Three monitor DVI setup: Two SLI PCI-E cards or single Matrox Quad card?
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From: ss6nn1 on 24 Jul 2006 04:49 Which would be better? Two GeForce7 SLI PCI-E cards that support Dual DVI or this Matrox PCI-E card that supports Four DVI outputs: http://www.matrox.com/graphics/corp/financial/products/qidlp.cfm Each monitor will run at 1600x1200 No gaming on this workstation, but MPEG2 decoding most of the time (Digital Terrestrial TV) The advantage of having two GeForce cards instead of the Matrox card would be that the GeForce has built-in support for "PureVideo" i.e. MPEG2 decoding which reduces the load on the CPU and the Matrox card doesn't, correct?
From: Htnakirs on 24 Jul 2006 11:59 Are you sure that, when used in SLI mode, all the four DVI outputs are available? My guess is NO. Besides the Purevideo, you also need to consider the speed of the cards. My guess is that the dual Geforces would be better than the single Matrox.
From: Paul on 25 Jul 2006 01:37 In article <1153730955.987269.85070(a)m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>, ss6nn1(a)googlemail.com wrote: > Which would be better? > > Two GeForce7 SLI PCI-E cards that support Dual DVI or this Matrox PCI-E > card that supports Four DVI outputs: > http://www.matrox.com/graphics/corp/financial/products/qidlp.cfm > > Each monitor will run at 1600x1200 > > No gaming on this workstation, but MPEG2 decoding most of the time > (Digital Terrestrial TV) > > The advantage of having two GeForce cards instead of the Matrox card > would be that the GeForce has built-in support for "PureVideo" i.e. > MPEG2 decoding which reduces the load on the CPU and the Matrox card > doesn't, correct? The Matrox card with the PCI Express x16 interface on it would be a better choice than the Matrox PCI version. At least the I/O would not be a bottleneck. All modern video cards have IDCT, so the Matrox does provide at least that acceleration feature. Purevideo, on the other hand, is hard to understand, because the only info you have to go on, is the second-hand info from review sites. When two SLI cards have SLI enabled, only _one_ output connector works. When SLI is disabled, and the two cards function independently, you can drive four monitors with the two VGA/DVI-I connectors on each card. At least that is the info I've seen to date. I don't know if the rules for SLI operation have been changed lately or not. You would not need super-powerful Nvidia cards for movies. You could use 7600GT for example. (7600GT seems to have a pretty high GPU clock, which maybe is contributing to the processing rate. Draws 67W max. You probably would not be driving both of them to max heat output at the same time.) But the amount of offloading noted here, is not that great. This is for HD. There have been previous articles reviewing the improvement for non-HD. http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2798&p=3 And here is an Nvidia page that lists support for features: http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html MPEG-2 decode is mentioned on that page, and it looks like more of their video cards support that. If you wanted a quiet box, then there will be compromises between performance and fan noise or heat. And if you were thinking of getting a video card with no fan on it, the temps can rise quite high on cards like that, and a crashing video card is no good to anyone: http://hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?id=1856&cid=3&pg=9 You might find more info on the subject, on a forum like this: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8067688&highlight=purevideo#post8067688 (MSI and others are preparing to ship video cards with HDCP on them. Which would be a bit of futureproofing. The 7600GT on the left, is available now on Newegg. This might save you having to buy another pair of cards in the future.) http://www.msicomputer.com/msiforms2/HDCP.asp http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127217 Paul
From: Don Freeman on 25 Jul 2006 15:48 "WindsorFox" <windsorfox(a)NOSPAM.cox.net> wrote in message news:whuxg.103761$IZ2.75738(a)dukeread07... > Paul wrote: > >> When SLI is disabled, and the two >> cards function independently, you can drive four monitors >> with the two VGA/DVI-I connectors on each card. At least >> that is the info I've seen to date. I don't know if the >> rules for SLI operation have been changed lately or not. >> > > > Are you sure, as in have you tried this? When I set up my current > system with SLi my monitors did not work in then 2nd card, I had to move > them to the 1st card to get any video, leading me to believe that in > non-SLi mode the 2nd card is off. .. Maybe that is motherboard dependant but ASUS claims that their A8N-SLI motherboard can drive 4 monitors simultaneous when the 2 video cards are not in SLI mode.
From: Paul on 26 Jul 2006 02:17
In article <44c6757f$0$96173$742ec2ed(a)news.sonic.net>, "Don Freeman" <freemand(a)sonic.net> wrote: > "WindsorFox" <windsorfox(a)NOSPAM.cox.net> wrote in message > news:whuxg.103761$IZ2.75738(a)dukeread07... > > Paul wrote: > > > >> When SLI is disabled, and the two > >> cards function independently, you can drive four monitors > >> with the two VGA/DVI-I connectors on each card. At least > >> that is the info I've seen to date. I don't know if the > >> rules for SLI operation have been changed lately or not. > >> > > > > > > Are you sure, as in have you tried this? When I set up my current > > system with SLi my monitors did not work in then 2nd card, I had to move > > them to the 1st card to get any video, leading me to believe that in > > non-SLi mode the 2nd card is off. > . > Maybe that is motherboard dependant but ASUS claims that their A8N-SLI > motherboard can drive 4 monitors simultaneous when the 2 video cards are not > in SLI mode. If you don't like my answer, then get the answer straight from Nvidia. http://www.slizone.com/page/slizone_faq.html#s8b "How many monitors are supported when running in SLI mode? When in multi-GPU mode, SLI currently supports one monitor. When in single-GPU mode, users have the ability to use up to four monitors using NVIDIA nView multi-display technology and Windows XP Dualview." HTH, Paul |