Recommend a video card for Linux Mint 17.1 triple monitor

[Red Squirrel]

If it's even possible to do triple monitor... everywhere I look it seems to be a bust, but I want to try it again.

I built a new system using Z97MX-gaming as the motherboard. It actually has built in video that supposedly supports 3 monitors. Is that even worth trying? I don't need anything super high performance but I still want something half decent for say, Minecraft, or other games that run on Linux. My original plan was to transplant my existing Kubuntu install on that machine and deal with triple monitor later but that was a bust. Wont boot. So I may as well buy a new video card and try to get triple monitor to work right away as I'll be reinstalling anyway.

Any video card suggestion would be appreciated. I want a single video card that supports 3 monitors and not 2 video cards as that just adds extra complexity and points of failure.

 

[Fallen Kell]

I do triple monitor all the time at work. You just need an Nvidia card with 3 video outs and load up Nvidia's graphics drivers. Works every time.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Hmm you don't get issues with Nvidia? Last I tried the drivers were super buggy. I have two cards here and it was my original intent to use them to get triple monitors but I could only do dual + 1 in a separate X session. I'd also get tons of artifacts and other issues. GUI lockups etc..... Mind you this is two cards from a few years ago, have the drivers improved a lot since then? To save money I'd want to try to get a card that can do 3 outputs on it's own but seems to be hard to find. Often they advertise that it can, but what they really mean is that the chipset can, not the card so it's a gamble when buying.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Do you have a preference for AMD/Nvidia, and/or do you require FOSS drivers?

If you don't I believe AMD's proprietary driver (as of catalyst 10.7 or so) supports eyefinity on Linux, so any mid-range AMD card like the Sapphire R7-260x for $100 AR will support triple monitors. I believe the R7/R9 series will even do it without having to have at least 1 displayport monitor, which is a nice perk.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I don't care too much, just want something that works. Had bad luck with Nvidia though in Linux due to their buggy drivers.

I do have a Radeon HD 7870, will that one work? It did not work when I tried it though. Could only do dual monitor. I have a display port to DVI adapter, will that still work ok or does it have to be a monitor that takes displayport directly? I read that too that at least one needs display port.

 

[Essence_of_War]

I do have a Radeon HD 7870, will that one work? It did not work when I tried it though. Could only do dual monitor. I have a display port to DVI adapter, will that still work ok or does it have to be a monitor that takes displayport directly? I read that too that at least one needs display port.

Hmm...that should work with a few "buts".

The 7XXX series has only 2 TMDS sources so it can only drive up to two DVI/HDMI displays. If you have a displayport to DVI adapter, it has to be an ACTIVE adapter (costs ~$100, requires additional USB power) and not a PASSIVE adapter (looks like a cable with DP/MDP on one side and single-link DVI on the other). The latter is actually a pass-through cable that exploits the fact that displayport can pass-through a DVI signal (drawing from one of the TMDS clocks) while the former actually converts a displayport signal into a DVI signal.

You can drive 3 displays off of a 7870 IF at least one of them is native displayport OR uses an active displayport->DVI converter.

 

[Red Squirrel]

It says active on it, but it just looks like a normal adapter, nothing too special to it, so I don't know if it really is.

I googled the part number, this is it:

http://www.startech.com/AV/Displayport-Converters/Mini-DisplayPort-to-DVI-Active-Adapter~MDP2DVIS


Also for kicks, I have the motherboard Z97MX-gaming which actually supports 3 monitors. Do I have any chance of getting that to work in Linux? Not sure what kind of video card is actually built in, I'm guessing it's just an Intel and not something actually game worthy though so chances are I'll go with an add-on video card.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Hmm...I believe that it's an active adapter mostly because of the price and that it only outputs single-link DVI. Dual-link DVI usually requires additional USB power.

As long as you're not trying to get higher resolution than 1920x1200, if it really is an active adapter, that should work fine for a 3rd monitor off of the 7870.

Z97MX-gaming

What specific brand/model is it, and what sort of CPU do you have? I am not as familiar with multi-monitor with Intel's iGPU.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I was going by the box and that's all it said but on manual it says GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5 so that's more specific. CPU is Core i3. The Radeon HD 7870 is a bust though, my new system randomly decided to act all retarded with it installed. The POST took like 5 minutes, screen was doing all weird stuff like going dark, then flashing like it wanted to try to display something, then go back off etc, then it started to load the grub menu and it was taking anywhere from 10-40 seconds just to draw one pass of the screen. So much for that card in that system. It will go back in my other one. The Nvidia is giving me trouble in the other system anyway... it's letterboxing the display for some reason.

 

[Fallen Kell]

The only "buggy" Nvidia drivers out there are the open sourced non-Nvidia created drivers. The ones direct from Nvidia have been rock solid for years (minor hicups from time to time related to new hardware, but otherwise if the card is on the hardware support list for that driver rev, it works, but even those problems are gone now since both their windows and linux drivers are now released at the same time).

The interface is almost exactly the same as the Windows versions with the Nvidia Control Panel for setting up all multiple monitors, custom color mapings, hardware acceleration, etc., etc...

