My understanding...could be wrong...is the the SLI Crossfire allows graphic cards to intergrate together so one supports the other. So if he has a trading application monitor that is redrawing super fast that gets supported by taking resources away from the other monitor that he is checking email.
Also one other thing that I wanted to say is that when you get to 6 monitors+ it really becomes an issue of graphics cards, motherboards, heat, and power supply.
Depends. You'll need a proper mobo to support the cards, but if you get low-power workstation cards, there are no heat nor PSU issues.
It is true for one monitor. Two or three cards are working together to feed one monitor (this is a good solution for demanding games - one card draws 1/2 or 1/3 of the monitor). Both NVIDIA and ATI (and their forums and numerous videos on youtube) say that SLI and Crossfire should be disabled when using multiple monitors. Regards
This thread is beginning to read like a Master's Class in trading software integration and development! Anyone care to comment on a rig I'm looking at? I use it to trade the e-mini's, and from the specs I've seen, it sounds like it should fit the bill: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 2.5GHz, 1333FSB (Quad Core) 4000K Spire Socket 775 Intel fan AsRock Penryn1600SLI, nForce 740i, SLI PCI Express, GB LAN, iEEE 4GB (2x2GB) PC5300 DDR2 667 Dual Channel SLI Dual GeForce 8500GT 512Mb x2 PCI Express 16X (2 cards) 320.0GB Hitachi/ IBM 7200rpm SATA2 UDMA 300 8m Cache Samsung 20x DVD Recorder Dual Layer +R/RW -R/RW AC 97 3D Full Duplex sound card (onboard) Ethernet network adapter (onboard) APEVIA X-Plorer Black, Side Window, front USB,iEEE,Temp control Antec Basiq 500w Extra Quiet ATX Power Supply w/ 6pin PCI-E Black Windows Keyboard, 104 key, PS/2 2-Button Wheel Mouse, PS/2 Black Black Multimedia amplified stereo speakers Microsoft Windows XP Home CD TIA P.S. I only use 3 out of 4 monitors, btw.
After hearing so much about it I was a little curious, so I decided to check it out for myself. What is SLI Technology?
That should be totally fine for eminis. There are a couple upgrades that you could do that would make a difference. 1. DDR2 memory is so cheap you so go with the motherboard max, or near the max of 16(4x4). Even 8gig(4x2) would make a big difference. 2. XP pro might make a difference. 3. For 10-20 bucks more you could get a terabyte hard drive. Also your motherboard only has 2 expansion slots so you could not add another graphics card to a pci 2.0 x16 if you wanted to. What is your quote on this system? For some reason, some companies(dell) feel that adding another graphics card should cost as much as servicing a bmw, when a new card is 60 bucks and takes five minutes to install.
I was told by front end software that having crossfire helps for tick data redrawing on level 2's when you have 16 on one monitor, and the other monitors are doing less. I will turn it off and see if it matters.
Hi Rehoboth, Please run this exercise and let us know the results. I would be extreemely interested to know your findings. From what I was able to find out so far is that to run SLI or Crossfire you need to connect all monitors to one GPU. This would be quite a task to connect 6 - 8 monitors to one graphics card Regards