4x Monitors

Shadez · 15 Jul 2008 at 10:12

Im sure the answer to my question is yes but i need to confirm it before i go and spend 1000's on parts.

can a p35 mobo and 2 8800gt's run 4 monitors?

Wizardskills · 15 Jul 2008 at 11:14

yes but you wont be able to have them in SLI. I have two cards in my system so i can run 3 screens. It works very well but having two cards in a system like that will affect benchmark scores

.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dmv=50428 - One card

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dmv=82757 - Two cards

marc2003 · 15 Jul 2008 at 11:26

why 2 8800gt's? just grab any old old hunk of junk to power the 3rd/4th monitors. seems a waste to me....

badbob · 15 Jul 2008 at 11:29

Erm just buy two low end cards? Two x £50 for dedicated VRAM. Gaming or viewing desktop x 4?

Shadez · 15 Jul 2008 at 11:53

Its for a CAD machine (running Altium Designer), no gaming and no sli will ever be used just lots of desktop space required.

I could get away with 2x cheaper cards but i was asked to over spec so went for the 8800gt's and not something cheaper.

Recommended spec for Altium
* Windows XP SP2 Professional or later1
* Intel® Core™ 2 Duo/Quad 2.66 GHz or faster processor or equivalent
* 2 GByte RAM
* 10 GByte hard disk space (Install + User Files)
* Dual monitors with atleast 1680x1050(widescreen) or 1600x1200(4:3) screen resolution
* NVIDIA® GeForce® 8000 series, 256 MB (or more) graphics card or equivalent
* Parallel port (if connecting to a NanoBoard-NB1)
* USB2.0 port (if connecting to a Nanoboard-NB2)
* Adobe® Reader® 8 or above
* DVD-Drive
* Internet Connection to receive updates and online technical support

My spec
OCZ 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Reaper Memory HPC Edition Dual Channel
Samsung SH-S223F 22X DVD±RW/RAM/DL Serial ATA Black Bare Drive - OEM
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache (2x4MB (4MB per core pair) Retail Boxed
Asus 8800GT 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI HDTVOut PCI-E Graphics Card
Sony 3.5" Floppy Drive Black - OEM
Western Digital WD2500AAKS Caviar SE 250GB 7200RPM SATAII/300 16MB Cache - OEM
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3 iP35 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard
Hi-Power Black 700W 14cm Blue LED Fan PSU - 20+4pin 4x SATA 4x PCI-E
Antec 300 Three Hundred Case

badbob · 15 Jul 2008 at 11:55

Aren't ATI cards suited for this role? 8800GT is daft if you still wanted Nvidia I'd have gone with 8600's.

Shadez · 15 Jul 2008 at 12:11

badbob said:
Aren't ATI cards suited for this role? 8800GT is daft if you still wanted Nvidia I'd have gone with 8600's.

I would go with ATI's but the software has compatibility problems with ati cards

.

I could go with 8600' but like i said i was asked to over spec for future proofing and the 8800's arnt that much more than the 8600's atm

Wizardskills · 15 Jul 2008 at 13:06

If you are using the machine for CAD work then i would be getting the nVidia quadro cards. You can get the quadro features onto the corrisponding GeForce card (If there is one) but it takes a small ammount of modding.

Shadez · 15 Jul 2008 at 13:31

Wizardskills said:
If you are using the machine for CAD work then i would be getting the nVidia quadro cards. You can get the quadro features onto the corrisponding GeForce card (If there is one) but it takes a small ammount of modding.

you do know an equivalent quadro solution costs £1000's more. So the question is what real benefits do the quadro give you?

Wizardskills · 15 Jul 2008 at 15:06

Shadez said:
you do know an equivalent quadro solution costs £1000's more. So the question is what real benefits do the quadro give you?

Yep but the advantage is CUDA. CUDA will allow the software to run its intensive tasks on the grpahics cards (Providing the software supports it). This is much more effective at scientific computing and CAD like opperations.

The main differnace between the Quadro cards and the Geforce is the drivers. There was a thered on here on how to convert your geforce card into a quadro card without the need to shell out load of ££££

.

I would first check to see of the software you are going to use will support cuda though

EDIT: Here it that thread http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17874066&highlight=quadro

Shadez · 15 Jul 2008 at 15:15

Thanks for the info, but the cad software we are using doesnt make use of CUDA.

Wizardskills · 15 Jul 2008 at 15:53

Ah then in that case i would say that 8800gt's were a bit overkill. My 8600 GTS will quite happily output to two 19" screen @ 1280 * 1024 each. I would recommend getting one of them

. Also if it wont make use of CUDA then it may be worth getting a quad core as most CAD software will make use of these. Q6600's are cheap now and would be better than a duel core cpu. Again check to see if the software supports quad core

FrankJH · 15 Jul 2008 at 15:58

We get Nvidia quadro cards (nvs290) for £94 a piece

Dont buy that many of them or that regularly so we (as a company) arent that special

the proviso is (unfortunately) that the graphics connector is proprietory - similar to dvi, but with a lot more connections - but it comes with a dongle to 2 vga screens (ie one connector with a split analogue connection)

Hopefully that makes a little sense

We use it predominantly for Bloomberg users (traders and analysts)

Pretty decent (very reliable) cards all told especially considering the price - might be worth investigating if you can source them

edit - Im SURE there are major differences with the quadro cards mentioned above but may still be worth getting hold of over standard cards

mdjmcnally · 15 Jul 2008 at 16:15

The only real difference betwen Quadro and Geforce is the drivers and likely some BIOS settings. Quadro is optimised for OpenGL whereas Geforce is DirectX. I believe that most CAD uses OpenGL as API rather then DirectX.

Certainly there was quite a few threads about BIOS flashing Geforce to equivalent Quadro and using Quadro Drivers.

Although you can get Quadro cards with 1.5Gb of VRAM on them.

CUDA runs on Geforce as well, which is what they have ported the Physx API too. (Just using this as an example of something that uses CUDA on a Geforce, no need to change this to a Physx bashing thread)

Shadez · 15 Jul 2008 at 16:51

Wizardskills said:
Ah then in that case i would say that 8800gt's were a bit overkill. My 8600 GTS will quite happily output to two 19" screen @ 1280 * 1024 each. I would recommend getting one of them . Also if it wont make use of CUDA then it may be worth getting a quad core as most CAD software will make use of these. Q6600's are cheap now and would be better than a duel core cpu. Again check to see if the software supports quad core

The more overkill the better

, its for the boss who has been moaning for ages that his machine is to slow.

badbob · 15 Jul 2008 at 16:55

lol so bunged in gaming cards. :-/ What about memory and CPU ?

Shadez · 15 Jul 2008 at 17:01

badbob said:
lol so bunged in gaming cards. :-/ What about memory and CPU ?

I bunged in the best bang for bucks card that fit the requirements of the software he runs....

if you look up you will see the spec (which ill update in a bit, couple of mistakes)

OCZ 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Reaper Memory HPC Edition Dual Channel

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache (2x4MB (4MB per core pair) Retail Boxed Processor

badbob · 15 Jul 2008 at 17:02

I would have upgraded his ram.

Shadez · 15 Jul 2008 at 17:05

badbob said:
I would have upgraded his ram.

its going to be a xp system, so 4 gb pc8500 is overkill.

badbob · 15 Jul 2008 at 17:06

But how much ram does the cad software use? Is it swapping?