 

[Red Squirrel]

Hmmm maybe things have changed then. It's been a few years since I had my issues. How is it with handling multi monitor will it do it properly? For example can I set the centre one as primary and make sure that stuff always opens there and not all over the place?

Last I tried an nvida card it was a disaster. I had a thread here:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2297941&highlight=system

All of those problems turned out to be the card and/or drivers. They mostly all went away when I went with an ATI.

I'm hoping it might be better now though so willing to give it a shot.

I was looking at cards real quick, I can't believe how expensive and power hungry video cards are now though. My 600w PSU wont be enough so I'll have to upgrade that too if I do buy a card, and they're all in the $300+ range.

One thing I noticed though is they don't seem to tell you for sure how many monitors they support. I don't want to rely on the fact that it might have 3 outputs because I've seen cards that wont actually support having 3 of them in use at same time. I was only checking NCIX though, I'd have to check Tigerdirect too maybe they put more details. Considering how expensive they've gotten I'll probably wait for now.

Edit: Seems Tigerdirect has a much better selection and most specify how many monitors they support, think I found a potential candidate:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3682157&CatId=7387

 

[Essence_of_War]

If you're planning to spend ~$100 on a card, I think it makes a lot of sense to step up to the 750/750 Ti. They are a big step-up from the 640, and they also don't require any additional power inputs.

If you're ok with 640 level performance, I'd go with the 730 instead, they are re-branded 640s with better memory bandwidth and typically cost ~$70-80.

At the exactly $100 price point, I think the 7770 or R7-250x might be a better deal. You can even occasionally find a 260X at that price point

 

[Red Squirrel]

The card I had trouble with was the 560 TI, if I go with the 750 TI is that considered part of the same product line? I just don't want to run into all the issues I had again. I want half decent performance though, so willing to spend up to 200 if that's what it takes. There's not that many games in Linux but the few I might decide to play I'll want them to run well. Minecraft for example does not run all that well on the built on card.

As a separate note, I tried to put my ATI Radeon HD 7870 card in this machine a while back and it just started acting really strange. POST would take over 5 minutes, any text that would display was "printing" very slowly, and basically the system was running as if it was clocked at a couple Khz. I've made LEDs flash faster on an arduino. Could it be this system can't handle an addon card? More details in this thread: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2419679

I don't want to buy a card and end up with issues and basically wasted money. I already have two 560TI's sitting doing nothing because my original intention with them was triple monitor and it never worked properly. I thought of putting them to work bitcoin mining but Nvidia cards arn't good for that I don't think.

 

[Essence_of_War]

I'm not sure what exactly is going on with your 7870. I'm using one myself and dual-booting Win7 and Ubutunu 14.04 and both are quite happy, although right now I only have one monitor.

What have you tried as far as trouble-shooting for that? Have you tried bootable versions of other distros? Manually disabling the iGPU in the bios?

 

[Red Squirrel]

I'm not sure what exactly is going on with your 7870. I'm using one myself and dual-booting Win7 and Ubutunu 14.04 and both are quite happy, although right now I only have one monitor.

What have you tried as far as trouble-shooting for that? Have you tried bootable versions of other distros? Manually disabling the iGPU in the bios?

The card works fine in the original system. In the new system it takes 5-10 minutes just to get to the point where it actually starts to boot off anything, so it's a hardware issue and not software. It really almost seems like it's greatly downclocking the system, like it's causing some kind of block on the main clock or something. The CPU is just a core i3 though, could that be an issue? Not sure how cpu depending video cards are.

 

[Fallen Kell]

These problems are one of the reasons why I don't use Ubuntu. The 750 TI is not in the same line as the 550 TI that you previously had issues using (which I still think were more related to using Ubuntu and the like while not using the latest Nvidia graphics drivers downloaded and installed directly from Nvidia's website just like you would do on Windows).

The 750 TI is based on the GM107 family of GPUs, while the 550 TI was based on the GF116 line.

In anycase, if you want a stable, usable linux system which "just works", you should be looking at using something like CentOS 6.x. Otherwise, expect to have issues that crop up which will require debugging to resolve (i.e. latested build of app X crashes system... etc.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I want to revisit this again, so any specific recommendations on a card that is known to work? I kind of want something that also wont eat 100's of watts like most modern cards do, but that's probably asking for too much. I have 3 DVI monitors and 3 DVI cables going down to where the machine is (it's not under my desk) so I want something that will do 3x DVI, but DP is acceptable too I suppose, I just hate adding adapters to the mix as it adds a potential point of failure/troubleshooting.

Only thing, I don't know if this system even supports another video card. I tried putting my ATI one in and the entire POST process took about 20 minutes, it was the weirdest thing ever. Drawing 1 pixel at a time very slowly. But maybe it was that particular card too, so I'm willing to gamble with another one.

