Am looking at possibly upgrading my current Dell Precision Workstation with this HP H8qe: http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/s...&series_name=h8qe_series&a1=Usage&v1=Business which comes with 2 PCIe (x16), 1 PCIe (x4), 1 PCIe (x1) slots. I am currently running 4 19 inch dell monitors. My question is this: One of the upgrade options for the graphics card on the H8qe is 2GB DDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GT 530 [DVI, HDMI, VGA adapter] I talked to tech support and they said that if I used an adaptor on one of my 4 screens to fit the HDMI and a splitter on the DVI I can fit all 4 screens on the card above. Is that a good idea? Or would that tax the card and cause overheating/noise? My workstation is noisy and pretty annoying. Also, could I get a less pricey model (one of the home pavilions) instead and find a way to run 4 monitors on them? Thanks for any pointers/ideas.
I am skeptical of that. I think you can have this card to support 2 monitors. I would question if it can support 4. From the specification page, it said "multiple monitor support" as Yes. But did not say how many. http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gt-530-oem/specifications
Perhaps you can choose a less pricey model as you suggested, the home pavilions, and upgrade the graphics card to either the Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 or the ATI Radeon 6850, as both have 2 DVI inputs. Then you can run two monitors into each DVI slot with a splitter. Personally, I've found the Nvidia NVS 290 cards are fine for running dual monitors (I use a Dell Workstation with 2 NVS 290's). The newer model is the NVS 295, however I didn't see if HP gives that option.
Here is another option you might wish to look at : http://www.tradingcomputers.com/TC_Bundle_TomGrisafi.html Hope it helps. All the best!
Nope. With a splitter you get the same image (degraded at that) on both monitors. You need either a quad-port video card (like Nvidia Quadro NVS 420) or 2 dual-port video cards. And as this computer has 2, PCIEx16 slots, you should be able to run either.
I priced out the same machine, which I think it's a nice machine. But I found a different card to run 4 monitors. NVIDIA FX 380 http://h71016.www7.hp.com/html/hpremarketing/daily.asp#HHO13 http://www.google.com/products/cata...d&oe=UTF-8&cid=2202157542157756543&os=reviews Hope it helps. JT
I thought the FX 380 has two dual link DVI. one of the reviews said he is running 4monitors. Scat, I know this is your expertise. please correct me if I am wrong. I am seriously considering this setup. Thanks. J.T
"Dual link" has to do with the amount of data it can process, not connecting 2 monitors. If the reviewer said he's running 4 monitors, then he must have 2 video cards.. or "splitters"... but a splitter doesn't extend the desktop by 2 monitors, it merely duplicates the image on a second monitor. For 4-monitor extended desktop, you need 4-ports in one fashion or another. You could always buy 2, Quadro NVS 295s on eBay.. should be $30-$40 each, including the necessary DVI-DP adapters.... or some other quad-port card.
This is my current system: running 4 screens. 2 of those are on an NVDA Quadro PCI E and are connected in the back via a VGA splitter head to 2 dell monitors. And the quality of the image (different image) has been ok for me. The other two are on an NVDA GEforce FX 5200. So am I misunderstanding your comment re the splitter? I know you mentioned the Quadro NVS 420, but would you recommend any from these cards? The first one is what comes with the machine by default: 1GB AMD Radeon HD 7570 [DVI, HDMI, DP, VGA adapter] 2GB DDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GT 530 [DVI, HDMI, VGA adapter] 3GB DDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GT 545 [DVI, HDMI, VGA] 1GB DDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti [2 DVI, mini-HDMI. VGA adapter] 1GB DDR5 Radeon HD 6850 [2 DVI, 2 mini-DP, HDMI. VGA adapter]