good choice because of the native support for 3 DVI outputs) or IGP + cheap card as I originally recommended.

 

[mfenn]

ATi isn't pushing Eyefinity as anything else but for gaming. And Eyefinity isn't necessarily just 3+ displays. Therefore, other cards are capable of what you describe as Eyefinity, which isn't advertised as so, but for only 2 displays. So Eyefinity, for all practical purposes, is defined as grouping multiple displays into 1 large display since that's what everyone advertises it as. Yes, you can do Eyefinity if you have passive HDMI->DVI and DP->VGA adapters but that's still using DP. Fact remains that unless you somehow split the clock source such as Sapphire did with Flex, in which case only 1 DVI is capable of 2560x1600 and the rest only 1920x1200 because of the split source, you can't do Eyefinity without using a DP.

Also many of the cards that have VGA, HDMI & DVI have reviews stating that they don't support all three display outputs, hence no Eyefinity in whatever sense of the word since it doesn't offer older products don't. So best bet for people who want three displays are eyfinity cards (flex 5770 is a good choice because of the native support for 3 DVI outputs) or IGP + cheap card as I originally recommended.

Eyefinity is the marketing terms for the ability to present an SLS (single large surface) to the OS. Nothing more, nothing less. Sure, the primary application is gaming, but that doesn't mean that it does not have other uses.

EDIT: Anyway, I think we are just arguing over semantics. I don't really think that Eyefinity should play into the OP's decision. I do think that he should get a low-end card and plan to buy another when he upgrades to 2 dual-link displays.