Using 4 monitors. How can I go up to 5 or 6 monitors?

[luger]

Running a Dell XPS 8700 with Intel integrated graphics and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 645 video card.

Have 2 monitors on the onboard graphics (HDMI and DisplayPort), and 2 monitors on the video card (HDMI and DVI; DisplayPort port empty). The video card will only drive 2 monitors simultaneously, and onboard graphics has only 2 ports, so that's full, so I'm tapped out at 4 monitors with this setup.

The motherboard has one PCI-Express x16 slot and three PCI-Express x1 slots.

While this setup works great, I'd love to be able to add a 5th monitor, maybe even a 6th. How can I do so for relatively low cost?

This is not for gaming, so high end equipment isn't necessary (and is out of my budget). I just like having multiple screens.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

I guess the easiest way is to replace the gpu with one that can drive 4

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Another option is to use a DisplayLink USB adapter.
I use an eVGA UVPlus+ at work to drive a total of 5 monitors from a Thinkpad T540p.
Works great, no lag or compression artifacts even with 1080p video when run off of USB3.

 

[luger]

Turns out the Nvidia GeForce GTX 645 will drive 3 monitors, not just 2. So between the Nvidia card and onboard graphics adapter, I can drive 5 monitors. If I want to go to 6 or more, I'll have to start looking into some of the other suggestions.

 

[Piroko]

I think all Nvidia cards since at least Kepler should support four monitor streams, but you'll land in adapter-hell if you do that because you probably need something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...cm_re=display_port_hub-_-15-158-403-_-Product

The cleanest way for example is to buy this card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814195115
That's six Display Port connections off of one card. Just make sure that the accompanying Monitors have DP.

 

[nathanddrews]

Look for new or used workstation cards. Quadro or FirePro with plenty of DisplayPort ports.

 

[luger]

Turns out the Nvidia GeForce GTX 645 will drive 3 monitors, not just 2. So between the Nvidia card and onboard graphics adapter, I can drive 5 monitors. If I want to go to 6 or more, I'll have to start looking into some of the other suggestions.

Just to follow up on this. So I've got 5 monitors running, with 2 on onboard graphics and 3 on the nvidia video card. I borrowed a DisplayLink USB adapter from a friend and was able to add a 6th monitor.

Pretty cool. And a bit cheaper than the DisplayPort splitter linked above. And a lot cheaper than a workstation video card. But good to know there are so many options. I went from thinking that I was limited to 4 monitors to realizing that I am not limited by the hardware or technology, and that my limiting factors are budget and real estate for monitors.

 

[bigi]

Most kids don't remember this

Great quality cards.

 

[poofyhairguy]