Three Monitor Setup, advise

bbvdd2

Here's the deal. Looking to setup a three monitor system. Two 24" 1920x1080 Asus LCD's and one 42" plasma 1920x 1080.

I'll be using the two 24" for surfing, light gaming FPS and the 42" for streaming netflix and watching Blu-Ray

System is currently as follows

AM3 Athlon x3 445 3.1
ASUS AMD 785TD EVO
4GB 1333MHz RAM
240 GT 1GB RAM
Win 7
2x320 GB Barracudas in RAID0
2x2TB WD Greens
850w Thermaltake XT

Obviously I need another video card. Question is which is the best way to go?
I don't game too much but a little.
The onboard AMD 4200 is enough to do the blu ray but has anyone used the hybrid crossfire to run 3 monitors? Or can I run a second 240GT just not in SLI?

And I only have 4GB of RAM, the MB will run 16GB. What would some recommend to run watching Blu Ray or Netflix in 1080i (thats all my plasma does) and run my other 24"s at the same time with say FIrefox running 10 or so tabs

Thoughts on the processor? It OC's to 3.6 no problem but will not unlock 4th core. I also have an older Athlon X4 620 I can borrow out of another rig but it doesn't OC as well, maybe 3.0GHz

Thanks in advance

I'm not looking to do a total rebuild, just the upgrades needed for it to run smoothly at the least cost. Gaming is secondary and I don't care as much with the eye candy so I'm not looking to crossfire 6970's just for gaming.

N0sferatU · 02-22-2011, 21:01 | posts: 1,410 | Location: United States

I've been out of the hardware scene for a while but using three monitors on my slowest system and it's fine.

Core 2 Duo
4GB RAM
NVIDIA 7100 integrated on mobo for my 3rd monitor for slingbox
ATI 4600 for the two 24" screens

bbvdd2 · 02-23-2011, 21:07 | posts: 1,446 | Location: Charlotte, NC

Thanks. I'm going to try my onboard ATI 4200 and a ATI 5450 I have in another box.

nokmond · 04-07-2011, 21:52 | posts: 97 | Location: England

Quote:

Originally Posted by bbvdd2

Thanks. I'm going to try my onboard ATI 4200 and a ATI 5450 I have in another box.

Can you use the onboard output together with the dedicated cards outputs tho? Thought you had to select one or the other in BIOS?

bbvdd2 · 04-08-2011, 17:54 | posts: 1,446 | Location: Charlotte, NC

Well, I don't know but I went ahead and bought a 5870 2GB Eyefinity Edition to take care of things. Its driving a 27in LED and a 46in LED and is very nice.

MountainMan · 05-18-2011, 01:44 | posts: 14 | Location: up high

Hey there,
I speak from experience here, not theory...
I use the HIS Ice-Q 5750 1 gb and I run the following....

HDMI out to home theater....720p Optima DLP projector...carries 7.1 sound...rocks the house!!!
DVI out to 42" Samsung plasma tv in front room....have to run audio cables from pc to tv....
Display Port out to VGA adapter to pc monitor.

All 3 can play HD movies simultaneously...of course sounds are mixed together

This card will handle it perfectly...trust me....I am doing it as we speak!