First Quad Monitor Setup

[quizbowler1057]

I was asked to setup a quad monitor system for a financial adviser.

The client first asked if I could use his existing "business" computer. Before he was using my company he bought the PC himself. It's a consumer PC running Vista Home Basic. Integrated video, 512GB of RAM I believe.

I told him that probably wouldn't work both because of the hardware resources and the heat involved.

I was thinking on building him a custom system but was never very good and video hardware. My specific questions are:

Should I go with the Matrox G450x4? I've heard a lot of good things about it.

If not, then what?

What is a good amount of dedicated graphics RAM for this type of application - mostly just IE windows with graphs. The card, I think, has 128MB, is that enough split between four outputs. Should I be looking for 512MB instead of dedicated RAM? Or should I beef up the system RAM to 2GB on an XP machine?

I'm sure I'll have some more questions. I've just never been very sure how the GPU interacts with the system and what the industry standards are for memory and stuff. I heard someone say that no one would need 1GB graphics memory, but I have a client with a media center PC with 2GB on the board and 1GB on the graphics card.

 

[Jory]

I'm pretty sure Vista Home Basic won't allow you to use multiple monitors, but other than that I see no reason why he couldn't have four monitors on that system.

 

[quizbowler1057]

That's a good point. I don't know if VHB will support four monitors, and never thought about it.

Personally I'd like to move him away from VHB. It's caused nothing but problems in that office. A custom built PC would be the way to go, but that goes back to the questions above.

 

[Simmy]

Either a Dual Nvidia or Dual ATi setup should do the trick. The matrox card is expensive, is mainly for video editing, only has 128mb RAM and is only compatible with PCI/PCI-X slots. The cheaper Dual ATi/Nvidia card setup will be faster and should do the job nicely. You just need to make sure the motherboard has two PCI-E 16x slots

Depending on budget, I would go for 2 x ATi 3870s (£150) plus a compatible motherboard for £80.

As for software, I have no idea if the drivers support 4 monitors.

 

[Skyhooker]

I don't think he would be happy building up his current machine. I'm guessing he's using a trading platform like Tradestation, and that will eat up his resources and it will run like a pig. Since it only has 512MB RAM now running Vista, it probably already runs like a pig.

If he's serious about trading, he's serious about speed, and I don't think even 4GB of memory would be overkill for a trader. I would start talking with him about a new computer. If you're not comfortable putting one together yourself, give Dell or one of the other builders a call and put together a good machine with Vista 64 bit (but check with the company who makes the trading software first), dual video cards, and more memory that you think he will need. He can either pay relatively little up front, or pay lots more later with the cost of slow charts and trade execution.

 

[quizbowler1057]

I'm against doing the Vista thing at all. But my question still remains. What's a decent amount of video RAM per card? As I said, I've heard people say "I can't understand why anyone would need 1GB of dedicated RAM on a video card" and yet I don't think that's at all unreasonable.

 

[Simmy]

If he's not gaming/video editing, then Video RAM isn't really that important. It's only used to quickly load high resolution/texture images. Updating a few monitors with stock info won't require 1Gb. But 2 x 512mb graphics cards aren't exactly expensive these days, so it certainly wouldn't hurt.

What monitors and what resolution will the computer be running? What is his budget? If his budget allows 2 x 512mb cards, then get those.

The most important features of this machine should be the processor, RAM and probably most important of all a decent internet connection.

 

[quizbowler1057]

The IC varies. If he goes with a local cable provider they have nice 10MB plans that are popular for the area. I can supply him with a fractional if things get messy - or some kind of dynamic T1.

I'd say budget isn't a problem at all. If I were going to spit out parts, I'd say at least a 2.3GHz C2D (or around there) 1GB RAM, Windows XP pro. The board needs the 2 x dual head cards. I guess now I need either drivers that will support 4 monitors or a third party app. That's kinda why I liked the Matrox.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_quadro_nvs_450_us.html

Anyway, probably four 17 inch displays? Obvisouly I have questions to ask him still on specs, I'm just trying to do some legwork now.

