Dual Graphics Cards/Three Monitors?

[jnmohsenin]

Hey guys-

I was originally planning on building a system with a 9800GT 1GB, and using 2 22" Viewsonic monitors along with it. BUT, I just found out I have a third monitor that I could use as well, and was wondering if anybody had experince/knowledge about what kind of graphics cards I could get to be able to use all three.


For price effectiveness, I was thinking of getting two 9500GT 1GB's, but I'm unsure what the performance difference will be between the 9800GT. Buying two 9800GT would add another ~100 or so to my build price, and I'm not too keen on that.

The rest of my build -> P55-UD4/Core i7-860/4GB G.Skill Eco/Antec III/Spinpoint F3 1TB

Is 500W enough to power two graphics cards?

Thanks!

 

[jimx86]

500W is enough to power your build, although I would not upgrade it too much.

With those graphics cards don't plan on playing too many games... on average the 9800 GT is 3x faster than the 9500 GT in raw speed testing because it just has more processors to work.

But then you can't connect 3 monitors to 1 graphics card, so I guess in your situation the 9500 GT's would work.

Edit: if you don't plan on doing 3-monitor gaming (or for that matter, maybe 1 monitor gaming), the 9500 GT's will be fine.

 

[jnmohsenin]

I'm using the graphics cards not for games but for stuff like color grading with Color or Motion/After Effects.

But at 3x better, I'm not sure 3 monitors is worth it versus just two with a good graphics card.

 

[jimx86]

In my opinion, if your third monitor isn't the same size (or even looks) as the other 2 monitors, it will always bug me. Yes, it sounds OCD, but that might happen to you

And I can't really think what I would do with 3 monitors if it wasn't playing games...

You could try just selling your third one.

 

[jnmohsenin]

But can apps like After Effects utilize both cards at once, or will the second card really only be powering the monitor?


The 9500 GT has half the processors that the 9800 has, so I wonder if using two would give me the equivalent power plus being able to use all three of my monitors...

 

[jimx86]

Actually, no matter how many graphics cards you have, After Effects wasn't made to mainly support graphics cards. It will be using your CPU most often. so you can have 4 graphics cards and it won't really matter.


And the 9500 GT has one third of the 9800 GT's processors. Plus the fact that each of the processors in the 9800 GT runs faster than each of the processors in the 9500 GT.