Spec me a work build [7 monitor support]

iNPUt · 18 May 2010 at 10:57

Hi I have been asked to build a system capable of running 7 monitors,I don't know anything more about these monitors at the moment, will know more later.
It also has to be quiet, stable / non-overclocked, cool, it will be used for "viewing web pages".

I was thinking, i7 920, triple channel ddr3, I am stumped on what graphic card to get to run 7 monitors.

As for budget, I'd say about £1000, haven't been given a budget as such yet.

Could some kind person please spec a system that would do these things.

geowal19 · 18 May 2010 at 11:04

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5870 2048MB "Eyefinity 6 Edition" GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £398.99

Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66GHz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - OEM £167.99

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard
£151.99

Geil Black Dragon 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Triple Channel (GB36GB1333C9TC) £129.99

Corsair TX 750W ATX SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-750TXUK) £100.99

Antec 900 Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £73.99

Western Digital Caviar Blue 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD2500AAKS) £36.99 x2 in Raid 1

Titan TTC-NK85TZ/V2 Fenrir CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/LGA775/LGA1156/LGA1366) £29.99

LG GH22LS50 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter Lightscribe Drive - OEM £20.99

Sub Total : £977.78
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.50
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £173.30
Total : £1,163.58

I know it's a little over and it does only support 6 moniters but for anything more you will need and 4 way corssfire/sli mobo and 4 cards with 2 outputs on each and then not run them in sli/crossfire to acheive 7 or more moniters.

whitecrook · 18 May 2010 at 11:05

an i7 with triple channel ddr3, for viewing web pages seems overkill, just a tad.

What is the expected life expectancy of the system?

You probably want to be looking at cards with dms-59 connecter. with 2 ports you can hook up 4 monitors. Run 2x cards for 8 screens. Matrox do solutions for this. ATI/nvidia probably have somthing similar in their 'workstation' range of cards.

Jae-So · 18 May 2010 at 11:11

agreed i7 seems overkill for websurfing, are there any eyefinity 6 GPUs lesser than the 5870, that seems overkill too, y 7 screens on one PC anyway?

iNPUt · 18 May 2010 at 11:11

Okay found out some more information, found out the budget it 2k, but don't want to really go as high as that i7 920 are cheap as anything now so might as well go for it.
I will find out about how much load this will generate.

Also they monitors are going to be 19" dvi tft.

I have no experience with workstation gpus would it be fairly straightforward?

Oh yeah and they system needs to look professional, no gaming gear please

Jae-So said:
y 7 screens on one PC anyway?

Clients needs..

Yakyb · 18 May 2010 at 11:21

i have just built a system capable of running 7 or more screens

i7 860
gigabyte p55 ud5
3 * 5450 (1GB versions)
4GB Ram
2.25TB harddrives
in a CM 690 II adv

each card has a DVI VGA and HDMI out so you may need to buy some converter cables

whitecrook · 18 May 2010 at 11:25

Are you sure you can run all three outputs at the same time? All cards I've seen like that only only two outputs to be used at once.

As I've said above you don't want to be messing with hot gaming cards with limited functionality just to be using webpages. Get the proper hardware. Matrox even do a single card that does 16 screens.....

Yakyb · 18 May 2010 at 11:28

as far as i'm aware whist it will not support eyefinity, it will support 3 separate desktops

BIGBC · 18 May 2010 at 11:34

I would be looking at something along the lines of 4xGT240s, would need some research into it but along with W7 and nVidias latest drivers you should be able to configure 8 screens to work as one desktop or individual screens.

Put that in a high end tower (Lian Li are very professional looking and more than capable of dealing with hot hardware) and you should be flying.

iNPUt · 18 May 2010 at 11:41

Well this is my base build:
Going raid 5, and corsair for the good warranty on them, as with the retail i7.

Will probably end up changing case, looking for professional workstation cards at the moment.

BIGBC · 18 May 2010 at 11:45

iNPUt · 18 May 2010 at 11:48

Wow Matrox M9188 from £1280 new, mmmmaybe not.
Need to look for 2x4.

BIGBC

Will have a look at that setup soon.

update/edit

I have spoken to Matrox and they recommended 2x m9140 quad dvi at £385.00 each so £770 in total.

What is the benefit going for that rather than 4x gt220 for example?