How to connect four monitors to one PC - please help

[Astronom]

Greetings to All,

I need to expand my desktop to 4 monitors, how can I do this?
I was thinking about installing 2 video cards into my PC but someone told me that only one card will have active DVI outputs, the second card will be disabled.
What options do I have?

[Waymon3X6]

No you can do that - Sli or Crossfire two cheap cards with two DVI ports each and connect them to the four monitors... Don't see why that wouldn't work unless you don't have a CF or SLi motherboard.

[zanzabar]

Greetings to All,

I need to expand my desktop to 4 monitors, how can I do this?
I was thinking about installing 2 video cards into my PC but someone told me that only one card will have active DVI outputs, the second card will be disabled.
What options do I have?

if u get sli then u can only have monitors on card 1, but 2 cards with no sli bridge and u can use 4. with xfire u can have as many as u have ports with the hd2k and up. and if u have vista the cards need to use the same driver

[Astronom]

Thanks,
I will be using Vista, so two video cards have to be identical?
Another question will it be possible to have different resolutions, for example 1600X1200 on two monitors and 2560X1600 on other two?

[zanzabar]

Thanks,
I will be using Vista, so two video cards have to be identical?
Another question will it be possible to have different resolutions, for example 1600X1200 on two monitors and 2560X1600 on other two?

not identical the same driver, so say u have a 3870 then u could get anything from the hd3 or 4 for ati, and for NV u would need an gf8 or higher to use multi card in vista, so long as its pci-e

[RADCOM]

Zanzabar you seem to have done your homework on multi monitor setups perhaps you can give me a hand. Apologies If I have hijacked the thread but it's partially relevant. I have a triple monitor setup: 1 x Dell 30" with 2560 x 1600res and two other Dell 20" 1600 X1200 in portrait mode either side. I had it set up correctly with 4870 x2 and an ATI 1300 but that was just a test setup ( took a lot of faffing around and there was a phantom monitor lol ). I hope to finish my dream PC soon and I was wondering if a better second card such as something from the 4000 series would be a better bet. Can any games be played across all three monitors i.e. 4096 x 1600? I also want to try and use a Compaq remotes lights out card ( i could overclock remotely lol). Would I be able to use different hardware profiles as the remote light out card wants to be the main screen output and I haven't found a way around this.

[zanzabar]

what games do u want to use them all on, multi monitor from what ive done dosnt work for games (across them) well, except for flight sim games

and i would suggest a 4670 or 4830 since u cant run multi card xfire

[RADCOM]

Thanks for the quick response, flight sims are good....more sky :) I just like to see things working ( proof of concept).... one 30" monitor is enough really. I'm not bothered about crossfire wouldn't that drop performance to the lowest card? I have two 8800GTX's that I can experiment with on Pc no 2. Damn i might need a dvi splitter to coonfigure both!!!

[STEvil]

Yes resolutions can be set independently.

Radcom - In order to play a game across all 3 monitors at that resolution you would need to use "SoftTH" which disabled crossfire and SLI. For some games that is ok but for most at that resolution it is not.

Gaming performance would not be affected by the card you are using to drive the 3rd monitor.

[Astronom]

I appreciate your help everyone, I have much better understanding now!

Now I have naturally following question about hardware:
What video card would you suggest in 100-120$ range, I will need two video cards so I don't want to spend to much? First card will be connected to 30” LCD with 2560X1600, second card can be cheaper since it will work only at 1600X1200.
Also I don't have a motherboard yet so if you have suggestion I would appreciate it as well, I was thinking about asus with ix38, I am planning to buy E8400 or E8500 cpu.
Also is it adequate to install 4gb memory, does system with 4gb is faster then system with 2 gb?
I mean Hard drives are so slow comparing to memory and CPU so it seams to be irrational to install more then 2 gb, system would have to wait for the date from hard drive anyway.

[zanzabar]

i use 4GB in everything now with how cheap ram is and just get something like the gskill pi dark 900mhz cas4 its vary nice and has the same chips as the 1200mhz kit so it can do anything u would need with cas 5

on topic look for a pair of 4850 or 4830

ram -> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231211
card -> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131124

but are u going to game on both monitors at the same time and when do u think that your next upgrade will be if its a few years then i would suggest a 1GB per gpu card like this if gaming
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102809

if your not gaming then
4830 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131129
4670 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161252 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102792