 

[RyanMeray]

The best price/size ratio right now is going to be in the 19" widescreen or 22" widescreen arena. It seems silly to spend $110+ on 17" monitors when you can get 19" WS for $140.

Note the improvement in screen real estate: http://tvcalculator.com/index.html?3b3e794d1fbaecbdc1a5c049d851b28e

Then you could do a nice quad setup like this:

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With the two side monitors in portrait-view and a top and bottom monitor in landscape.

Just combine that with some good LCD desk arms and you're good to go.

 

[quizbowler1057]

I'm having a terrible time picking out options for this PC. Graphics card choices are so overwhelming. I was never much of a gamer or graphics enthusiast. Here's what I've come up with so far:

ASUS M2N-SLI AM2 NVIDIA nForce 560 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor

2x EVGA 512-P3-N873-AR GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

Kingston ValueRAM 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory

Obviously most other components have to be decided, but I'm looking for advice on whether or not the board is ok with the cards. The cards seem higher-end than the board and I'm wondering if there's going to be a performance bottleneck. I've used the M2N-SLI twice before and it's a solid board.

Thoughts?

 

[Fred_G]

I would go with an Intel quad core CPU. Also, have you looked at the ATI 3870X2 GPU cards? Some of the 3870X2 cards can run 4 monitors off one card, and have 1GB RAM. http://forums.legitreviews.com/about13863.html

Keep in mind that card is a monster size wise, almost 11" deep.

 

[mnoakes]

Nvidia Quadro Cards

I have done heaps of multiple monitor setups for my financial/traders clients.

I have always gone the Nvidia Quadro NVS way, a little bit more expensive, but it works great and no problems.

They are designed for business use, so forget about the "gamers" cards. Use the right tools for the right job I believe.

My experience with "gamers" cards is that they are hot, noisy and prone to trouble after 9 - 18months use. A Business machine is going to be used 9-5 5-days a week minimum or 24/7 if they are like my clients.

 

[RyanMeray]

You don't need a high-end gamer card or a high-end graphics workstation card (quadro) for a simple multi-monitor setup. Slinging video to a monitor requires almost no GPU horsepower at all, the only thing you want to make sure is the card can run the Aero interface of Vista without choking.

Don't go any higher than a GeForce 9600 or Radeon HD4650, it's not necessary and uses too much power at idle.

Looking at the rest of the specs there leave me flabbergasted. 9800GTX+'s, but you're only going with 2GB of RAM? About the only reason I'd turn to AMD for CPUs these days is for budget builds, and if you're going with dual 9800GTX's, something tells me this is not a budget machine.

Core 2 Duo, or Core 2 Quad, 4GB of RAM, and a mid-range pair of videocards is all you need.

 

[quizbowler1057]

That's what I was having a hard time with was the cards. I went with AMD because that's what I've used in the past. It's a solid proc and board.

Instead I'm going to go with a Core2Quad, I guess. Overkill, yea, but I may as well build it for the future....Eh, after typing that I'm not so sure. They keep packing these useless cores into procs. where I think they should be more concerned about power and heat. Nothing really uses 4 cores at the moment and they're Intel's already talking Eight cores soon after i7.

I'm going with 2GB because it'll use XP Pro. No way I'm using Vista. Even though it's gotten better, this client's had such a miserable time with these consumer level PCs he bought, if I suggested it he'd fire me.

 

[RyanMeray]

That's what I was having a hard time with was the cards. I went with AMD because that's what I've used in the past. It's a solid proc and board.

Instead I'm going to go with a Core2Quad, I guess. Overkill, yea, but I may as well build it for the future....Eh, after typing that I'm not so sure. They keep packing these useless cores into procs. where I think they should be more concerned about power and heat. Nothing really uses 4 cores at the moment and they're Intel's already talking Eight cores soon after i7.

I'm going with 2GB because it'll use XP Pro. No way I'm using Vista. Even though it's gotten better, this client's had such a miserable time with these consumer level PCs he bought, if I suggested it he'd fire me.

You can use 4GB of with XP. If you go with 256MB cards, there'll be 3.5GB usable, which is way better than 2GB.