For 4, 6 or 8 monitors, what would you recommend?

[Sledge]

The ability to run a dual monitor system is key. I plan to upgrade my PC soon with a 2 monitor system- one for my charting, the other screen for my order entry and multitasking uses. In my head it will be sweet as honey!
Sledge

[fifty2aces]

forsearch - most modern video cards can support two monitors, either dual dvi, or one dvi + one vga, so if you want 4 monitors, you could run 2 mainstream dual dvi cards, provided you got a motherboard that can take 2 graphics cards.

If you want more than 4 monitors, you're looking at something more specialised - either two computers, or specific multi monitor cards - I don't know a huge amount about these, but googling "matrox" would be a good start.


Sledge - pretty much all PCs these days are capable of running two monitors straight out the box - most graphics cards have 2 connectors - either 2x DVI, or 1x DVI and 1xVGA.

[jay bird]

Well after way to much agonizing and a ton of reading it's done.I ended up going with HP, they have way more machine then any of the other companies I was looking at for 1/2 to 3/4 the price .
Below is what I ended up with. Probably more then I will need but if I get addicted to gaming I'll have a kick ass machine.
Thanks for all the help both on this thread and all of the other ones in this forum

HP Pavilion dv9700t customizable Notebook PC
Upgrade to Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)
Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo Processor T9300 (2.50GHz)
17.0" diagonal WSXGA+ High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1680 x 1050)
4GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)
512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS
FREE Upgrade to HP Imprint Finish (Radiance) + Fingerprint Reader + Microphone
Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 4965AGN Network Connection
240GB 7200RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (120GB x 2)
LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-RW with Double Layer Support
HP ExpressCard Digital/Analog TV Tuner
8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
Norton Internet Security(TM) 2008 - 3 Year Subscription
Microsoft(R) Works 9.0
HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope

[fifty2aces]

That looks more sensible - graphics card will be good enough, without being way over the top. Not sure about 2 hard drives in a laptop, but that's not a problem - looks like a solid computer.

By the way, Norton is absolutely useless, and will slow the computer down - I'd uninstall it immediately, and get ESET nod32 as a virus scanner.

[Sledge]

Originally Posted by fifty2aces »

Sledge - pretty much all PCs these days are capable of running two monitors straight out the box - most graphics cards have 2 connectors - either 2x DVI, or 1x DVI and 1xVGA.

Sweet, this is a good thread for me as well as I am looking to upgrade my 7+ year old PC. You appear to be the TL computer expert now. That didn't take long of your arrival to find your place

[jay bird]

Thanks 52.
I've been a mac guy for a quite a while so I'm out of the loop about protection, but your the second person thats told me that Norton sucks.They are still building the computer so I'm going to call and try to get the Norton removed from the order.
The people at Hp suggested the 2 hard drives to run vista properly.

[Sledge]

Originally Posted by jay bird »

The people at Hp suggested the 2 hard drives to run vista properly.

2 hard drives to run an OS properly? Microsoft is going to hell in a handbasket! I've actually considered a Mac as my next desktop- I'm still running Windows 2000 Pro as every other Microsoft OS since it has been shit. I pray you never got saddled with the "Windows ME" nightmare. I won't even begin to soapbox that one!