4 Monitors - Cheapest way!

[brink668]

My friend currently has a GTX 260 video card and wants to use 4 monitors. However, this card can't support 4 monitors.

Anyone have the cheapest solution on supporting 4 monitors while still having the same or increased performance while keeping costs down?

His Motherboard Support SLI and has a free PCI E slot.

Thanks!

[FiB3R]

Get another GTX 260?

[azspeedbullet]

you will need another GTX 260 and run the cards in SLI mode

or get a new card that can natively support 4 monitors

[HellboundIRL]

I used a 260GTX and a 8800GTS to power three monitors before I got my current card, so a second cheapish nvidia card might do the job.

[Detection]

Depending on resolution your gonna need more than another of the same to play fps on 4 monitors, my 2 x 6850s struggle with quite a few games with only 2 x 1080p lcds in eyefinity setup

[Vice]

Just so you are aware, if your friend purchases a 2nd GTX 260 you will not be able to have both Four Displays activated at once and SLI mode enabled.

When SLI is enabled you only have three display configurations open to you. Single Display, Expand Mode (Dual Display, one used for gaming one not used for gaming) and Surround Mode (Three displays all used for gaming).

For your friend to make use of four displays simultaneously by using two GTX 260's he will need to turn SLI mode off in the driver control panel. This will allow him to use all four displays at the same time but he will not get any performance enhancement from the inclusion of the second GTX 260 and he will not be able to game across more than just one of the displays whilst SLI mode is deactivated.

So for this reason I would recommend to you that instead of telling him to purchase another GTX 260 either buy a GTX 660 Ti which can use all four displays at once and simultaneously game across three displays while the forth is still active or purchase a much more low end (and more affordable) card to run two of the four displays without using SLI at all such as a GT 610

Whatever you do, do not mix NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards in the same system make sure you purchase another NVIDIA card to go with his GTX 260, alternatively you could replace his GTX 260 with an AMD card but personally my preference is NVIDIA so that is what I would recommend as they do offer CUDA, Direct Compute, OpenCL, PhysX and 3D capability while AMD is at a bit of a disadvantage by only offering Direct Compute and OpenCL. For 3D with AMD you need to purchase 3rd party software and they don't support the very widely adopted CUDA (NVIDIA's GPGPU Engine) or any popular phyiscs system like NVIDIA's PhysX. But beyond just these pit falls AMD's cards also are very slow on optimizing their drivers for newer games and their Crossfire profiles take a while to release (still!) - overall NVIDIA offers better post-purchase software support and so that is what I would recommend to you.

[brink668]

Thank you!

Thank you especially to +Vice

[Vice]

You're welcome :)