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Need 3 DVI ports

M

Mech0z

Senior member
I need more DVI ports as I have a 24" screen and a 42" plasma conncted now to my 8800gts 512 but I want another lcd screen at some point. I also want a gfx update and I want it to be super silent @ idle!

I cant run SLI as I dont have a SLI motherboard

The options I can see is:

Sapphire HD4850X2 (Mixed thoughts of this one due to it being sapphire, but I guess that dosnt matter now that catalyst supports it)

HD4890 + HD4350 (This should work right? HD4350 would have only the plasma conncted)

HD4850 Xfire

HD4870 + HD4350

4850x2 is my price limit I think, or close to that at least.

And I play WoW mainly, and dont tell me about wow not needing gfx power.. But think it dont support Xfire. Not sure though.

My 8800gts 512 has a good idle noise lvl, so something like that is wanted, with aftermarket cooling if necesary
 
HD4850x2 is reported to be very loud. So if it's noise that you don't want, I'd stay clear of it. And if you have two PCIe x16 slots you can add another nVidia card (like a 9500GT or something) and run your third screen on that. You don't need SLi for it to work. Or if you want something with a bit more punch you can get a GTX260 or GTX285 and still run it next to the 8800GTS512 - same camp (nVidia) so Vista won't have problems - you will be running both cards using the same driver release.
 
Why dont I need SLI for that to work? Or is this just so I get singlecard performance?

And from what I could read the Sapphire HD4850X2 got a firmware update that reduced noise
 
SLi mobo is only needed if you want the two cards to run in SLi - two cards working on the same screen together, giving 70-80% more performance than one of them. You don't need SLi to have two cards working along side not helping each other to do the processing. Hell, you can get a PCI card and plug it in for the third monitor. If you have Vista you need an nVidia card that is supported by the same driver you will be running for your primary card with. So if you have two "big" PCIe slots, just get either a low end 9500GT if you're satisfied with your current 8800GTS 512 or a GTX260 or higher if you want something faster for your games - both cards will work next to each other just fine. But they won't be working in SLi mode - for which you would need another 8800GTS 512 anyway.

So my advice is:
- either a 9500GT - if it's just for another desktop and movies
- or a GTX260 or faster if you want something faster to run your games - remember to plug your gaming screen to the card you will be running your games on.

So you will end up with:
- 8800GTS 512 (gaming) + 9500GT (other stuff - it's too slow for PhysX though)
- GTX260 (or higher - for gaming) + 8800GTS 512 for PhysX for example and it will run the 3rd screen

And I don't know if your 620W will be enough to power two highend cards - though I guess it could be fine - don't quote me on it however 😛
 
Might just get my server to run Win7 and then use that as HTPC and NAS instead of Windows Server 2008 it runs now. Then I can get a single powerful card in my main desktop instead.
 
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