Which PC graphics card for BIG dual monitor support?

StewartR

StewartR

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I've decided I need more screen real estate on my PC in the office. I'm typically running my accounts package, 6 or more browser tabs in 2 windows, various spreadsheets, and our operations database, and I frequently want 2 or 3 of these visible simultaneously. So I've decided to move to a dual monitor setup with my Windows 7 desktop spread over both monitors.

So which graphics card should I buy?

My monitors are Samsung Syncmaster 2343s, which each run at 2048 x 1152, so the card will need to support an output resolution of 4096 x 1152. The monitors have VGA and DVI inputs.

My PC is a Dell Optiplex 380 in a 'desktop' case, so the expansion slots I have available are 1 low-profile PCIe x16 and 2 low-profile PCI, though the tech specs say the PCIe and PCI can be converted into full height slots with an optional riser, whatver that means. The power supply is either 235W or 255W, so I can't use a hardcore graphics card that glows white hot in use (even if I wanted to, which I don't).

I don't use the PC for video or gaming. A bit of Photoshop (but not much, certainly not enough to drive the spec of the graphics card), but mostly office-type applicatons as mentioned above - accounts, Access, Excel, Word, web browsers, etc.

Any suggestions as to what would be my most cost-effective purchase?

Thanks in advance for your help.
 
Any card that supports the resolution you need should be fine, 1 monitor connected to the new card and leave the original running off the motherboard, things only tend to get really complicated if you want to go beyond 4 monitors.
 
PaulJC said:
Any card that supports the resolution you need should be fine, 1 monitor connected to the new card and leave the original running off the motherboard
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Really? My motherboard doesn't support the resolution I need - according to the Intel tech page [click] it has "Support for the DisplayPort interface with up to 2560 x 1600 resolution, and the Digital Video Interface (DVI) with up to 2048 x 1536 resolution." But you're saying it's still OK to leave one monitor connected to the motherboard, and it will somehow cope with the resolution I want?

But also, my main reason for asking the question is that I find it hard work ploughing through the specs of graphics cards. There appear to be over 50 different cards made by AMD / ATI Radeon alone [click], and the tech specs are full of gobbledygook. I cant find a simple list that will tell me which ones will meet my needs, so I was hoping for some recommendations.
 
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I've never had an issue running one off the board and one off a card in the past (now running 3 off 2 cards and could just plug in a 4th anytime).

If your motherboard is failing to support your resolution then it wont change by adding another graphics card.

Lots of cards now support 2 monitors and they dont have to be expensive either if your not a game player, i think both of mine are 1gb DDR and support dual monitors.

Even the spec of THIS should in theory cover your needs, Dual monitor support up to 2560 x 1600...
 
you wont need a card that supports 4096 x 1152, just 2048 x 1152.

you could run one off of the onboard and another off of a card but you may as well get a card with twin outputs and free up the memory from the onboard. one thing to watch though is a lot of even basic graphics cards that run decent twin res will need something like a 450w psu.

something cheap and cheerful like an ATI 5770 (2nd hand, £70) even i think my old 4550 (single pci slot, twin dvi) would even have been of some use and that didnt need any powerful power supply.
 
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Yup... dual output PCI-e card would be my choice. Almost anything with twin digital outs would probably do (the resolution quoted is per output - tends to be 2560x1600 IIRC now). I use a passive card (GTS 450 in my case at about £80) to minimise the noise.
 
neil_g said:
you wont need a card that supports 4096 x 1152, just 2048 x 1152.
Click to expand...
arad85 said:
the resolution quoted is per output - tends to be 2560x1600 IIRC now
Click to expand...

Thanks guys. That makes sense.

neil_g said:
you may as well get a card with twin outputs and free up the memory from the onboard
Click to expand...
arad85 said:
Yup... dual output PCI-e card would be my choice. Almost anything with twin digital outs would probably do
Click to expand...

More agreement. Good stuff.

neil_g said:
something cheap and cheerful like an ATI 5770 (2nd hand, £70) even i think my old 4550 (single pci slot, twin dvi) would even have been of some use and that didnt need any powerful power supply.
Click to expand...
arad85 said:
I use a passive card (GTS 450 in my case at about £80) to minimise the noise.
Click to expand...

OK ...

ATI specs say the 5770 needs a 450W power supply. I know I won't be driving the card hard, but even so I feel a little nervous about that.

ATI say the 4550 only draws 25W under full load, and it supports two displays at 2048 x 1536 each, so that looks good. And only £36 from play.com ... looks like a winner to me.

The GTS 450 looks like a nice card, but NVIDIA say its maximum power consumption is 106W ... I think the ATI 4550 may be a safer bet.

Thanks guys!
 
ChrisH said:
Do any of the cards mention suppoert Dual LUT's so they can be calibrated correctly ?
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Anything current will be dual LUTs...
 
