Hello all, I'm pondering a few potential hardware upgrades to my system in order to getting running more efficiently and one of the things I ultimately need to do is get a new video card... I'm currently running 1 Nvidia NVS 290, 1 Nvidia FX 570, and 1 ATI Firemv 2400... The ATI is not 64-bit compatible so I'm looking for an upgrade there, but am not sure what to go with. The two things that I'm considering now are: 1) Get an NVS 420 quad card, remove one of the other Nvidia cards, and ditch the ATI card... or 2) Try to find a dual DVI PCI replacement for the ATI card (this is just a "basic" PCI card I believe -- It's in one of my three somewhat smaller white slots -- not sure what it's technically called but I think it's just PCI). My question is... What sort of good dual DVI PCI replacements options are there? I've been looking at some stuff online and it looks like the majority are the big PCI x16 cards, but I don't have any of those slots remaining.... Only 3 PCI slots (Would like to just add another 290 card because you can get them online cheap, but not an option). Or does it make more sense to just look at spending more money and doing the full upgrade to the NVS 420 card? Thanks for your help.
In a previous Thread you mentioned having issues. Mixing Card Drivers is often a source of conflict and not recommended. Suggest either all Nvidia OR all ATI You can research Video Cards in Newegg / Graphic Cards / Desktop - then selecting power filiter http://www.newegg.com/Product/PowerSearch.aspx?N=100007709&IsNodeId=1&SubCategory=48&GASearch=3 I have attempted it in the past and had conflicts using graphic cards in both PCI express and the pci slot. I ended pulling out the pci card You may want to post your Motherboard Model and System detail for other peoples input
This is my current motherboard... http://www.discountelectronics.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=3657 Not sure how to find out more specs on it, but I'm just running the stock Dell T3400 motherboard... My current plan is to upgrade to Win7-64 and get the NVS 420 quad card, that way I would be running the 420 with either the 290 or the 570 card. This would increase my RAM and have all of my cards on the same chipset. Does that seem like a good starting point for this fix or should I go another route? Thanks again.
These are my expansion slots... 2 PCI-e x16 graphics slots 1 PCI-e x8 slot wired as x4 3 PCI 32bit/33MHz slot with support for 5v cards
How much do you want to spend on this upgrade? It seems the NVS 420 card itself is a $400 - $500 item. http://shopping.yahoo.com/711999768-pny-nvidia-quadro-nvs-420-video-card/ Way too expensive for what you may need it for, IMO. What are your requirements? Because it didn't say in the post, do you have multiple monitors with 2560 x 1600 resolution? I think you can buy another NVS 290, used, for $60 or so. http://www.cnet.com/graphics-cards/nvidia-quadro-nvs-290/4505-8902_7-32742876.html Or for $60, you can buy 2 GS 8400 512MB cards, each supporting 2 monitors, to make a total of 4 monitors. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...x-_-DesktopGraphicsVideoCards-_-14127674-L07A
Or, you can go to New Egg ( as I did last month ) and purchase the PNY Technologies NVS-300 Quadro card (512mb) for your PCI-X16 slot for $114.99 (it also comes in a PCI-X1 slot version too). It comes with everything you need, including a low-profile bracket (if you need it) a CD to download drivers from, and the DMS cable that allows you to connect two DVI displays; plus adapters to run VGA as well. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133371 And remember, the free Nvidia "NView" desktop software no longer supports the Nvidia GeForce cards for Windows 7 operating systems. Only the NVS workstation cards from here on out.
Thanks for the responses.... appreciate it very much... I'm trying to have a 6 monitor set-up (and eventually maybe 8) but I only have two full PCIx16 slots and I don't know of a good dual DVI nvidia card that can run on PCI only so I need to have a quad card in one of those main PCIx16 slots from what I can tell... So I was thinking that the NVS 420 was basically my only option there, if I wanted to stay with nvidia at least...
What are the resolutions of your 6 to 8 monitors? Are they 1920x1080, or 2560x1600? If they all are 2560x1600 (my guess is not), then you may be limited in your choices of video cards that can support them. If they all are 1920x1080 or lower, then many cards can support them. You can do a 1-card-6, or 2-card-4. Buying a quad card and up can be expensive. Such as NVS 420 that's $400 to $500. And that's only 1 card. Putting 2 cards together to support 6-8 monitor, the price for the video cards is higher than building/buying a new computer. Your constraint is the available 2 X PCIe X16 slots. You can do the 2-card-4 configuraton wth the exsting motherboard. Or... You can turn around and change the rule of the game by changing out the motherboard, and get one that has 4 X PCIe X16 slots. I have one of these: MSI Big Bang Xpower. There are 6 X PCIe X16 slots on it. But I found that I could only use 4 of them for video cards without issues. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-NA-_-NA This card may be obsolete. But you can probably find something similar. So... with spending $900, you can upgrade your entire system, get a much faster CPU chip, more memory, even a SSD, and 3 or 4 of the $30 dual video card.
Hmmm... Thinking outside the box.... I like it. This is an avenue that I wouldn't have even known about because I am not tech savvy at all, so I appreciate the insight very much. To answer your question, my monitors are all 1980 x 1020. I would love to upgrade my entire system if it can be done at a reasonable cost, but I have never replaced a motherboard before and I'm not sure what types to look for that would fit properly inside my chassis (Dell T3400). How can I find out that I'm looking at the right type of boards that would be compatible with my system? This is all new to me. Thanks again.
Well you are assuming that you are keeping your Dell Chassis. I am not familiar wth Dell's systems. I suspect that their motherboards do not conform with the industry's standards like ATX, or microATX form factors. Which means you are not likely to find an off-the-shelf motherboard to fit in your old Dell's chassis. Trying to piece-meal an upgrade is challenging. For example, some people may want to change out the motherboard but keep the old processor chip, keep the old memory, etc.. But in reality, these CPU chips, memory, motherboard, disk controller all have their own advancement with time. The new generations will always be faster, higher capacity, smaller. The new CPU chip may not work with 5-year old memory cards, etc.. A good portion of the times, an "upgrade" may mean an overhaul. Many of the popular PC boxes do not support more than 1 PCIe X16 slot, let alone 4 of them. To support 6 to 8 monitors, you may need to walk down the path of custom-made PC's - either build it yourself or buy them from specialty shops. BIY is not difficult. But to some it may be challenging. One option is to buy all the components from a retailer like Fry's Electroncs, and pay them $100 or something to assemble all the parts for you and test it. You can custom-made your box to exactly your specifications within doing a thing. Take a look at this pin-up thread on an excellent example of building your own PC: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=223072