3 Monitors

[Amazin Caucasian]

Hey i built my first PC in the summer of 2005, and now i just added a TV tuner and got an HD cable box. I'm asking for a 28" monitor, the Hanns one on sale at Newegg and I want to know what video cards i should upgrade to for this. Right now i have two Dell 19" screens and I want to add a third one, so i was thinking about getting a a PCI video card to run one of hte Dell 19" and then upgrade my evga 6800gt to something else stronger for the HD tv screen and the other Dell 19". So i was thinking:

EVGA 256-P1-N399-LX GeForce 6200 256MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130289

and then i don't know what card to upgrade my 6800gt PCI-E with....any help? i don't really want to drop 250 for the 8800gt...i just need something that will run well for games and HDtv

[Alaron]

How about the Radeon HD 3850. The price is a bit more favorable for your budget and the performance is still very strong.

[Amazin Caucasian]

would that be better than getting a 8600gt for example? I have only ever really gotten nvidia cards, i've never really looked around at ATI

[Alaron]

Yup, certainly worth a look. Check out the benchmarks here: http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphi...1058&chart=313 Some very solid performance increases.

[Amazin Caucasian]

wat would be a good brand? and wat about the PCI card? Also, my motherboard is the ASUS A8N-E, so would i even be able to get the 8800gt or the HD3850 because its PCI Express 2.0 and i only have PCI-E x16

[Alaron]

ATI's card builders are all good quality. I'd be fine with any of them, but my first choice would be Sapphire. Your board can handle any new card. PCI-Express 2.0 cards are backwards compatible.

As for the PCI card, I'm hesitant to say the brands should match. I have two video cards as well, with a Radeon PCI-E and a Geforce PCI. Oddly a PCI Radeon did not work. So it's a bit of a toss up. The Geforce in your original link could be fine.

[Amazin Caucasian]

awesome news, gotta love backwards compatibility. thanks for the help, i'm gonna see if i can't get a 8800gt out of my dad, if not i'll go wtih the HD3850, and i'll go with the one in my original post...i'll post back to see how it works out. thanks again

[Amazin Caucasian]

well, for christmas i ended up getting teh BFG 8800gt OC, evGA 6200 listed above, and the Hanns-G 28" monitor....so i set up the BFG card and the monitor and it is siiick. Now, I'm wondering how I go about installing the PCI card to only run on the third monitor. I tried just putting it in but not hooking it up to a monitor and there was no visual display when i booted up....so i'm wondering if you guys could help me out here on how I go about installing this and setting it only to the third monitor...i know it can be done, i just don't know how.

[Alaron]

Not sure I follow. You say the card is installed but not hooked to a monitor. Of course there would be be no display.

Here is my procedure. Put the PCI card in the system. You should have the latest Nvidia drivers already for the 8800GT, if not grab them online. Then hook up the monitor. Then go into Windows Display Properties and enable the monitor for a display.

Let us know how it goes.

[Amazin Caucasian]

ha yah i meant there was no display on the two monitors hooked up to the 8800gt. But, i hooked up a monitor to the 6200 and realized that the first part of the loadup process (where it identifies ur drives and you have the option of going to BIOS or bootmenu idk what it is called ) only appears on the monitor hooked up for the 6200. For some reason I can't get past that initial screen without going to bootmenu and selecting my raptor otherwise it says Error Loading OS when it lists ur PCI cards and stuff, but this has been an old problem, so I'll have to come back and perhaps you can help me out with that problem after I install Vista

everything works now, just downloaded DirectX 10, and I am about to upgrade to Vista, but for some reason the Upgrade Advisor said the 8800gt will not work with vista, but that has to be wrong so I'm going to charge ahead and see how it goes.

[Amazin Caucasian]

very disappointing....i upgraded to vista, installed the drivers from evga and bfg websites, installed the Hanns G driver.....and the only screen that is recognized and working is the one connected to the 6200.....any ideas guys?

[Alaron]

Pop into your BIOS and make sure the primary display is set for PCI-E and not PCI. There should be an option buried somewhere.

[Amazin Caucasian]

well you were right there, thanks. I switched it to PCI-E and now the main screen has visual display. However, the other two still don't and they aren't even being recognized. When i go to the display settings it doesn't even show what graphics card for this monitory (should be 8800gt and all it says is Default Monitor On) and the graphics seem pretty poor in relation to how it was on XP (haven't tried games just referring to the web browser, etc.) and the icons are huge and are cut off on the left end along with the start button and on the right the web browser is cut off....this is very frustrating, i just had it working!!! any ideas?

I just tried to put on one of their screen savers and it says it won't work because it needs a newer video card or at least one that supports Direct3D.....even though i had already downloaded directX10...***?

so i tried switching it back to the PCI and running it on the 6200 monitor, which i am currently doing, and in the display settings it recognizes the 6200 but still no 8800gt...i'm gonna try and download the 8800gt driver again

[Amazin Caucasian]

fiddled around a bit, reinstalled the driver for the 8800gt and a success!! i have two 19 inch dells and a 28 inch Hanns-G working all as one huge desktop!! I was playing counter-strike on the Hanns-G while running TV and web browser on one 19" and then AIM and Itunes on the other!! this is siick, i like vista so far...time will tell, thanks for all the help!

[Alaron]

Great, glad to hear you got things going. Post a photo or two if you get a chance. I'd like to see that setup.

[Amazin Caucasian]

ha will do...probably tomorrow

[piasabird]

What you using a 28" monitor for? Is it for watching the TV/Video?

Might be better off buying an LCD HD TV that doubles as a monitor as a second Monitor. Might make it easier to record and to do multiple tasks.

[Amazin Caucasian]

meh it seems to be working fine, it was an awesome xmas gift...thanks for the suggestion tho....

here is the setup.....sorry its not that great of a pic

http://picasaweb.google.com/DSDragic...53915606112226