Need Dual DVI - Cheapest card to do this???? HELP

[itakey]

I just purchased my second LCD and I want to run dual DVI monitors. I currently am running an ATI Radeon 7000 with 1 DVI and 1 VGA output.

The lcd's don't look that crisp on VGA so I want to run dual DVI. What is the cheapest card to do this? I DO NOT game at all, but I sometimes watch movies on youtube and google video.

The ATI Radeon 64MB I am running now is perfect for 1 DVI and 1 VGA. I basically want something that has dual DVI's.

I need it to be PCI or AGP I think. Not sure if I have pci-e.

I want to run them both at 1280 X 1024 around 60hz+

Any suggestions for a cheap Dual DVI???

 

[Steve]

HIS Radeon 9600, used. I have one, but I'm sorry I can't sell as I don't have a replacement.

Have you done the "Auto Adjust" on the LCD on the VGA port? And have you tried this with refresh at either 60 or 75 Hz? You should get them looking okay then.

 

[itakey]

Originally posted by: sm8000
HIS Radeon 9600, used. I have one, but I'm sorry I can't sell as I don't have a replacement.

Have you done the "Auto Adjust" on the LCD on the VGA port? And have you tried this with refresh at either 60 or 75 Hz? You should get them looking okay then.

I did try the auto adjust and while it looks good enough to read, it is still no comparison to my CRT monitor or my LCD on DVI.

How do you go about changing the Hz? Is this in the computer settings or in the monitor menus? Have you tried this monitor on VGA?

 

[Steve]

Right-click on desktop->Properties->Settings->Advanced->Monitor->Refresh Frequency or whatever it's called. Try 60Hz (recommended) or try 75 (usually only those two are available for LCDs on VGA. Try what you find, but don't go above 75.

 

[itakey]

Any good Dual DVI cards in the $60 range??? I am willing to spend up to $100 but would rather spend the least necessary. I DO NOT game, but I do work with graphics in programs, but that shouldn't matter. My current $75 Radeon 7000 card is fine.

Any good cards cheap?

 

[itakey]

I found a simple ATI card that has one DVI output, but a spilitter that allows 2 monitors to be hookd up.

It is a DVI-D.

Will that work you think? Is 32mb way too low even if I don't game?

 

[Steve]

What kind of card is it?

 

[itakey]

ATI Radeon 7000 with 32MB of ram. It then has this splitter that makes the one DVI port into two. This is the manufacturers details:
http://ati.de/products/radeon7000/radeonve/index.html

The card is from like 2001 or 2002, but I figure I will be upgrading when Vista is stable so I don't truly want to spend a ton. I still use a Radeon 7000 from CompUSA in my machine and all is perfect. I am just not sure how different these two are.

It is important that my typical Windows XP usage is good.

Seems like a decent card to do everything BUT game. Think the same?

 

[Steve]

I have a feeling it would only give you clone mode instead of extended desktop.

 

[itakey]

Hmm, if you read the features page it sounds like it CAN do separate. Read here:
http://ati.de/products/Hydravision/index.html

The hydravision talks about remembering where windows were, and a few other things that sound like multiple monitor support.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Steve]

Ah yes, if you can download and install Hydravision, you may be able to do what you need to do.

 

[sjwaste]

You could just go to newegg.com and look.

 

[itakey]

I went ahead and bought a card off of eBay. It was real cheap so I am hoping it does the trick

Thanks for all of the help!

 

[dderolph]

What did you get? I would have probably just added a PCI card, assuming your current card is AGP. I'm running two monitors with two nVidia cards, one APG and one PCI. Works fine.

 

[itakey]

Ended up getting the Ati Radeon 7000 VE. You can chech it out here:
http://ati.de/products/radeon7000/radeonve/index.html

I thought about running the 2 separate graphics cards but don't have an extra around so I would have had to buy that too. I got this card for under $25 shipped so I am happy....if it works

With 2 separate cards running, how are both screens managed? separately? Or does windows just combine them?

 

[Steve]

Windows would be happy to run your primary display off your AGP card and your secondary off PCI, or vice versa, and it can do either extended or clone modes. If you have two Radeon cards (or two GeForce cards), you need only install drivers once and both cards will be installed.

 

[itakey]

I have a secondary machine I plan to run 2 monitors off eventually so I will consider the 2 card config at that time. Thanks for the info.

 

[dderolph]

Originally posted by: sm8000
Windows would be happy to run your primary display off your AGP card and your secondary off PCI, or vice versa, and it can do either extended or clone modes. If you have two Radeon cards (or two GeForce cards), you need only install drivers once and both cards will be installed.

I agree with everything you said except on clone mode. With two cards, you will not have clone mode unlesss you install software such as UltraMon. And, from what I've heard, using software to overcome the hardware limitation here on clone mode is likely to cause some degradation in performance. So, if cloning is your objective, your best option is to run the two monitors off of one card. Except for cloning, two cards work fine for dual monitors.

 

[dderolph]

Originally posted by: itakey
With 2 separate cards running, how are both screens managed? separately? Or does windows just combine them?

They are treated as separate displays. Your taskbar remains on the primary monitor for all open applications, regardless of which monitor they are displayed on, unless you install UltraMon, which lets you create a taskbar on each display for the applications running on that display. But, Windows alone allows using the two monitors as separate displays. Do one or more tasks on one display and one or more tasks on the other. Or, if you want to, for example, stretch an Excel worksheet across both monitors, you can do that.