multiple monitor setup help needed..

lst100

Hi all,
I am planning to set up a home PC for work use and did not want to go the workstation hardware route as it's too expensive.
I will need to power 4 monitors (at the moment main candidate is Acer H233H, 23" 1920x1080, other suggestions welcome!) and I was thinking of using 2xRadeon 4670.
Does anyone know if this is feasible at full resolution on all monitors?
Would it be better to cross fire the 2 cards so that if I fancy a game I can focus all the graphic power on to one screen?

Many thanks.

The intended set up:
PSU 750W Corsair
Intel Core i7 920
6GB Ram (G-skill or OCZ) 1333Mhz
MB Asus P6T6 WS
GC. 2x Sapphire 4670 1Gb
HDD 2x1Tb WD Caviar Black

Judas

The HD4670's (2 of them) is by far one of the best solution, without being over the top powerful and not under the needed amount of power... specially if you want to play games.

I recently just finished setting up a octo-monitor system. 2 idetnical systems running 4 monitors each, with the ability to upgrade and run more if needed.

Each machined contained the following:

Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5
Intel i7 920
6gb (2x3gb) Kingston DDR3 1333
2x HD4670 (512mb) (By Sapphire, as they are the only ones i could get that were true SINGLE slot and had good cooling not to mention had 2x DVI ports capable of what i needed)
Pioneer DVR-216 DVD-DL SATA drive
2x Seagate 500gb 7200.11 in RAID 1 (for data security)
750watt PC Power and Cooling
Coolermaster 690 Case

Additionally, with the cards setup with the crossfire interconnect, you can at will disable the 2 monitors on the secondary card and gain roughly twice the frame rates for a single monitor for 3D while letting the 2nd monitor on the first card still display whatever you wish.

The performance of a single HD4670 is quite good though, able to run even Prince of Persia 2008 (the latest one which looks DAMN good @ 1920x1200) very well.

BTW i also used Samsung 2443BW 24" 1920x1200 20,000:1 contrast ratio, 5ms responce time monitors. They have an excellent viewing angle, amazing picture quality, matte finish (gloss at angles tend to be difficult to see) and the edges are very narrow making it much easier to put monitors side by side and on top without having the big of a distance between the physical screens. They are also VERY good price.

I used the Ergatron Quad mount 2x2 Stands for the monitors, just pull the 2 screws out on the 2443bw monitors, and use the quad mount kit's own backplate... very easy to setup and adjust. Looking at the stands, i think 26" monitors would fit on it.

This was a build i did for a Stock Broker/accountant. I officially dropped the machine off and set it up personally at the guys house, and showed him the bells and whistles. It's been over a week now and he's quite pleased with it.

Here are some pictures of what i had built.

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lst100

wow.. that's quite a setup.. worked in the markets as well and have never seen someone with 8 screens.. max was 6 and it was in the old 19" days.. anyhow
thanks a ton for the info.. it all looks great.
The monitor I mention is quite a bit cheaper though and I'll stick to it as money is a consideration. I was thinking of rotating them 90degrees (i.e. aligned vertically) and then stacking them horizontally one next to the other. What do you think? would I be able to use the same bracket you mentioned?
Thx for your great help

Judas

Same bracket i used..... vertically mounted.... i think they would NEED to be 20" or smaller to fit vertically...

Just a fyi though for vertically mounted, although one would think that with windows xp or vista or windows 7 for that matter... while things tend to go well with 2 monitors and those "abnormal" resolutions, i ran into a number of problems where for example, running some games would screw up the monitor configurations... this being both ATI and Nvidia (as i played with a few nvidia 8600GTs to see if it was specific to ATI)

Basically, once you set them vertically, hope to hell that nothing "changes" the primary monitors resolution as it will through off all the layouts and take a few minutes or longer for you to get everything straight.

I had windows vista x64 home premium loaded on those machines..... I found it alot friendlier then XP.... however just a fyi, if you plan to "STRETCH" or "SPAN" across the monitors so that windows thinks it's a "single screen"... you can do that in vista..

While i don't see that as a problem, make sure you download and install ATI's Hydravision after you get the drivers and CCC installed, the extra features of hydravision could prove extremely useful.

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lst100

Judas, thanks for sharing your experience.
I will try and arrange the screen vertically but if I see the same issues I'll change the arrangement as per the one you have shown.
As I said I'm going to use Acre screens and I'll post some pictures when I'm done, but that will be at the beg of march.

Judas

good luck...

enjoy the experience..

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OldBuzzard

I've been running dual monitors for a LONG time, and the best application I've found for managing multiple monitors has been UltraMon.

I'll admit that I haven't tried Hydravision since the 9500 Pro days, but back then I found it seriously inferior to UltraMon. The only advantage that Hydrovision had was that it was free.

You might give UltraMon a try. It has a 30 day free trial period.
Realtime Soft UltraMon

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When looking for a reason as to why things go wrong, never rule out sheer STUPIDITY

CDsDontBurn

ultramon is indeed a nice little app. i'd use it at home or at work if i had multiple monitors

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Judas

it may be personal preference... but i've tried ultra monitor and found it useless and unnecessary compared to hydravision...

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