Jobistober

Hey all,

Got a work related question here and need your advice.

I work in a DirecTV datacenter and we will soon be implementing EMC Smarts, a sort of monitoring software that gathers information about your network using SNMP traps and such and then reports this information in an easily customizable GUI. My boss would like to set up two large monitoring stations, each consisting of 8 20-ish inch monitors. I'd like to set up one big beefy box per monitoring station just to make things simpler. So here is my list of questions:

1) Can this be done? I.e., 4 cards running 8 monitors? (I'm pretty sure it can)

2) My boss would like to maintain our Linux environment, meaning RedHat linux for us. Drivers? ATI has open source drivers for Linux, correct?

3) Power and Cooling most likey become an issue when running many video cards. Would a 500W PSU be sufficient in running say 4 basic PCI video cards?

4) Any suggestions for video cards? Must be PCI or AGP. They will only be running in 2D environments, so nothing major.

I might think of other questions later. Any and all help is greatly appreciated!

Regards,
Jesse

musclecars&computers

Unless you will be doing stuff that requires a decent video card, I'd just use usb to DVI adaptors or usb to VGA. They run from $80-$150 for a descent one. Just add usb card and ur set.

Jobistober

Quote: Originally Posted by musclecars&computers Unless you will be doing stuff that requires a decent video card, I'd just use usb to DVI adaptors or usb to VGA. They run from $80-$150 for a descent one. Just add usb card and ur set.

Never heard of those, sounds interesting though. Would I have to get one of these adapters for each monitor?

musclecars&computers

some only support one some more.

Newegg.com - usb to dvi

Jobistober

I've also read that if you're using a lot of the USB bandwidth, that the response times of the monitors get slower. If I'm using 6-8 of these, I wonder if performance would be affected?

Dex

I almost posted last night but I couldn't find many reviews, but the few I did read were pretty scathing about the performance of these things, even with just two extra monitors. Plus they aren't really cheap if you're gonna be using a lot of them.

musclecars&computers

I've seen them running 4 monitors with them before. But you could run like 6 monitors from cards and run the others off of them. iduno. heat from all the cards would be the problem i'd worry about.

here's a site that has some good reads on multi-monitors,
Multi-Monitor Resources at www.realtimesoft.com

Gallery of some multi-monitor setups w/ specs.
Multi-Monitor Gallery - Record 907

hope that will help

godling

No sense in dropping PCI-x performance for AGP or standard PCI, particularly when dual-PCI-x boards are very available and affordable. Just get yourself a Matrox Triple Head 2 Go card, and make each of your DVI-out ports a 3-screen port. You can easily run six to eight monitors from one machine:
Matrox Graphics - Products - Graphics eXpansion Modules - TripleHead2Go

We use these at the BIC (Boeing Integration Center) and they perform perfectly.

-Godling

denacopoliez

ok, please hold your applause till the end of the show... as the proprietor of one of the longest standing multimonitor rigs on the form i would love to chime in on this... I have not been here for a while but because of my stationing in italy and forgettign the whole 220 thing i had to rebuild my rig... currently i am running a projector and 3 monitors on one videcard with 0 lag, and no issues.... so i would suggest using the following devices..

Video Cards
My Current ATI Device
Review of the ATI Raedon HD 3970 X2

The newest Device
Review of the ATI Raedon HD 4850 X2

I would tell you to go with like four of these
Newegg.com - JATON Video-348PCI-TWIN GeForce 6200 512MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

but here is the problem with that... most systems get confused with havin multiple identicial devices on board! so what you really need to look into is upgrading the motherboards... i build a new AMD 64x x2 system with the new video card for less than 1000$ so i think that its realistic that you make two new systems and rock them out with the nice displays.

if you are going to do the 4 pci route be careful it took me weeks to get my first system up and running.

Good luck.

my old setups

Most Recent (in va)
Before that (IE Afghanistan)
My First Try

Hope this helps!