StewartR said:
The GTS 450 looks like a nice card, but NVIDIA say its maximum power consumption is 106W ... I think the ATI 4550 may be a safer bet.
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Sorry Stewart... missed the underwhelming PSU you have... The 450 is the first card I've used that has needed its own PSU connection. I'd go cheap and cheerful in your case - cheapest GFX card that has 2x dual outputs. Given it'll be a low spec card, it should be passive anyway...
 
Dont underestimate how slow a card can seem when you run at 2x high resolution. I don't play games ever on my pcs, but i just had to remove my passive 430 as it was to slow in just even moving windows around. I ended up putting a 5870 in mine.

I run one 30" at 2550x1600 and one 22" in portrait at 1050x1600.

But yes you are limited by your power supply, but don't think just because a psu is rated higher it will use more. A) there is the draw, whether you machine needs that power, and B) welcome to the wonderful world of psu efficiencies...
 
Were you running it in dual screen on relative high resolutions? Considering the GT430 is faster than the 4650, I really couldn't recommend it.

Using it on a single screen with medium resolution, yes sure no problem at all.
 
so you think twin screen windows will need more juice than some of the latest games?

ive been running twin screens at for for years with a poor old laptop onboard chipset with no bother, something like a 4650 will do fine.
 
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It's different 'juice' neil_g that is required. Regardless of what it is, there is still a lot of pixels to shift and memory needs to be available. The resolution anything is running at is directly related.
 
neil_g said:
so you think twin screen windows will need more juice than some of the latest games?

ive been running twin screens at for for years with a poor old laptop onboard chipset with no bother, something like a 4650 will do fine.
Click to expand...

I feel the same, 3 screens on 2REALLY cheap cards here, all of them will play HD video fine with LR running and PS etc, if your not playing games you dont need to spend mega money on cards.
 
PaulJC said:
I feel the same, 3 screens on 2REALLY cheap cards here, all of them will play HD video fine with LR running and PS etc, if your not playing games you dont need to spend mega money on cards.
Click to expand...

Out of interest, what resolutions are you running on the card where you have two screens connected as that is the key here ;)
 
I am running MSI's GeForce 460 GTX 1GB card with dual DVI output and it ran two monitors at 1920x1080 without even breaking a sweat. It is prone to getting a bit loud when I am running games on the dual monitor set up but it doesn't even worry itself when I am photo editing across both monitors.
 
LOL I'm not surprised, the 460GTX totally blows away the ATI-4650 (and the nVidia GT430).

Look, I am not saying it will be unbearably slow. All I am saying is that, especially at higher resolutions, a dual screen UI does benefit from a faster card as well. I most definitely noticed a huge difference swapping out the cards as for some apps things like OpenGL/DirectX performance does matter and they don't have to be games....
 
dejongj said:
Out of interest, what resolutions are you running on the card where you have two screens connected as that is the key here ;)
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At the moment 1920 x 1080 x 2 on 1 card, the performance dosn't change if i up the resolution, i do have a fairly high spec system though if it make a difference, 2.4ghz Quad Core and 12gb RAM.
 
Yes on mine aforementioned was running on a i7-2600K with 16Gb, Vertex 3 SSD, with 30" Dell and 22" HP and it was notable in how windows can be moved around, the eye candy appears/disappears, etc...
 
arad85 said:
Sorry Stewart... missed the underwhelming PSU you have... The 450 is the first card I've used that has needed its own PSU connection. I'd go cheap and cheerful in your case - cheapest GFX card that has 2x dual outputs. Given it'll be a low spec card, it should be passive anyway...
Click to expand...
neil_g said:
Anything current will be fine
Click to expand...
neil_g said:
ive been running twin screens for years with a poor old laptop onboard chipset with no bother, something like a 4650 will do fine.
Click to expand...
PaulJC said:
I feel the same, 3 screens on 2REALLY cheap cards here, all of them will play HD video fine with LR running and PS etc, if your not playing games you dont need to spend mega money on cards.
Click to expand...

Cheers. I think this is the answer for me.
 
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dejongj said:
Dont underestimate how slow a card can seem when you run at 2x high resolution. I don't play games ever on my pcs, but i just had to remove my passive 430 as it was to slow in just even moving windows around. I ended up putting a 5870 in mine.
Click to expand...
With respect, I find it had to believe that's the best solution for me. It's a £300 graphics card PLUS an upgraded power supply. If I have to, I might - but I'm 99% confident I don't have to.
 
dejongj said:
Yes on mine aforementioned was running on a i7-2600K with 16Gb, Vertex 3 SSD, with 30" Dell and 22" HP and it was notable in how windows can be moved around, the eye candy appears/disappears, etc...
Click to expand...

