• 3 screens on GTX460, SLI with cheaper card possible?
    5 replies, posted
I've currently got a gigabyte 460, and acquired a third screen. I know that the 460 won't support a 3rd screen by default, and that SLI is the only solution without simply cloning one screen. When searching around I found this: [URL]http://superuser.com/questions/238183/using-three-monitors-with-a-gtx-460[/URL] [quote]Finally, I decided to buy a cheap Club 3D GT 430, plugged that thing into the second PCI-E on my mainboard. Works perfect for Windows 7, Ubuntu not working yet, but seems merely a configuration issue. – [URL="http://superuser.com/users/64880/matthias"]Matthias[/URL][/quote] So does that mean that I could buy a cheap GT430, run it in SLI, and it'll support a third monitor? Will that work nicely with drivers and games? According to an [URL="http://http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/sli/faq#s1"]FAQ on Geforce's site[/URL] [quote][B]How many monitors are supported when running in SLI mode?[/B] With GeForce R180 drivers (or later), standard SLI configurations for 2-way, 3-Way, and quad SLI support a maximum of two monitors. Additional monitors (up to 6 monitors total enabled) may be enabled by using either a motherboard GPU and/or a PhysX capable graphics card (GeForce 8 series or higher with at least 256MB of memory) that does not have the same GPU as those that are SLI enabled.[/quote] My motherboard doesn't have any screen outputs, though. But if I read this correctly then I can just plug in a second GPU, with R180 drivers or later, and it needs to be different from the 460?
You can't SLI a GT430 with a GTX460, they use different GPUs. The Geforce page is saying that if you want more than two monitors, you can add a Geforce card from the 8 series onward with more than 256M of RAM to get more monitors, but the extra card won't run in SLI.
So if I were to add another card, and use a third monitor, how'd that effect me? Will performance be reduced overall, or just on that screen? Will it behave differently?
Performance on the 3rd monitor would be reduced if you used a weaker card obviously. You also might have gamma/brightness/contrast issues (ie. the 3rd screen not looking quite the same as the other two.)
[QUOTE=bohb;36066189]Performance on the 3rd monitor would be reduced if you used a weaker card obviously. You also might have gamma/brightness/contrast issues (ie. the 3rd screen not looking quite the same as the other two.)[/QUOTE] Alright. But the 2 first monitors will have the same (high) performance as before? Will the desktop will behave the same way as before, so that I can still drag and drop and extend the desktop as normal? Thanks for all the answers :)
Absolutely, the second graphics card just processes the third monitor
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.