If I use SLI or Crossfire can I use 4 seperate monitors?

[Stonedofmoo]

A guy I know wants to build a PC using 3 or 4 seperate monitors.

If he gets a SLI type setup can he have 4 different displays or only 2 because Dell have specced him a 128meg Matrox Quad card and it seems an awful lot of money for such a low specced card.

Cheers

 

[skunksta]

Thats what CAD/openGL cards cost m8 silly money.And as i have never owned one would not know about display's.

 

[-iceblade^]

that's a rendering card, which explains why it's so darn expensive... i don't know if you can run 4 displays in Xfire but i'd imagine it's possible...

 

[Chimerical]

SLI disables the ability to run separate monitors. Crossfire however is fine with running multiple monitors while remaining enabled.

Unless Quadro SLi is different somehow.......

 

[Stonedofmoo]

Well he won't be playing any games at all, it's just purely so he can do his business over multiple desktops. He deals a lot in stocks and shares and needs to be able to see multiple windows at once.

 

[skunksta]

Then why is he thinking of getting a rendering card would have thought 2 3850 or even a lower spec model would do him and i know for sure he would have no problem running 4 monitors the way he wants.Correct my if i am wrong but i thought a rendering card was for more demanding things.Maybe some of the software is rendering card dependent if its not get two 3***

 

[Stonedofmoo]

I never said he was getting a rendering card? I asked if he could run 4 monitors off a SLI style setup.

Dell recommended a quad output gfx card to him.

 

[Chimerical]

You can run four monitors off two Nvidia Graphics Cards. Just make sure SLi is disabled.

 

[skunksta]

lOOK up that better me changing one word^^.And if hes not gaming then ATI is the way to go muti monitor.End up being cheaper to.

 

[Stonedofmoo]

Perfect

 

[-iceblade^]

trust dell to try and trick someone into spending a huge amount of money for nothing

 

[Strife212]

A lot of irrelevant stuff seems to have been posted in this topic

Anyway, you just need two graphics cards that use the same driver, and it will work. Not in SLI mode, they dont have to be the same card either.

 

[skunksta]

A lot of irrelevant stuff seems to have been posted in this topic

Anyway, you just need two graphics cards that use the same driver, and it will work. Not in SLI mode, they dont have to be the same card either.

Why if hes making/buying a new pc would he want two dif cards (unless he had onbroad).Like i have said the cheap option would be 2 ati cards.ATI are cheaper than NV and multi monitor on ati is much better as you have more options like being able to still crossfirex.If he wanted to game which he dont as its a work pc i would have said cheap NV cards.

 

[Strife212]

You are right, I was just telling him how it works in general