Dude wants a fifth monitor...

[PliotronX]

I keep going in circles, spinning my wheels so I was wondering if you guys have experience in this area. So we have the lead CAD guy wanting a fifth monitor for browsers/streaming radio and so there is not a need for acceleration on this future screen BUT, I am confused on how to approach a suggestion for a new video card. He uses Revit mainly which from what I have read runs fine with GeForce products so the GTX 980 is looking good with five digital ports, and we could disable his onboard NVIDIA Ion as well. However, I am not sure if he may require anything in the Quadro featureset. In which case, we could just add a cheap GeForce in alongside the Quadro 2000 he has now, no? Even without driver support, it'd spit out an image? Even though he is the lead architect and the business revovles around him and so a thousand+ dollar card doesn't seem like much, but if I can save them money I'd like to.

 

[NTMBK]

Why not just get him a tablet for running streaming radio/browsing pr0n on? $150 crummy Bay Trail 7" device, sorted.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Gtx980 only does 4 screens at the same time.

Not sure if running gtx alongside quadro is a good idea or even possible. Maybe just buy a cheaper model quadro to run alongside? Or if his current one is getting old get a faster one as primary and keep the old one in?

tablet is a good idea.

 

[Dahak]

although a tablet might be more useful, but you can get something like this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-162-_-Product

usb vga adapter

 

[PliotronX]

Those are all great suggestions! I believe he already has a tablet but he is kind of luddite in that way, his tablet gathers dust. That is great to know about the 980! I was eyeballing the Quadro 4000 which might be the ticket and like you suggested Flapdrol, keep the old one for the other monitors. Is the DIN on the 4000 a breakout to more monitors or just S-Video? Can't find confirmation, so confusing. Dahak, have you used those? I heard about them and it would be perfect though I am concerned about resolution limitations or performance suck from the CPU. I believe his dual Xeon workstation does not have USB 3.0.

 

[DrBoss]

Fire him, hire me. I can make due with 3 screens. You can take the forth monitor home. Deal?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Streaming radio runs in the background - you don't need anything on screen. Your CAD guy is an ass.

That said, any old video card should work. My office system has an AMD and a Quadro running two monitors each, and it works fine.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Depending on the motherboard, you can always run a 2nd video card, just something cheap for the 4th/5th display. I used to do that back when I had a 4+ display setup.

My setup:
5850 (3 monitors)
Some random passive card (Projector)
2 Sound cards

This setup allowed me to have the Projector play a movie, while I played games on the other monitors and the two sound cards made it possible to have games routed to my headphones while the projector sound card outputted to the sound setup for the projector. Good times.

But yes, if he doesn't need any acceleration on that 4th/5th monitor. Grab a cheap passive card and throw it in one of the expansion slots and call it a day.

Two rules of thumb you need to follow:
1. Make sure the cards are different manufacturers (NVidia/AMD)*
Or
2. If they are from the same manufacturer, make sure the driver you want to use supports both. Essentially your 2nd wimpy card needs to be new enough to use the latest NVidia/AMD drivers

*Using mixed manufacturer driver setup like this does not work in any Windows version that uses WDDM 1.0. Based on my memory, this then excludes only Vista. Windows XP, 7+ mixed drivers works fine.

 

[DigDog]

+1 to:
Dave the nerd
DrBoss
NTMBK

honorable mention to Dahak

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Those are all great suggestions! I believe he already has a tablet but he is kind of luddite in that way, his tablet gathers dust. That is great to know about the 980! I was eyeballing the Quadro 4000 which might be the ticket and like you suggested Flapdrol, keep the old one for the other monitors. Is the DIN on the 4000 a breakout to more monitors or just S-Video? Can't find confirmation, so confusing. Dahak, have you used those? I heard about them and it would be perfect though I am concerned about resolution limitations or performance suck from the CPU. I believe his dual Xeon workstation does not have USB 3.0.

you mean quadro K4000? quadro 4000 is end of life right?

 

[MeldarthX]

If he's your main cad man; don't cheap out on the cards; if you're using Nvida for cad that's fine; I've moved most of mine over to AMD because we're using solidworks.

You're going to want certified drivers with cad work; specially if a lot of money is riding on it.

Two; if you don't need to upgrade Quadro yet; then snag yourself a passive card and put it in; that will get him another monitor or two. Honestly keep your engineer happy *even if its about out there as you really don't need that 5 monitor for radio* as he's head cad; his bitching can make your life alot more difficult; at the same point if you pull this off and he's happy. It will come back positive...*if company is like mine*