Also interesting you mention CentOS. I always pictured that as being mostly just for servers, and I do use it for all my servers. Is it viable enough for a desktop? Will the repositories have a decent enough selection of desktop programs? The main reason I stick with Ubuntu family is the wide variety of programs in the repositories. You can add extra reposotiroes in CentOS but then you risk breaking stuff. I've seen it happen, and it's ugly. But if I'm going to have better multi monitor support with CentOS I'm more than willing to switch OS. In fact I still need to image this temporary SSD to my main SSD, so I could just swap them and do a clean install and have the other as a fall back if I decide not to do it.

 

[Essence_of_War]

also wont eat 100's of watts like most modern cards do

This is not a correct characterization of modern cards. Nvidia's whole line-up has been very focused on power efficiency. As I mentioned, the 750/750 Ti draw only 75W of power at max load, even the top end of the curve Nvidia's reference 980s target ~150W.

 

[Red Squirrel]

This is not a correct characterization of modern cards. Nvidia's whole line-up has been very focused on power efficiency. As I mentioned, the 750/750 Ti draw only 75W of power at max load, even the top end of the curve Nvidia's reference 980s target ~150W.

That's good to know I guess a lot has changed in the past years then. I have two 560 TI's and those things eat power for breakfast, even on idle it was a couple 100w. My very original goal was to use both for triple monitor but that did not go so well and the Linux (proprietary) drivers were extremely flaky, I'd get random lockups, artifacts, etc.

So is the 750 Ti the way to go then? I just need to find one that has at very least, 2 DVI and 1 DP. I hate how most seem to have 1 of every port. Would be cleaner if they stuck to DVI or DP or w/e so it's the same across the board. I found one that has 2 DVI + HDMI, worse case I guess I have to buy a HDMI to DVI converter. Looking at this one:

http://www.ncix.com/detail/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-750-ti-3b-94301-1281.htm

With this adapter:

http://search.ncix.com/products/?sku=AS2222131612

Should that work ok for triple monitor in Linux? Will the adapter possibly be a source of problems? Worse case scenario I can buy a HDMI cable and have one of the monitors run on HDMI, but I like to keep stuff consistent.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Well it supports 4 displays according to the specs, so I think you are good. The adapter might be an issue, but I wouldn't think so. Just make sure you load up nvidia's drivers and you will be golden (it will install the Nvidia Control Panel just like in Windows and it will essentially work just like it).

 

[t-ray]

I haven't followed the whole discussion, so I'm sorry if I'm off base, but it appears you're looking for a dedicated card. But what cpu are you using?

I've used the integrated gpu from an i7 4770 (haswell) to drive three displays from both KDE and Cinnamon. It was more than fast enough, but I never tried to run any kind of games while also pushing three displays.

I was running two 1920x1080 (one hdmi, one dvi), and one 1900x1200 (displayport), all from the onboard mobo connectors.

 

[Red Squirrel]

CPU is a core i5...errr i3... I could have sworn it was i5...

processor	: 0
vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
cpu family	: 6
model		: 60
model name	: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4150 CPU @ 3.50GHz
stepping	: 3
microcode	: 0x19
cpu MHz		: 800.000
cache size	: 3072 KB
physical id	: 0
siblings	: 4
core id		: 0
cpu cores	: 2
apicid		: 0
initial apicid	: 0
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 13
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm arat xsaveopt pln pts dtherm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid
bogomips	: 7000.23
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

X4


I'm not sure what you mean about using the i7 though... where do you plug the monitors? 😵

 

[Essence_of_War]

I'm not sure what you mean about using the i7 though... where do you plug the monitors? 😵

The motherboard's video output. Most consumer boards have a couple of video outs. Typically some mix of DVI, VGA, HDMI, and DisplayPort. Most commonly the first three.

 

[Red Squirrel]

The motherboard's video output. Most consumer boards have a couple of video outs. Typically some mix of DVI, VGA, HDMI, and DisplayPort. Most commonly the first three.

This mobo actually does have 3 and supports triple monitor but one of them is VGA, yuck. I suppose it could work with a proper adapter though... I can't find any cards that have 3x DVI so seems I can't get away from using adapters if I want to have consistent monitor inputs so what's another adapter eh. Suppose it might be worth experimenting with that before buying a video card. The built on video card is not a common brand like ATI or nvidia though. I think it's like Intel or Matrox or something. So not sure how that would go in Linux.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Ok so I'm experimenting with at least 2 for now, which is usually flawless so may as well work with that for now till I figure out triple. I'll order a VGA to DVI adapter and failing that I'll order a video card that has better outputs than the onboard. Though I kinda like the idea of onboard due to the lower power usage. I'm trying to scale back on my power usage as my workstation setup currently uses more power than my server setup.

The kicker though is I want the centre monitor to be primary. Right now I have 1(most left) and 2 and 3 is blank (not connected). I want 2 to be primary, so that once I do get triple to work it will be symmetrical and more natural to work on. How do I set the primary monitor in Linux?

Or even better, how do I make it so I have a task bar that goes right across so that whatever windows are open on each monitor only show up in that task bar? Though I still want all my icons on the centre one (and when I create a new I want it to go there so just moving them is not really a solution).