multiple monitors

[ntldave]

Hi
I run 4 monitors off my PC, using two Sli graphics cards. one of the cards is starting to fail - I had to replace one a while back and the remaining original card is now overheating due to the replacement being much more efficient.

Does anyone know whether there is a method of running multiple monitors (4)off a single card?

What is the beniefit, difference, advantage or otherwise of Sli over crossfire?

Can I use a SLi card with a crossfire card?

Thanks

Dave

[MarkE19]

In my last job I used a PC (or 3) that had 8 monitors running off a single ATi card. I know ATi & Nvidia both do Quad GPU cards, as do Matrox and possibly others as well.
Just type 'quad gpu' into Google to see what comes up

Mark.

[EndlessWaves]

Originally Posted by ntldave

Does anyone know whether there is a method of running multiple monitors (4)off a single card?

That depends on whether you want to run them independantly or in clone made. Matrox do do a TripleHead2Go device that allows you to run a spanning three monitor desktop from a single connection, but only supports up to 1280x1024 for three monitors. If you've got two dual-link DVI ports then you could get a pair of DualHead2Go devices as they'll support four 1920x1200@60hz displays.

That's a far more expensive solution then just getting a second graphics card though.

Originally Posted by ntldave

What is the beniefit, difference, advantage or otherwise of Sli over crossfire?

They're pretty similar.

If you had four monitors running off two cards then the cards may have been SLI compatible but you weren't running SLI as SLI limits you to two monitors.

Originally Posted by ntldave

Can I use a SLi card with a crossfire card?

You can't SLI/Crossfire them together, but you can use them independantly in the same system. Well, provided you're not running Windows Vista as that's got an unfortunate limitation and won't let you use two different graphics drivers at once. Windows XP and Windows 7 will be fine, as will Linux if you can get the ATI drivers to work.

[steviepunk]

As far am I am aware the ATI 4850x2 would do what you are after - though it's really 2 4850 cards on a single PCI connector, so not sure if some of the problems mentioned above may still be present.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-S...-4x-DVI-I-HDTV