Hi all, I want to build a system for the first time. I'm a bit fuzzy on how video cards and 3 monitors work. I will be asking my questions pretending money is no object. What I mean by that last statement is that I want to get 3 30" monitors, the LG W3000H, which costs $1,159.99 at newegg.com
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824005115 but realistically, I will maybe buy one 30" LG W3000H, and use two existing monitors that I own. For the purposes of answering my inquiry, please pretend that I will have three 30" W3000H monitors. According to the specs of the W3000H monitor, http://www.lge.com/products/model/detail/w3000h.jhtml it's recommended resolution is 2560 x 1600, and it's connection is DVI-D (Dual Link). I want to run the three monitors at "full blast", i.e. 2560 x 1600. So, presumibly I need two video cards like the ASUS EN9600GT SILENT/2D/512MD3 GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card - Retail Silent V-Cool Heatsink with Dual DVI Output whose specs are: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121324 This card has 2 x DVI ports and supports Dual-Link DVI. So I guess if I get two of these cards, I'll have 4 x DVI ports, and I can hook up the 3 monitors mentioned above. Is that true? Will I have enough "power" to run the 3 monitors? The Memory Size is 512MB? Will the monitors run at "full blast" so to speak. I understand I'll have to configure some sort of xorg.conf file, but what I'm really interested in knowing is if these two video cards working somehow together will be able to power the 3 monitors. The max resolution on the individual card is Max Resolution 2560 x 1600. Since one monitor's resolution is 2560 x 1600, does that imply that 3 monitors running at 2560 x 1600, won't work with 2 video cards whose individual Max Resolution is 2560 x 1600. Do I have to get more video cards, or do I have enough? These video cards I'm talking about use the NVidia chipset ? Do I have to use the SLI technology from NVidia to run the two video cards together? Furthermore, I'm leaning towards NVidia because they seem to work better in Ubuntu linux. However, from what I can tell, ATI is ostensibly, more open source, but their implementation of their open source drivers are bad. Since I'm new to this stuff, I am leaning toward NVidia, and hoping it'll "just work" when I finally try to install ubuntu linux. Should I be dissuaded from this, i.e. should I go with ATI, or to avoid headaches, should I stick with NVidia? I cited specific components, i.e. monitors, and video cards above. What I want to do is build a system that runs ubuntu linux with 3 powerful monitors ( my eyes suck....) and I figure I need two video cards working together ( and I don't know if I have to take into account NVidia's SLI technology, and/or ATI's Crossfire technology ) somehow. I want to know what kind of components I need, so that I don't have to worry that I bought the wrong, or not powerful enough, cards. I really don't want the hassle of having bought my video cards, and monitor(s), and then having to return them because they are not fully supported under linux, and/or not powerful enough cards. Anyone who has gone through this "hassle" of trying to get 3 monitors to work in ubuntu linux, please steer me clear of "bumps in the road". Thank you, Victor Soich _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
