Dual head graphics card

[n3il123]

Hi

I want to get a dual (maybe quad) monitor setup for my PC and am looking for some recommendations for graphics cards. I don't really need gaming performace... just general business/ development stuff really, just don't know too much about PC hardware these days

[Plotloss]

If its 2D work only then just about any VGA card will do.

[that daddy]

Ebay,matrox card may suit,any use.

[n3il123]

sorry maybe should have been clearer... I ideally want one graphics card that will support 2 - 4 monitors and I am looking for suggestions for models

[that daddy]

i thought matrox cards had dual head cards,there others also,heh, what do i know.

[agent006]

Matrox do quad head cards too.

[ThePassenger]

agent006 said:

Matrox do quad head cards too.

They do Quads? Very tasty, if the OP is after 3 monitors in 2D mode then a.. Pharallia from Matrox might be right up their street, although I believe it's AGP 4x due to age.

But yeah, generally speaking Matrox do a long line of oddbod cards, not overly quick in 3D. I also think they have a bolt on module that can output to 3 - 4 monitors; basically it plugs in to your VGA output and fools the system in to thinking it has a monitor capable of insane resolutions, it then chops the image to your specifications neatly spreading it over several devices (as this 'chopper' is reliant on your existing graphics card... if you've got a good un for games then you can do multiscreen games).

[Zad]

The large majority of gaming cards are now Dual Head. Many motherboards also support 2 video cards. This is with the intention of bridging them together to increase the speed but there is no reason they cannot be used in 4 monitor mode.

[ThePassenger]

Zad said:

The large majority of gaming cards are now Dual Head. Many motherboards also support 2 video cards. This is with the intention of bridging them together to increase the speed but there is no reason they cannot be used in 4 monitor mode.

Just to clarify, all motherboards are capable of handling more than one graphics card Nowt stopping you dropping a PCI card in next to an AGP or PCI-E unit. However, not all motherboards are capable of running SLI type configurations (i.e. GPU load balancing).

[agent006]

ThePassenger said:

They do Quads?

Yurp, not particularly cheap though.
www.matrox.com/graphics/en/pid/products/mms/g450quad.php

[ThePassenger]

agent006 said:

ThePassenger said:

They do Quads?

Yurp, not particularly cheap though.
www.matrox.com/graphics/en/pid/products/mms/g450quad.php

Although looking at the spec's I'm not surprised. It's 4 separate GPU's on a single card!

[jamesb300]

I think the Matrox cards tend to be faily low spec performance-wise compared with a lot of graphics cards on the market and their product life cycle tends to be quite long with not many new models introduced. Having said that, I've always found them to be rock solid from the reliability perspective and have used them at work for years and run a couple at home, but I have no interest in graphics intensive applications.

James.

[stuh]

I have a 4 monitor setup. I looked at Matrox, but their a bit pants for 3D. Vista is very demanding of 3D hardware, so Nvidia wins on that count. I also needed dual dual-link DVI as i run at WQXGA.

The new 6xxi chipset looks like being a real winner for this kind of configuration:

www.nvidia.com/page/nforce_600i.html