Best bang, lowest noise for 5-ish monitor setup

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vbuggy

Golden Member
Nov 13, 2005
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well if you only need 1 gpu for gaming, then the other 2 can be anthing, like these passive 210s

They couldn't be *anything* as I'd need a decent response out of especially the centre lower deck monitor (i.e. the Cintiq) which would likely be one of my primary interaction monitors. Not gaming-grade, but respectable - which is why I mentioned the Zotac, which is fanless and a 640.

The issue is that if I use three cards, I wouldn't have space for anything else.

Anyway, am heaving some stuff into one place within the next week or so to test possible configs, and ordered a couple of Titans anyway to aid testing. This is one of the problems of having a > truckload of kit but having it spread out all over the place.
 
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vbuggy

Golden Member
Nov 13, 2005
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Just as well I tested this setup out for real.

So first things first - looks like 30's are out, even in a 2-monitor config. The problem is that they have to go up too high with the lower-deck monitors at a usable angle, leading to too much head movement in productivity use.

It also does look like I'll need three monitors on the rear deck - it's either three or one basically in that for gaming I need a centre monitor however I do it. So it looks like as much as I'm not that fond of them, I'll have to go with three 27"s on the rear deck simply because they end up lower. One other possibility is to lose the centre lower deck monitor, shift the Cintiq over to the right side so that a 30" can be used in the middle of the rear deck.

Now the gaming. As mooted above by others in the thread, I'll need Titans in SLI to drive the three rear deck for gaming at anything reasonable. OR, I could just have the middle 27" on a single Titan, and then use two other GPU's to drive the rest. Noisewise, it looks like Titans in SLI are not *too* objectionable in idle.

One thing that my cabinet/desk maker has suggested is building the Cintiq / touch monitors into the desk - something I'm not a giant fan of since I tend to change up individual monitors quite a lot.

Again thanks for the advice, but this is probably something I'll need to think about more now that I've tried various combinations out. Not so simple after all...