Dual display video card

November 11, 2005 10:20 AM

I seek a video card with some combination of the following specs: dual dvi output; different resolutions and/or different orientations (i.e portrait and landscape) simultaneously on the two monitors; at least minimal Linux support; PCI-Express; inexpensive.

I'm building a new system to replace my old desktop rig that had a Matrox card with dual 19" CRTs. I'm switching to LCDs and would like to do the following: have one nice 19" LCD in landscape orientation as the main display and one not-quite-so-nice 15-17" LCD in portrait orientation as a satellite display for programming text, photoshop palettes, and the like. I don't play computer games so 3d/acceleration/high fps are completely unnecessary. I'm getting a headache trying to decipher the descriptions of the hundreds of cards on the market with names like "UltraMegaRST5509XQZ Predator Plus! Xtreme!" and hope someone here knows of a card that meets my requirements (or knows that such a card categorically doesn't exist).

posted by TimeFactor to computers & internet (7 comments total)

I am happy with my XFX GeForce 6600GT.. dual DVI, very good performance, quiet with Expertool, PCI-Express, 128MB (the 256MB doesn't help in tests). Don't know if it's your price range. Got it from NewEgg.
posted by kcm at 10:25 AM on November 11, 2005

Oh, and the nVidia (and I believe ATI) drivers all do portrait and landscape, etc., in various combinations, even in Linux. Driver support is excellent as far as I'm concerned.
posted by kcm at 10:26 AM on November 11, 2005

Stick with nvidia on linux. The driver support is much superior to ati.
posted by meta87 at 11:23 AM on November 11, 2005

I think that the portrait/landscape stuff is all just driver stuff.

nVidia hardware definitely does different resolutions, but I can't say anything about the linux drivers.

I have a PNY GeForce 6600GT dual DVI. it was $150 about 3 weeks ago. I haven't since then, but I assume as soon as I bought it they immediately dropped the price to $8 or something.
posted by aubilenon at 4:32 PM on November 11, 2005

Nope, it's still about $150, which seems to be roughly the going rate for cards with dual DVI. Thanks for the info and best answers for everyone!
posted by TimeFactor at 5:16 PM on November 11, 2005

This new PCIe x1 card from Matrox might also give you some interesting options. It's dual-DVI, but in that mode both screens must use the same res. Thing is, being a x1 card, you should be able to add a few to any given PCIe motherboard.
posted by krisjohn at 8:55 PM on November 11, 2005

Followup: I went a completely different direction. I got a wide-screen LCD (Dell) with a single-head video card (actually, Asus A8N on-board video). It was much cheaper than the cheapest combination of 2 LCDs and dual-head video card. It's a little less screen area than I'd like but it's certainly sufficient for now. I haven't yet been able to get Linux (Ubuntu) working but I've devoted almost no time or effort to it and don't need it at the moment.
posted by TimeFactor at 2:12 PM on April 23, 2006