Three DVI LCD display setup

[gimpyd00]

Hey all,
I'm trying to put together a system for a friend that wants three LCDs. The Parhelia can only drive two DVI displays so I can't use that. I'm not opposed to buying two videocards to drive the three displays, but I'm wondering if anyone has any good suggestions for what the two cards should be. I've been looking at nvidia's Quadros a bit and they seem to have the Quadro 400 NVS but two of them would end up costing $800. Considering this guy won't be using these displays for workstation work or even gaming, I'd say that's a bit expensive. Does anyone know if multiple PCI cards would do the trick? Any info is much appreciated, thanks.

gimp

 

[Looney]

Do all 3 displays need to be DVI? Could not one be VGA?

Anyways, i'm in the same boat, but i want 2 DVI LCD displays from ATI.

 

[gimpyd00]

Considering they are going to be three identical displays, I'd like for them to all be DVI. I don't want one of them looking different from the other two. Maybe that's just me being picky, but I don't understand why it's so hard to find proper DVI support on these cards, it's ridiculous considering the volume of LCDs that are supposed to be shipped this year.

 

[Looney]

Yeah i agree. I was shock that none of the new ATI lineup included dual DVI cards.

 

[heartsurgeon]

is this for gaming or business use?
if business, just get something with dual display out, and get a pci display card for cheap. should work great
if your looking at gaming and want it to all be agp port access..your going to need a more powerful(expensive) card - quadro

 

[Shalmanese]

A Radeon 9700 pro and 2 PCI Radeon 7500's?

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: gimpyd00
Hey all,
I'm trying to put together a system for a friend that wants three LCDs. The Parhelia can only drive two DVI displays so I can't use that. I'm not opposed to buying two videocards to drive the three displays, but I'm wondering if anyone has any good suggestions for what the two cards should be. I've been looking at nvidia's Quadros a bit and they seem to have the Quadro 400 NVS but two of them would end up costing $800. Considering this guy won't be using these displays for workstation work or even gaming, I'd say that's a bit expensive. Does anyone know if multiple PCI cards would do the trick? Any info is much appreciated, thanks.

gimp

Matrox has a dual-DVI G550 which can be a bit hard to find, but they are out there. ATI also has the FireGL X1, but that's a workstation card, and is not worth the money for what your friend will be doing. My recommendation would be either for the Parhelia (for two DVI outputs) and a Matrox G450 PCI (with an additional DVI output), or [the possibly cheaper setup consisting of] an ATI Radeon 9000 Pro AGP, and two cheap ATI Radeons (perhaps the 7500) in the PCI form for the two additional DVI outputs.

 

[gimpyd00]

Thanks for the suggestions, jliechty, I'll look into those cards some more. I just don't know if multiple ATi cards are designed to work together. I know with nvidia, if you are using two of their cards, you can take advantage of all the nview features which would be nice. After looking through all of Nvidia's partners, I finally found one that makes a PCI card with DVI support. In fact, it supposedly supports two DVI ports. It's the Gainward GeForce4 PowerPack! Pro/450 TV/PCI. The product page is here.. Has anyone used this card or have any additional input? Even if it only has one DVI port, it's cheap enough online that I could buy three of them and use it like this, assuming the drivers support it and i don't see why they wouldn't.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: gimpyd00
Thanks for the suggestions, jliechty, I'll look into those cards some more. I just don't know if multiple ATi cards are designed to work together. I know with nvidia, if you are using two of their cards, you can take advantage of all the nview features which would be nice. After looking through all of Nvidia's partners, I finally found one that makes a PCI card with DVI support. In fact, it supposedly supports two DVI ports. It's the Gainward GeForce4 PowerPack! Pro/450 TV/PCI. The product page is here.. Has anyone used this card or have any additional input? Even if it only has one DVI port, it's cheap enough online that I could buy three of them and use it like this, assuming the drivers support it and i don't see why they wouldn't.

That's probably a cheaper option. Since you're using only DVI, the (lack of) 2D quality that has been common with nvidia-based cards' analog outputs will not be a problem, and the drivers might be more compatible with multiples of the same card in the same system. I've just not had enough experience with ATI cards to know if they would handle this ok or not.

 

[Johnmcl7]

I have a friend with a Matrox Millenium G200, which has four DVI connections, which he picked up from eBay for around 80-90 pounds, which is another possible solution.

John

 

[Johnmcl7]

I have a friend with a Matrox Millenium G200, which has four DVI connections, which he picked up from eBay for around 80-90 pounds, which is another possible solution.

John

 

[Johnmcl7]

I have a friend with a Matrox Millenium G200, which has four DVI connections, which he picked up from eBay for around 80-90 pounds, which is another possible solution.

John

 

[Johnmcl7]

I have a friend with a Matrox Millenium G200, which has four DVI connections, which he picked up from eBay for around 80-90 pounds, which is another possible solution.

John

 

[Johnmcl7]

I have a friend with a Matrox Millenium G200, which has four DVI connections, which he picked up from eBay for around 80-90 pounds, which is another possible solution.

John

 

[moogle077]

5 repeat posts

 

[Creig]

Wow. That's a total of 20 DVI connections. Your friend must REALLY be into LCDs.

 

[gimpyd00]

I've read that ATi's Hydravision is supposed to be as good as Nvidia's nView. I have more experience with Nvidia cards currently so I kinda want to stick with them as well, it's just very hard trying to find a PCI Geforce with DVI. You'd figure with all of nvidia's board partners, one would step up but they're all a little spineless apparently. It's too bad because in a situation like this, I'd buy three of them if it meant it worked.

 

[Mloot]

If you wanted all your displays to look the same (i.e., no mix-and-match of DVI and VGA), then could you possibly go VGA with all three displays? Also, what is your max. budget for the video card(s)?

 

[gimpyd00]

I could probably spend the $800 on videocards but if a bunch of cheap PCI cards will do the trick, I'd rather do that. Like I said before, workstation multimonitor cards would be wasted on this configuration since he's mostly doing document editing.

 

[Mloot]

If you want to do the AGP + PCI card setup for DVI, then the Parhelia + G450/550 PCI may be the best solution, if you don't want to buy workstation cards.

I thought perhaps it could done a little cheaper (and you mentioned that you liked Nvidia), so I did a search and here's the best I could come up with. Newegg has an Asus MX440 AGP with dual-DVI for something like $115. Here's a picture:

pic

It's a little harder to find any of the dual-DVI GeF4 TI series, like Gainward produced. They seem to be pretty scarce.

Finding an Nvidia PCI card w/DVI is somewhat more difficult. The only company I found that may make one is Pixelview, with their MX440 PCI. The picture on their Taiwain website shows one with DVI here:

link

However, on Prolink's US website, the only place I know of where you can buy Pixelview video cards, link, they show an MX440 PCI w/out DVI. It might be worth it to shoot them an e-mail or call them and find out if they can get you the model that is shown on their Taiwan website. It wouldn't take much effort, and if they say no, you're no worse off than you were before.

Good luck in your search.