8 Monitors from a single PC

cmsamo

I have a requirement to connect and run 8 monitors to a single PC, if possible - using graphics card(s) from the any of the following families:

Radeon HD 4xxx series
Radeon HD 5xxx series
Radeon HD 6xxx series
Radeon HD 7xxx series Validated with Catalyst driver v12.10

GeForce 200 series Validated with Forceware driver v258.96
GeForce 300 series
GeForce 400 series
GeForce 500 series
GeForce 500 series
GeForce 600 series Validated with Forceware driver v306.97

How many cards do we need minimum? Is it possible to run 4 monitors from a single gfx card?

This isn't for games, so won't be *too* intensive, but it would be good if the cards were good at handling mpeg/h264 decoding.

Thanks!

davidsdurions

Are you just cloning the screens for others to watch or do you need to the extend the desktop to each screen for the extra usable space?

Gaslight

Yeah, it would help if people knew exactly what you're trying to accomplish here.

Enc

Which of these is your goal?

#1: Panorama

#2: Hydra

#3: Clones

zepherin

Depending on what you want to do 1 or 8.

cmsamo

8 distinct screens. Not a tiled project. I need to run 3-4 different Windows apps. Some need 1 screen, some need 2-3 each

davidsdurions

This is not going to be a definitive answer, just an extrapolation of what I've already done, which is a single nVidia GeForce 560ti running 3 monitors as an extended desktop.

I "think" if I got another 560ti, I could run a SLI setup with 6 monitors on those cards and then if I needed to I could run two more with the onboard video using the Intel i5 2600k video capabilities, so that would be 8 total there.

You're gonna need a robust power supply and one heck of a UPS on that sucker.

Donovan Puppyfucker

Some AMD graphics cards will let you run four individually-driven monitors from one card. So, two of those will cover any need you may have.

For best performance you probably just want to buy a pair of 7970 GHz edition cards with as much VRAM as possible (4GB per card I think) and fit them in a suitable motherboard.

Elimination

chrishallett83 wrote: »

Some AMD graphics cards will let you run four individually-driven monitors from one card. So, two of those will cover any need you may have.

For best performance you probably just want to buy a pair of 7970 GHz edition cards with as much VRAM as possible (4GB per card I think) and fit them in a suitable motherboard.

Vram won't matter as much if he isn't utilizing textures and is just extending his desktop. He should be able to pull it off best with AMD cards though, but a ghz edition is probably overkill if he isn't gaming. 6950's or 7850's should do the trick just fine if all you are doing is extending your desktop. The more important thing here would end up being the RAM and CPU depending on how many things you have running at once, you'll want a lot of cores and plenty of ram.

Elimination

Or you could find a pair of these probably would be cheap too.

acidlacedpenguin

You'd probably be better off buying two quad-head workstation cards. That said, I have no idea how much workstation cards cost...

bowen

acidlacedpenguin wrote: »

You'd probably be better off buying two quad-head workstation cards. That said, I have no idea how much workstation cards cost...

$500-3000

But they're mostly built around the idea of 3d rendering I think.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814195100
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10428&cs_id=1042801&p_id=4826&seq=1&format=2

Then grab some HDMI capable monitors (most modern ones).

I don't know if that'll actually work or not, though, so.

stormbringer

bowen wrote: »

acidlacedpenguin wrote: »

You'd probably be better off buying two quad-head workstation cards. That said, I have no idea how much workstation cards cost...

$500-3000

But they're mostly built around the idea of 3d rendering I think.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814195100
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10428&cs_id=1042801&p_id=4826&seq=1&format=2

That would get you a decent single monitor card. Most stations that work one have single head card out but the ability to power a monster sized screen and very high resolutions.