Asus Geforce MX TwinView for $160

[SUOrangeman]

From TechStore.

I'm in the market for a TwinView GeForce MX board that can handle two CRTs. This is one of the very few that I am aware of. (I think Hercules/Guillemot card no longer qualifies because of TV-out only). eVGA has one, I think. Any others?

May or may not be a hot deal. No one else seems to have this card in stock, if they carry it at all.

-SUO

 

[RobsTV]

Be very carefull with these GF2 MX cards.
They use the nVidia GF2 MX chipset, and the CHIPSET supports TwinView.
With the right card, TwinView can be used with a combination of 2 devices, including Monitor+Monitor (if it has 2 15 pin connectors, or Dual Head), Monitor+TV (if it has TV output), plus more if it has the right hardware installed on the card.

Other Dual Head GF2 MX cards.

$160 Retail, $140 OEM
INNO 3D GeForce2 32 MB mx AGP DUAL HEAD

or, look on pricewatch, and you can find eVGA GeForce2 MX TwinView Plus, which is the Dual Head version, for around $140.

Actually, you can do the same thing simply by adding a second video card to your system.
Multi-Monitor Resources

After finding that you can get a Full Blown GeForce2 GTS card for around $150 at uBid, I went that route instead, and added an old STB Powergraph 64v+. Works great!

 

[foot]

Gotta agree with you Robs,

I use multimon on my win98 box and its beautiful. I do four 21" monitors with it and peoples jaws drop in awe uponing gazing at my box's desktop area. Im using a Geforce gts that I got cheap off of this forum and some crappy S3virges for 25 bucks a pop off of pricewatch.

However, my machine is noticably slower with all 4 enabled and unless windows has fixed it in 2K, YOUR AUDIO WILL BE CLICKY. Mp3s and wavs have random loud pops inserted into them that get really annoying. CDs are OK though.

DOnt get me wrong, multi-mon is incredible but those are two problems you should be aware of that you probably wont have to deal with using a dual-head MX.

 

[Audiofight]

If you're worried about Inno3D, don't be. I just bought one of their GF2 MX cards and was genuinely impressed with the performance.

I bought mine from Ocie.com and they accept p@pal and ship with blazing speeds. I got it three days after approval and that was via UPS. Never thought the boys in brown could deliver things that fast, thought there was a law against it.

 

[Gunbuster]

I thought you can convert a DVI port to dsub with a dongle, the card may come with one?

 

[ss284]

yes, there is a dongle for hd15 output.

its the same converter as used on the ATI all in wonder radeon.

this is a dual head unit, and its better than some stupid inno brand.


Steve

 

[WhiteMouse]

Another DH card I know was Matrox. The new G450 has MRSP $150.

 

[SUOrangeman]

I assumed most folks knew about the dongle that converted DVI to DB-15 ... my error. I was also under the impression that the said dongle came with this retail card. I'll do some more research.

Where's Rob now? I gotta be sure that I have my facts straight.

-SUO

 

[Zuofu]

Hmm...are these dongles actually universal, or do they just work with one video card (such as the Radeon that it came with). A disturbing trend I'm seeing in computer hardware is the use of standard connectors in ways that are actually proprietary. Take for example, the little adaptor that converts USB to PS2 that comes with the MS Intellimouse Optical. I wonder what would happen if someone tried to plug a USB scanner into their PS2 port. Or the multi-out that comes with the G400 DualHead. I goes from a Male DSub (2nd monitor connector) to composite/S-video out. Of course, it would never work plugged into an other video card as its actually a non-standard usage of extra pins in the VGA standard to get TV out out of the same plug. And what about those parallel port floppies that come with laptops. They don't work on desktops because they are actually wired directly to the floppy controller via extra pins..again.



Just my little OT rant about why I hate proprietary hardware in disguise.

BTW, I *think* you can do 3D on a 2nd monitor...at least it seems to work on my G400. The annoying thing though is that whenever you turn on DH, it divides the memory equally between the two "heads" so each becomes an independent 16MB 3D card. Really annoying if you never do 3D on the 2nd monitor.

 

[SUOrangeman]

Zuofu-

TwinView is very different than DualHead *at the moment*. Windows truly treats TwinView as spearate video cards (say, like an AGP + PCI combo that I've been using for months now). DH tricks Windows into thinking that there is only one display, thus allowing 3D on either monitor. Both technologies may have advantages/disadvantages. The TwinView way just seems more natural to me at the moment ... and I don't want to bring out GeForce MX vs. G400 benchmarks.

-SUO

 

[foot]

you can do 3d on a secondary monitor, fullscreen also with a little tweaking.

My primary is a direct3d native card and Ive disabled gl/glide emulation. When I boot a Glide or OpenGl game the machine reverts to whatever card supports that API.

Thanks for the dongle Info, that rocks. ANyone know if this card will work with multimon?

 

[RobsTV]

Looks like I scrwed this one up.
The review shows that Asus does things differently, which explains why the card costs a little more.

Other GF2 MX manufacturers that use a dongle for the second monitor, have no DVI-I hardware or capabilities, even though the connector is there.