Three monitors on 3850?

anything I don't mind · 21 Oct 2011 at 08:58

I have an old hd3850 and I currently have two samsung 19" and will be getting a u2412m shortly. The 3850 has two dvi ports on it.

Two questions:

Will I be able to to buy a monitor splitter cable and run two samsung monitors off one dvi port? I remember using a splitter at one of my jobs too use two monitors off one vga port but not dvi and they were small monitors as it was years ago.

Apparently the 3850 supports 1920x1200 but do you think I would get better use of the monitor by buying a new graphics card? What is the minimum that you would recommend for the dell u2412m monitor, to get the most out of it.

http://www.powercolor.com/Global/products_features.asp?id=67#Specification

Razargh · 21 Oct 2011 at 11:04

Honestly its definitely worth buying a new card even if its only cheap it will run 2-3 screens miles better than the 3850, just dont try playing any games.

Axeia · 21 Oct 2011 at 11:10

You'd need a matrox dualhead2go to hook up two screens to a single connection. Downfall of the product, it's more expensive than simply geting a second videocard.

Cheapest option:
If your computer has a free PCI-E slot the cheapest option is to simply get a cheap second videocard (like a GT210) and cut out the back of the pci-e slot and stick the videocard in. Of course if your motherboard already has the back cut out or a second 16x slot then use that

Some things to watch out for - make sure your PSU has the power to power another videocard and in case of Windows vista it will need to be an AMD card (as you already have an AMD card). If you're using XP or Win7 ATI and NVIDIA cards run side by side just fine (I'm using a NVIDIA GT520 and ATI Mobility 5970 side by side myself).

As to what card you should be buying.. that heavily depends on your intended use. For watching videos/browsing any card will do, for photoshop you may want to get something from the medium range and for gaming you end up at paying a lot for the high end cards.

anything I don't mind · 21 Oct 2011 at 11:24

Thanks for the advice, i think I will try and purchase a new card. Ideally i would like a new graphics card that is better than the one i have so that i can play games at full res on the new monitor and then just run the two old samsungs off my 3850. But i might end up buying a cheap second hand card that is around the same as i have now and see how it goes. The only problem is that i have a 550w corsair psu which i think is reaching its max capacity as i have like 7 hds in my pc.

Axeia · 21 Oct 2011 at 12:47

I recently build a system with a 450watt PSU that had an X3 455 (unlocked to X4) and a Radeon 6950 (good bang a buck high end card) with a 450 watt PSU (from XFX) so your PSU might still have some headroom.. although with 7 disks I would consider replacing them with some bigger 'green' models

Surveyor · 21 Oct 2011 at 13:17

Axeia said:
although with 7 disks I would consider replacing them with some bigger 'green' models

I wouldn't consider replacing any HDD's with the stupid prices they are currently.

Axeia · 24 Oct 2011 at 09:14

80 quid for 2TB isn't that bad is it? Paid pretty much the same for mine a year or two back... and they are half the capacity.

anything I don't mind · 24 Oct 2011 at 09:30

I have 8tb

don't need more drives.