Three monitors - advice needed :)

[Xealous]

Hi all,

I currently have a 2monitor setup running from one graphics card (8600GTS 256MB) and run between 3 to 5 man teams.
I'm wanting to expand my setup a little bit more, to make it more user friendly - ie so I can have designated monitors for a) browsing, msns, mail etc b) main wow client and c) wow client slaves.

So anyways, I'm hoping someone with better experience will be able to point me in the right direction on what hardware I should invest in. I already have a spare monitor ready to go (plan to upgrade all 3 at a later date) - but wondering wether or not to get another graphics card or go get one of these: Matrox TripleHead2Go. ('http://www.simhq.com/_technology2/technology_121a.html') ?(

If I went down that route with the matrox, can anyone give me any advice/feedback on how it performs while multiboxing?
If I got a new graphics card I would probably get a better one than I already have, and maybe use the original one as the 2nd graphics card? If I do that, what graphics card would you recommend for what I am trying to do?

Any help would be appreciated, and also if you guys have any sites you can recommend that can help with setting it all up that would be awesome.
Thanks! :D

[Twyman]

Well I don't want to recommend a graphics card or monitor because I am not comfortable with recommending how you spend your money. But I do have a Matrox – triple-head-2-go. It works sooo good. But the way you worded your questions makes me think you are expecting it to improve your graphics performance? It will not do this. It is not a graphics card at all. I will only pass VGA data from the graphic card/computer to the monitors. Your performance will still be limited by your card. In fact, if you go from 1 monitor to 2/3, you will be double or tripling your work load you expect out of your cards. What this device does is combines the monitors to act as one. I have 2 7800 cards (yes I know I need to upgrade, I bought them like 4 years ago), ran in SLI. When you run cards in SLI, only 1 video port will work. Even though you have 4 ports. So this device allows me to use my SLI and triple-monitors.

[Xealous]

Thanks for your input Twyman :D , I've heard some good things about this little gizmo but still undecided. I know it wont improve the graphics performance, I'm just pondering whether its best get the matrox, or to buy another graphics card.

Cause like you said if I get the Matrox (Option A) it wont improve the graphics and will put a lot of load on the comp - so I would probably have to upgrade my RAM if I did that.
But I'm guessing if I went with (Option B) another (decent) graphics card I would probably be ok.. might need a new power unit to run them both without melting my pc.

So really its Six and 2 Threes >.<

I just can't make up my mind and before I spend some cash all I can ask for is your opinions for what works best for you guys. :thumbsup:

[lans83]

just did a search on newegg to see if they were saling these and low-and-behold, they do. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815106011 i thought about getting one of these when they first came out, but never did. now they've gotten better over the years, like all things tech. gonna keep this one in my wish list for my next tower i decide to build. next tower will consist atleast 3 video cards, minimum of 8 gigs of ram, and a quad core cpu. once ssd hdds go down in price, i'll toss a large enough one in also strictly for games.