Hi - Yes i have a 650w PSU. I got my NVS 295 cards for £26 each ($41) brand new off ebay, so quite a saving over the NVS300. Sounds like all I need to do is find the right mobo.
Re X1 card not working in X1 slot. From the research I did I got the impression it was because most X1 slots run at max 10 watts whereas cards start at around 12 or 15.
Agree on all points, but even as recently as 3 years ago there weren't many mobos with more than 2, x16 slots. Then as now, budget boards often had 1, x16, 1-2, x1s and a PCI or two. I'm sure many a trader bought an inexpensive computer with a budget mobo then tried to run 4-6 monitors. There never would have been x1 video cards if a few years back mobos would have had more x16s. And it could be that the inconsistencies of the x1 video card could have been the fault of the mobo makers and their BIOS. There are plenty of mobs today for both Intel and AMD with 3-4+ x16 slots. For the multi-card user, today's hardware is much easier.
Serious advice - throw away the card, get an AMD / ATI. PowerColor has a special 5770 model with 5 (!) output connectors, 1gb RAM. With this you need only 2 cards to run up to 10 monitors - which will be a lot easier down the line. Motherboards with 2x PCIex16 are easy to find (many gamers use them to run two cards for more power).
Or have a shop build it. Places like ibuypower.com and cyberpowerPC.com let customers configure they way they want, including several choices of mobo.
Perhaps it's good you got 295s instead of 300s. While the 300 draws less power and presumably runs cooler, it also has a DMS-59 connector. The 280s, 285s and 290s have that too... I've had 4 or 5 of those cables fail due to wires coming loose or breaking inside the connector. I switched from 290s to 295s mostly because I thought the DP connector should be much more robust.
This will get the job done. Have one "IN TRANSIT" as we speak. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131694&Tpk=asus ws revolution p67 SSD drive, i7 2600K, 1866 memory, .........2 Quadro dual monitor cards, Win 7 Pro 64, the usual stuff. Kind of overkill for a trading box but i have a bad habit of NOT buying crap. ha PS: Gonna overclock that puppy to.....Well, lets just say over 4 , rock on baby doll..........
Overkill for trading? For sure. But maybe you can do something else with it also... like surf the net, maybe? Should have kept this to yourself. Now NITRO will have to get a bigger/faster one.
Is any special software or motherboard required to run two (or more) graphics cards simultaneously, for a multi-display? I thought one computer could only handle one graphics card...