Quad Monitor graphics card

[mikemelo1369]

Hey everyone,

First forum post here and I love the site so far. Found a ton of useful information. I am currently gathering parts to build a PCU. I am wanting to do a quad monitor setup as I will be using it for business purposes for the companies I work for.

My main question is:

What are some of the high end graphics cards that are geared for quad monitors?

Also does anyone know of some high end quality monitors for a set up like this.

If you require any other additional information on the system I plan on running I have listed it below



Processor:

Intel® Core™ i7-980X Processor Extreme Edition (12M Cache, 3.33 GHz, 6.40 GT/s Intel® QPI)

Motherboard:

ASUS P6X58D-E LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Ram:

CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Desktop Memory Model CMG6GX3M3A2000C8

Harddrive:

Seagate Barracuda XT ST32000641AS 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive


Thank you,

Mike

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

You can use any of ATi's Eyefinity Edition cards, these support up to 6 monitors using Mini DisplayPort connectors (or active adapters). You can also put two cards in CrossFire (ATi's 5xxx cards support up to 3 monitors except for the very basic ones, with two of them in CrossFire you can have 6 monitors, the Eyefinity Edition cards have 6 monitor support instead of 3, so two of these supports 12 monitors, etc..).

Eyefinity allows you to either use the displays individually or map them into one super-huge monitor that you can render programs and games across. To use the Eyefinity group modes you need monitors with equal resolution, but for individual monitors they can be different.

My regular 5870 supports 3 monitors, I'm using 3 Dell ST2210's and it works nicely. I had to use a DisplayPort to VGA adapter on the third monitor but it looks just as good as the DVI ones.

 

[Yerfdog]

here It's a 5970.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

The 5970 will also work but if you don't need dual GPU power an Eyefinity Edition 5870 will work well. If you're just doing basic graphics even that may be overkill, this is where you can probably get by with two cheap 5xxx cards in CrossFire. I'm assuming you aren't going to need much 3D power as you're using it for business.

 

[mikemelo1369]

Yeah I'm still learning my hardware terminology and everything lol. I do also want to play games and everything now I know this setup I'm building is pretty much overkill for anything I throw at it however I still want a high end graphics card to kind of match the system and to have the 4 and now that I think about it I will probably go with 6 monitors.

Is there a better card for 6 monitors than this one Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition???

I checked out a couple videos on it from tomshardware and so forth and this set up seems pretty solid.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

If you're going with 6 monitors instead of 4 you'd probably be best with the 5970 (the one with 6 mini DisplayPorts) as it is essentially two 5870's on one card (it uses two graphics processors instead of one). My 5870 renders most things well on 3 monitors but not Crysis at high settings. I mainly play Valve games like TF2, Gmod, etc. and they run fine on 3 monitors (6084x1080 after bezel compensation).

For 4 monitors it depends on what you're running. The 5970 would probably be better if you want to game on it but the 5870 Eyefinity Edition would be perfectly fine to just have 4 monitors for business use and light gaming.

 

[mikemelo1369]

So you're saying I should go with this

Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100280-4GSR Radeon HD 5970 (Hemlock) 4GB 512 (256 x 2)-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card w/ Eyefinity

rather than this

Newegg.com - XFX HD-587A-CNF9 Radeon HD 5870 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Eyefinity 6 Edition Video Card

 

[mikemelo1369]

Sorry I meant this one Newegg.com - XFX HD-597A-CNB9 Radeon HD 5970 Black Edition 2GB 512 (256 x 2)-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

 

[Yerfdog]

The XFX. For lifetime warranty. And four slots for monitor cables.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

Neither one of those 5970's support 6 monitors as they only have 3 monitor ports. There is a model with 6 Mini DisplayPort connectors on the back in the same fashion as the 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition. It looks like Newegg no longer carries these cards though so you may have to go with the Eyefinity 6 5870. Alternatively you can go with two regular 5870's or 5850's in CrossFireX, combined (with 3 monitor ports each) you will have 6 monitors and two GPU's. If you're using DVI monitors and only need 4 of them, this setup would eliminate the need for expensive active DisplayPort to DVI adapters as it provides 4x DVI and 2x DisplayPort.