How do I connect 6 Monitors to this desktop ?

Hi,

Just bought a new Dell XPS 8300 Desktop PC from with following specs.

The purpose of this PC is to watch 6 stock charts at a time on 6, (24 inch, 1080p) Monitors.
I don’t play games but watch Video sometimes.

I would like to connect as many monitors as possible but at least 6 if possible

Can you guys tell me how to do that & what other hardware changes like video cards, cables ( Type, Brand ) etc. do I need to make ?


Dell XPS 8300

i7-2600 Processor (3.4GHz, 8MB Cache)

Chipset Intel® H67

8GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz Memory

NVIDIA GeForce GT530 1GB GDDR3 (VGA/HDMI/DVI) Video Card.

Windows - 7 Ultimate ( 64 bit )


Thank you all.

 

This card will do up to 8 but at $1800 it sure isn't cheap.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/graphics_cards/m_series/m9188pciex16/

 

There are people who have a lot of hardware experience here. I would have to guess that the power supply would have to be upgraded for 6 monitors. Hopefully they can give their thoughts on this.

 

Looks good but you are right about price, ot of my range.

 

So true.

Everything including power supply, mother board & other components will have to match.

But then this is The Place for Hardware Experts & I am hoping someone will come up with a great suggestion.

 

Wow, this is beyond me in many ways.:eek The PSU, as mentioned above, is paramount, not because of the monitors which are self powered, but the video card(s) themselves. I wonder how much juice this mega-monster sucks from the mobo? The buggers don't even list the total power needed.

I also noticed that your machine only has one PCI-E video slot so cheaper dual port cards can't even be used. I would have suggested a motherboard like my i7 930 eVGA board which has three PCI-E slots that's listed in my signature.

I really hate to say this but more homework had to be done first in this extreme case. Now the painful part comes in, what do I do now? You sadly already have your options all laid out. Maybe there's a smart splitter out there but I doubt it).

I hope you can make me eat my words but your options really suck ATM. Sorry for the lack of specificity but that's the best I or anyone else here can offer. There must be a traders website that you can go to where they all do this kind of work. Good luck.

 

Sorry, the motherboard that I have is an eVGA tri-SLI PRO, mind you a couple years old already. The only thing that I don't like is that these cards get 'HOT' being so close together and I've got plenty of cooling! Mind you, these are higher end video cards than you would get but still something else to take into consideration.

 

After diging around I found 2 more options but still need expert advice.

(1) There is a cheaper ( Relatively ) $ 520.00 video Card that supports 6 monitors.

ATI Radeon™ HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition Graphics

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desk...-5870-eyefinity-6-edition/Pages/overview.aspx

But it requires 600 Watt Power Supply & mine is only 450 Watt.

Also other questions of compatibility with MOBO & the size of video card etc. If it doesn't work, it can turn into a disaster.

(2) I can buy 4 USB video cards for 4 Monitors & Connect 2 more to existing DVI & VGA port on current video card.

But again need expert advice on this too.

Please comment.

 

Thanks augiedoggie for your input. Just for grunts I wanted to see what the power requirements were for the Matrox board as they said the power requirements were low. The only thing I found was a listing by HP certifying the board for their z400,600, and 800 workstations.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...red&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

I looked at the spec for the Z400 and the PSU is only 475 watts! The Z600 has a 650 watt PSU, and the 800 is a 850 or 1110 watt PSU.

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06a/12454-12454-296719-307907-4231338-3718668.html

 

Since all you are doing is watching stock charts, you don't need anything in terms of graphics horsepower so if me, I would just pick up a couple el-cheapo supreme PCI (not PCIe) graphics cards. This one supports two digital ports (1 x DVI and 1 x HDMI).

So for 6 monitors, 2 extra cards for $100. Of course, your motherboard must have 2 free PCI slots - most have 3 or more.

And because they are not very powerful cards, you won't need a monster PSU to run them. A 650W should be plenty.

 

Can't you get really wide screens and run 2 windows in them?

There are double splitters for video cards, so you may be able to install (3) or 2 more PCI different cards and split them, but jeez...You need to plan out before hand for a huge op like this.

Memory should handle it, but then again...You want fast real-time

Just looking at some options. Not sure how adding more cards works in Device Manager, never seen that.

 

??? You don't need splitters and they won't work anyway. Splitters do not allow you to send different content to each connected monitor. Splitters only allow you to display the same image on each monitor.

He already has one graphics card. If it supports 2 monitors, he only needs 2 more cheap PCI cards that support 2 monitors each. Windows has multi-monitor support built in so once installed and all the drivers are updated, it is easy to then toss a unique window to each of the 6 displays.

This is not a "huge op"! It is not even expensive - except for the cost of the monitors.

I would suggest the use of a multi-monitor utility. My favorite is UltraMon – not free, but worth it. Others have suggested the free DisplayFusion, but I have no experience with it.