Whats the best way to run 4 monitors 1080p on a haswell build?

[RU482]

I need to spec out a PC for our conference room. Most likely going with an i5 Haswell as the CPU.

We have two 70 inch 1080p monitors on the wall, and the boss wants to have two 24 inch monitors at the podium for running presentations.

My initial though was to run the two 24in monitors off of the IGP, and the two external monitors off of something like an HD7770.

Would this work?

 

[Stuka87]

I would suggest an eyefinity 7750.

Does the motherboard you have have two dedicated video outputs? Most have two outputs (like dvi and hdmi), but they are the same output. Both cannot drive displays at the same time.

An eyefinity 7750 will drive 6 displays via display port at the same time. They are not cheap, but may be your only option if the mobo you are using cannot drive two displays itself off the IGP.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814129274

 

[blackened23]

I would suggest an eyefinity 7750.

Does the motherboard you have have two dedicated video outputs? Most have two outputs (like dvi and hdmi), but they are the same output. Both cannot drive displays at the same time.

An eyefinity 7750 will drive 6 displays via display port at the same time. They are not cheap, but may be your only option if the mobo you are using cannot drive two displays itself off the IGP.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814129274

This suggestion is a good one. Do make note that you'll need displayport monitors, however. Some older LCDs don't handle DP so well.

 

[SolMiester]

6xx series Kepler will drive 4, or 3 + the iGPU, even a $50 GT620

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

OP : Why not run all four monitors directly from the 7770?
That's what I did at the office :



The only catch is most of the 7770 cards depart from the reference design, which is supposed to have (2x miniDP, 1x DVI, 1x HDMI), and come with either (2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x miniDP) or (1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DP) instead.

 

[KyleGates]

I need to spec out a PC for our conference room. Most likely going with an i5 Haswell as the CPU.

We have two 70 inch 1080p monitors on the wall, and the boss wants to have two 24 inch monitors at the podium for running presentations.

My initial though was to run the two 24in monitors off of the IGP, and the two external monitors off of something like an HD7770.

Would this work?

Man..when you said "The Boss" I was so hoping you meant your spouse.....in that case DAMN yer lucky! But then you had to go and ruin by saying "at the podium for presentations"....damn....

 

[RU482]

how about this 7790?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121727

1x displayport
1x HDMI
2x DVI

thinking I'd run the two 70" monitors off HDMI, one natively and one via a Displayport to HDMI cable
(like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16882903083)
Then running the two podium monitors off DVI.

Will this 7790 run all 4 displays at once?

Assuming yes, would a 2GB version have any huge advantage over a 1GB version?
From the benchmarks ect I saw, there wasn't much advantage...BUT, would pushing 4 monitors increase the need for video memory?

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Nope. Cheap bastards only put two TMDS clock sources on the cards, so out of the 2x DVI + 1x HDMI, you'll only be able to use two of them.

This is why you'd want something with two miniDPs / DPs (or whatever combination thereof) with two ACTIVE miniDP/DP -> DVI adapters.
The active adapters generate TMDS streams, vs. passive adapters, which are about as useful as a eunuch in the Playboy mansion.

There are exceptions to this for special cards (eg. Eyefinity editions), which come with more than two TMDS streams.