I have most of the eye candy turned off anyway, it's not like you NEED any of those features and they are going to slow your system down...
 
Astraeus said:
I am running MSI's GeForce 460 GTX 1GB card with dual DVI output
Click to expand...
But that's still a ~£150 card and a new PSU, isn't it? Not the kind of recommendation I'm really after...
 
PaulJC said:
I have most of the eye candy turned off anyway, it's not like you NEED any of those features and they are going to slow your system down...
Click to expand...
Well said that man. I use my office PC for accounts and databases and spredsheets and boring stuff like that.
 
TBH the inbuilt GPU in most new Intel processors can probably run what you want perfectly fine, it will be the connections that are the issue. Just get the cheapest card you can that supports dual screens, no need to get something expensive as photoshop and driving non 3D graphics use barely a thing. If they did thunderbolt connections would be pointless...
 
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That card does not look half height to me. From your first post you said half height or you will need to buy the rider. If its dell that's probably not cheap. There are also some usb videos options. I will try to find a link if that would help. We use them at work and as long as its only spreadsheets etc it will be fine
Paul
 
PPalmer said:
That card does not look half height to me. From your first post you said half height or you will need to buy the rider. If its dell that's probably not cheap.
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Good point. I'll ask Dell about the riser. It might not be cheap, but it's probably cheaper than the new PSU some of these people want me to buy.

PPalmer said:
There are also some usb videos options. I will try to find a link if that would help. We use them at work and as long as its only spreadsheets etc it will be fine
Click to expand...
That could be useful. Thanks.
 
Right. Here you go Stewart:

Graphics card INCLUDING low profile bracket (takes 2 slots)

http://www.ebuyer.com/291003-asus-g...e-graphics-card-en210-silent-di-512md3-v2-lp-

That has a DVI and HDMI output. You'll need something like this:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DVI-D-Male-HDMI-Female-Adaptor-HDTV-Converter-/120742512279

To convert one of the monitor DVI ports to HDMI. You'll then need an HDMI cable to link those two together - available off ebay for a few £ depending on length.

Max £30 all in.
 
arad85 said:
Right. Here you go Stewart: ... Max £30 all in.
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And this review says "Power consumption of the GeForce 210 is simply unreal. Under normal circumstances it never consumes more than 10W."

That looks like a result. Thanks Andy.

Incidentally the Dell riser is only £16, so a full-height card option (like the 4550) is quite viable. I can pick up a 4550 for about £30, making that solution cost about £46 all-in. Given that the 4550 is a more capable card than the 210, do you think that's worth doing? (I suspect not...)
 
StewartR said:
Given that the 4550 is a more capable card than the 210, do you think that's worth doing? (I suspect not...)
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Probably not Stewart... According to the conclusions of the review you posted:

On the other hand these cards run Windows Aero just fine and offer acceleration for HD video decoding
Click to expand...

That's surely enough for general day-to-day office plus light Photoshop...
 
Hdmi will only do something x 1080. I would therefore go riser option. Just my 2p worth.
 
PPalmer said:
Hdmi will only do something x 1080. I would therefore go riser option. Just my 2p worth.
Click to expand...
Really? The Nvidia specs for the 210 say:
"Maximum Digital Resolution ...2560x1600x32bpp
Maximum VGA Resolution ... 2048x1536x32bpp
Click to expand...
Does that not mean I will be able to do 4096 x 1152, on either HDMI/DVI or VGA? Or am I missing something?
 
PPalmer said:
Hdmi will only do something x 1080. I would therefore go riser option. Just my 2p worth.
Click to expand...
Who told you that :thinking:

HDMI (1.3a) will manage 2560×1600p75 at full tilt. HDMI is only a transmission medium. It's the sink (i.e. display) that determines the video formats it can display.
 
StewartR said:
Really? The Nvidia specs for the 210 say:

Does that not mean I will be able to do 4096 x 1152, on either HDMI/DVI or VGA? Or am I missing something?
Click to expand...
TBH, I'm wondering if the 210 can support 2x digital outputs at the same time. Hang fire a bit whilst I do a bit of research... It may be better to get the 4550 to be on the safe side...
 
Hmm... you're right on the edge here Stewart.

Looking at: http://www.amd.com/us/products/desk.../Pages/ati-radeon-hd-4550-specifications.aspx which is the spec. for the 4550, it seems to suggest that you can't run both digital outputs at 2048 x 1152.

You can run either of these cards with one analogue connection, the other digital at full resolution though. You will only lose a slight amount of detail compared to a digital connection, but it might be the only way to do it on a low end card.

BTW, there is a limit on HDMI->DVI but that's because the DVI is limited in frequency compared to HDMI. This restricts the resolutions you can connect at when going through an HDMI->DVI connector.
 
I'm currently running an analogue connection and it's fine for office-type applications.
 
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