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Negative of 2+ monitors

T

techtechie

Member
What is the downside of running more than 1 monitor. What will the effects (negatives) on my GPU? i am an extreme tight wad so the value for my money is 2x than normal.
 
Yes, it is an intended usage of the video card. Like if you drove your car at 58 miles per hour instead of 55. You use more gas, but this doesn't break the car.
 
I initially thought of 2 monitors as a useless gimmick, but now that I have used them for a while, I am lost with only one monitor. Gaming can be a bit tricky with older games especially, but for any kind of productivity work it is a godsend.
 
I would worry more about the wear and tear on your heart, or your mental health, and not so much about the minute differences in the usage of a computer part. You're gonna kill yourself worrying so much about this crap.


Not having this thread crapping. You were warned once already.


-Rvenger
 
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I dont feel any difference here when using 2 screens vs 1. But you have to ask yourself, if you really gonna use the extra screen(s). I think my usage of the second screen is down to 5% or less. And its only there because my GF games on it.

1 bigger screen is also better than 2 small in usage.
 
For productivity stuff, it's incredibly useful, and it's a trivial strain on a GPU to drive two monitors in those settings.

Gaming on multiple monitors, however, can get resource intensive VERY fast.

What sort of stuff do you typically do on your computer?
 
I used dual and triple monitors for a long time. Ended up going with one big one as my use case changed.

The first couple times I played Oblivion with Eyefinity, it was the BEST MOTION SICKNESS EVER!
 
Hold on here. if you're gaming, there are substantial differences. For one, you are doubling (tripling?) your existing resolution, which means more pixels to push. It's not a hard-fast rule, but if you run a 1920 x 1080 resolution at 60fps gaming at 100% GPU usage, expect to run 30 fps at 4840 x 1080 on same settings. 20 fps at 5760 x 1080. This means more $$ for more GPU for more pixels for more monitors.

If you're just doing productivity work - excel, word, internet, etc. then ignore me. Most modern gpus will support multiple monitors, as they are designed to do exactly that.
 
cbrunny said:
Hold on here. if you're gaming, there are substantial differences. For one, you are doubling (tripling?) your existing resolution, which means more pixels to push. It's not a hard-fast rule, but if you run a 1920 x 1080 resolution at 60fps gaming at 100% GPU usage, expect to run 30 fps at 4840 x 1080 on same settings. 20 fps at 5760 x 1080. This means more $$ for more GPU for more pixels for more monitors.

If you're just doing productivity work - excel, word, internet, etc. then ignore me. Most modern gpus will support multiple monitors, as they are designed to do exactly that.
Click to expand...

You CAN use 2 monitors for productivity and only 1 for gaming.

This is what I do. I have a 24" in the center, with a pair of old 4:3 aspect 19" screens on either side of it.

The center is the only one for gaming. I can put a video, or some game reference up on another screen while I'm playing.

But sometimes I can expand it to cover all 3 screens for fully immersive... but usually my hardware can't handle that. 🙂
 
I love using two monitors, I can game on only one and leave my email open or a video or something playing on the other. I guess one downside is if you can't handle the level of awesomeness.
One big monitor isn't acceptable to me anymore, I run into too many situations where one of the things I want open has to be "full screen" but I still want to display something else. Rather than one big monitor, I'd go for two big monitors. 😀
 
another thing you need to know is like most people on this forum im a nerd geek or for a better connotation intellectually gifted person. i can multitask like the best of em and keep track of 2 things easily like currently im watching a movie on one screen and doing this on the other and i can focus just fine on both. no problem i can keep attention on one thing for long i simply cant just watch a movie from start to finish without doing something else with my hands or in my case on the second screen. but all this is of no importance.
right now im running 2 monitors at 4:3 one vga and one dvi on my nvidia 6800gs seems to work fine if it werent for cpu lagging. so now im thinking keep both screens and just add a 1080p hdmi for my main screen to do gaming and watching movies. keep in mind im going to upgrade GPU to either gtx 660 or something in radeon 78xx line.
one more thing i want to ask video cards normally come like this: 2-dvi 1-hdmi 1-display (question what is the display port) how do people run 2 hdmi with only one hdmi out
 
Newer cards like you're talking about don't come with 2xDVI anymore typically. On my 7950 for example there is 2 display port, 1 hdmi and 1 dvi. You might be able to find some that do, but I just got an adapter to run 2xDVI for cheap off of amazon
 
There is somewhat of a rudimentary heirarchy when it comes to output type:

Displayport > HDMI > DVI-I > DVI-D > VGA

My 7970 has 2x Displayport, 1x HDMI, 1x DVI. You should be able to find a card that meets your needs though.
 
techtechie said:
another thing you need to know is like most people on this forum im a nerd geek or for a better connotation intellectually gifted person. i can multitask like the best of em and keep track of 2 things easily like currently im watching a movie on one screen and doing this on the other and i can focus just fine on both. no problem i can keep attention on one thing for long i simply cant just watch a movie from start to finish without doing something else with my hands or in my case on the second screen. but all this is of no importance.
Click to expand...


Humans completely fail at trying to pay attention to two things at once, easily seen by those who insist upon driving and texting/dialing a cell phone...we see it all the time and y'all who do it are easily spotted as you fail to maintain your speed or drift outside your lane constantly.

No matter how good you think you are, you're horrible at multi-tasking. Our brains are just not wired to do two things well simultaneously. You may be able to kinda pay attention to a game and a movie, but you're only paying peripheral attention to the movie when gaming and vice versa.

You can try to delude yourself you're multi-tasking, but you aren't.
 
i still dont know what uses a display port i have never seen anything that uses it. also i have seen the newer cards with 2x mini hdmi i figure that converts from mini to regular. right?
in regards to meghan54 i know i cant fully consentrate on both its just i can deal with idel time while watching movies.
 
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