Hardest question ever!!

[britboy4321]

Hi Guys,

This is a very difficult question (I think) so I really do appreciate any help .. it's kind of a 50% graphics card, 50% monitor question. I'm not mega-techie so please excuse some of my words (which are a bit more descriptive than technically correct!)

In my PC I have 2 different, 1mb 4870 graphics cards. I have precisely zero 4870x2 cards.

Each of my 1mb 4870 cards has 2 monitor out slots -- so a total of 4 monitor outs from the PC. I currently have a 21" monitor I run at 1600*1200 -- crossfire turned on.

I want a 30" monitor. Badly! I want to run it at full native resolution, which I know for a fact required 2 DVI cables going from the computer to the monitor. However I also want to keep my current monitor as a second screen.

So -- here are the hard questions ..

1) Does this mean I need to technically turn crossfire off as I will be using 3 DVI cables total? Or is there some other solution (I dunno -- crossfire turned on still but desktop expanded? REMEMBER the 30" needs 2 DVI cables just for itself, yet I want 2 screens!)
2) If I DO have to turn crossfire off, does that mean with 1*4870 card doing the 30" monitor at maximum resolution I'm going to see slowdown in games? Does 30" gaming really demand at least crossfire from my 2 4870 cards?
3) My final question -- the ONLY thing I run on my second monitor is rubbish like STEAM friends list and very low graphics intensity applets, nothing that needs any graphics power at all certainly not a 4870!!. If I bought some crap £30 graphics card, then could I have Crossfire turned on for the 4870s both madly 'doing' the 30" monitor, and just 'rubbish card' doing my second monitor (Just use one of the PCI slots for a card or something, and it would all work OK? Anyone actually tried it?)


If it makes any difference I'm on 64 bit home premium vista. The whole of the rest of the PC is very powerful.


Any help would be amazing, thanks an aweful lot in advance ... this is the hardest question I've posted on here so I really do appreciate any help ...?


Britters.

 

[philjohn]

I want a 30" monitor. Badly! I want to run it at full native resolution, which I know for a fact required 2 DVI cables going from the computer to the monitor.

Sorry, you're mistaken on that part. 30" monitors require something called a Dual Link DVI cable, this is a single cable but with all pins linked up. You should be able to run both monitors from the same graphics card without any problems as you have more than enough VRAM.

DVI cables come in several different flavours: DVI-A (analogue only, rare), DVI-I (analogue and digital in one cable, slightly less rate), DVI-D (digital only, very common) and DVI-DL (only for high resolutions such as found on a 30" monitor).

edit: see here for a picture of the different connectors: http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/dvi_info.html#Page06

 

[Nimble]

I want a 30" monitor. Badly! I want to run it at full native resolution, which I know for a fact required 2 DVI cables going from the computer to the monitor. However I also want to keep my current monitor as a second screen.

No they don't, they need 1 dual link DVI connection.

 

[britboy4321]

Well that shows my naivety however THANKS THANKS THANKS brilliant I appreciate that.

You guys are worth your weight in gold. Unless your are very thin, in which case you're worth more!!!!

 

[thepeganator]

Well that shows my naivety however THANKS THANKS THANKS brilliant I appreciate that.

You guys are worth your weight in gold. Unless your are very thin, in which case you're worth more!!!!

lol