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Cheap, low-power, low-heat video card? (3 monitor setup)
Angel_of_Bacon
Moderator Mod Emeritus
Moderator Mod Emeritus
I just ordered a Cintiq tablet, which is basically a drawing tablet with a monitor stuck in it. I already have two monitors, so this would effectively be a third monitor. Now, I just bought a GT520 and a 700w power supply to drive those monitors and be able to run 3d stuff- what I need now is an additional video card with a single DVI output that I can hook the tablet into. (I'm running Win7 64-bit, and it sounds from a little googling around that I can just throw any card in there and it'll work- it doesn't need to do SLI or Crossfire or whatever.)
What I'm looking for is really just something that will run Photoshop and Flash well, so it doesn't really need to have any 3d capabilities at all- it just needs to be low-power and low-heat enough that it doesn't break the rest of my computer (my case really should have come with more fans built in), and it needs to run in either a PCI-e x1 or PCI slot.
If I just get a cheap card that was the latest and greatest from yesteryear, I'm afraid it would still cost a lot in terms of power/heat- so I really would want something designed to be a solid, low-power card from the get go.
Does anyone have any suggestions for this? I fear if I start googling for 'video card recommendations' I'll get a lot of information about the latest and greatest in gaming cards, but not much in the way of what I actually need.
Or I could be wrong about the whole 'two video cards will work just fine' thing, and what I really should be looking for is a DVI switch or a splitter so at least I wouldn't have to constantly be juggling cords around when I wanted to switch from the tablet to the monitor- so if anyone has any insight there, or if there's some other issues with a 3 monitor setup I'm not anticipating, that'd be helpful to know as well.
Thanks!
What I'm looking for is really just something that will run Photoshop and Flash well, so it doesn't really need to have any 3d capabilities at all- it just needs to be low-power and low-heat enough that it doesn't break the rest of my computer (my case really should have come with more fans built in), and it needs to run in either a PCI-e x1 or PCI slot.
If I just get a cheap card that was the latest and greatest from yesteryear, I'm afraid it would still cost a lot in terms of power/heat- so I really would want something designed to be a solid, low-power card from the get go.
Does anyone have any suggestions for this? I fear if I start googling for 'video card recommendations' I'll get a lot of information about the latest and greatest in gaming cards, but not much in the way of what I actually need.
Or I could be wrong about the whole 'two video cards will work just fine' thing, and what I really should be looking for is a DVI switch or a splitter so at least I wouldn't have to constantly be juggling cords around when I wanted to switch from the tablet to the monitor- so if anyone has any insight there, or if there's some other issues with a 3 monitor setup I'm not anticipating, that'd be helpful to know as well.
Thanks!
Angel_of_Bacon on
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500205
That one is $32, fanless, and has an additional DVI output!
I'm fairly sure that it can only use two outputs though. Only ATI does three monitors in a single card.
Firstly check to see if you have onboard video, as you should be able to run that with a graphics card.
You can run any PCI-express graphics card on a 1x slot as long as the slot is open ended on the mobo (otherwise it physically won't go in without a little bit of hack and slash), it'll just use one lane (and unless you're gaming, you probably won't notice).
If you don't have either of those, I'd almost be tempted to say replace your 520 with a cheap AMD eyfinity card like the 5450.