Need good, low cost dual monitor support

[Wyck]

Looking to have two monitors that display identical pictures for general business apps. No gaming required. No DVI required. I'm thinking Radeon 8500, but I'm not sure if you can do duplicate pictures or just extend the desktop (which I don't want to do). Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Schadenfroh]

5200, geforce4mx or a 7000

 

[Pete]

I'd recommend a Matrox or nVidia (GF4MX or GF FX5200) card for dual-head.

 

[Lonyo]

Matrox G450's can be found cheap in some places.

 

[rbV5]

I'm thinking Radeon 8500, but I'm not sure if you can do duplicate pictures or just extend the desktop

You can clone or extend and also Theater Mode (allows full screen TV-output with the software player minimised to the task bar), but beware that many "dual head" 8500's are not dual-head at all, some OEMs omitted the external secondary RAMDAC needed to drive a CRT monitor from the DVI port (using the DVI>VGA adaptor) so shop carefully.

 

[Wag]

8500s don't have dual-ramdacs regardless of what ATI claims. The primary is 400 but the second one is only 240.

 

[rbV5]

8500s don't have dual-ramdacs regardless of what ATI claims. The primary is 400 but the second one is only 240.

That would still be dual RAMDAC's wouldn't it? You're right though, ATI used the Analog Devices ADV7123 (240 MHz Triple 10-Bit High Speed Video DAC) for the external RAMDAC on the 8500.

 

[Wag]

Ha- I meant to say it's not Dual 400MHz like they claim. I found that out when I tried to run 1600*1200 on the secondary output.

 

[Peter]

The first real budget card to drive dual monitors was the Radeon VE aka 7000. Still found in shops if you look around a bit, in dual-CRT or CRT+DVI configurations. You can run it "clone mode" no problem.