3 monitor surround setup

[Allizia]

Anyone know what else I will need to get this to work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf7St4WQclk&feature=fvst

I know I will need a third monitor obviously, just not sure if I will need a 2nd graphics card etc.

Current setup is:

Antec Nine Hundred ATX case w/ top 8" and front and rear 120mm fans
Top mounted USB, firewire, audio and mic outputs
Corsair 850 watt silent power supply w/ single power rail and quad SLI/Xfire support
Intel Core i7 930 quad core CPU OC to 3.8+ GHz
Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120 heatsink w/ bolt-thru 1366 mounting kit
Scythe 28 db 120mm fluid dynamic bearing fan
ASUS Socket 1366 ATX overclocker's motherboard
Gigabit LAN and 8 USB onboard
High Definition 7.1 audio onboard
6 GB (3 x 2048MB) DDR3 1600 SDRAM (16 GB MAX MEMORY)
128 GB SATA Solid State Drive for OS and games
2 x 1.5 TB SATA-2 hard disk drive for storage (RAID 1 redundant mirror array)
24x Dual Layer DVD/CD recorder (black)
GeForce GTX 480 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit OEM
ASUS 26" flat panel LCD monitors (1920x1200 full widescreen)

[wangerinlee]

How is that game so far?

[Qaedain]

If you get a GeForce GTX 480, yes, you will need a second identical card to run three monitors. That's $920.

If you get a Radeon HD 5970, you can run three monitors and get comparable performance for $679.

(What in the world is an ASUS Socket 1366 "overclocker's" board? LOL.)

[Itchybottom]

Originally Posted by Qaedain [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If you get a GeForce GTX 480, yes, you will need a second identical card to run three monitors. That's $920.

Can usually be had for $399 a card, if you shop around. Microcenter, Fry's, TigerDirect (with Bing+Rebates). I have two of them (not in SLI though, as my monitor on my gaming PC is 1920x1080 120Hz -- just two machines with single GTX480 cards, the other one just folds)

Originally Posted by Qaedain [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If you get a Radeon HD 5970, you can run three monitors and get comparable performance for $679.

More comparable to GTX460 SLI. GTX285 SLI is just as fast on most engines. To compare GTX480 SLI to 5970, you'd either need to quad-fire (two of them - since they're essentially 5850) or run a 5970, with a 5870 in tri-fire. 5850/5870 are fine cards for certain.

[Allizia]

eh, I tried Radeon once and had nonstop driver issues. Cost isn't really an issue

No idea about the board, computer parts always get creative over dramatic descriptions like Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120 heatsink w/ bolt-thru 1366 mounting kit

[Qaedain]

Originally Posted by Allizia [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

eh, I tried Radeon once and had nonstop driver issues. Cost isn't really an issue

No idea about the board, computer parts always get creative over dramatic descriptions like Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120 heatsink w/ bolt-thru 1366 mounting kit

You'll be disappointed to learn that NVIDIA has had more than their fair share of issues as of late. With a new generation of GPUs on the prowl from both vendors, both have spent the last several months tackling one bug after another.

[Allizia]

Originally Posted by Qaedain [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You'll be disappointed to learn that NVIDIA has had more than their fair share of issues as of late. With a new generation of GPUs on the prowl from both vendors, both have spent the last several months tackling one bug after another.

Never had a single problem in 10+ years of gaming, with the exception of updating my drivers twice (in 10 years, both in 1999/2000 with EQ) I'll be loyal just for the dependability until that changes.

From what I've heard about FFXIV, nvidia cards play great and ATI cards are crapping out bad, to the point of it being unplayable, especially the higher end ones. I've heard ATI doesn't want to release drivers for it since it has the NVidia logo.

Basically, I have a lot of gamer friends, and a lot of them are hardcore ATI fanbois, but every single one of them has had issues or was unable to do/play something due to drivers or the card at least a few times, while that has never happened to me or most of my friends that use Nvidia.

[Qaedain]

Originally Posted by Allizia [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Never had a single problem in 10+ years of gaming, with the exception of updating my drivers twice (in 10 years, both in 1999/2000 with EQ) I'll be loyal just for the dependability until that changes.

From what I've heard about FFXIV, nvidia cards play great and ATI cards are crapping out bad, to the point of it being unplayable, especially the higher end ones. I've heard ATI doesn't want to release drivers for it since it has the NVidia logo.

Basically, I have a lot of gamer friends, and a lot of them are hardcore ATI fanbois, but every single one of them has had issues or was unable to do/play something due to drivers or the card at least a few times, while that has never happened to me or most of my friends that use Nvidia.

Why even solicit opinions when you've already made up your mind based on empirical evidence?

[Allizia]

Originally Posted by Qaedain [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Why even solicit opinions when you've already made up your mind based on empirical evidence?

Ehh, I just don't have any reason to switch. Appreciate all the information though

[Overcast]

Originally Posted by Allizia [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

eh, I tried Radeon once and had nonstop driver issues. Cost isn't really an issue

No idea about the board, computer parts always get creative over dramatic descriptions like Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120 heatsink w/ bolt-thru 1366 mounting kit

The newest Catalyst drivers leave a LOT to be desired. They hosed up my daughter's PC bad. I had to hack it all out of the registry and pretty much delete anything and everything to do with the driver to get the 9.2 (I think) driver to install - but it worked perfectly.

It wasn't the card either - since - I've replaced it with a better Radeon and ran into the same issue - and yeah, the PC's been nuked. It might be her chipset - but still..