[pinoyguy07]

Hello =] i've read around on the forums about dual monitors
and i was wondering if its possible to that with two separate graphics cards in the same PC?

if not how cheap are cards with two outputs?

thanks

[Hybr!d]

Mosts PC will not allow two GFX cards, it would be cheaper and easier to get a dual output card, have a look online, they are not expensive if you do not want to play the latest games. If you do, the sky is the limit.

[pinoyguy07]

ok thank you, what would happen if i tried to use two graphics cards?
would it blow or anything? haha

[Hybr!d]

It would be difficult to try 2 if they won't fit.

[pinoyguy07]

alright thank you, i'll check it tomorrow morning, than you for your help so far :)

[Hybr!d]

If you post you motherboard make/model or PC brand/model i can tell you for sure.

[KanoakaVirus]

Two things to take into account when deciding on dual monitors and a graphics card are VGA (Video Graphics Array) or DVI (Digital Visual Interface).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Graphics_Array
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface

DVI is the better of the two but also the most expensive is most cases.

[pinoyguy07]

thanks dave and kanoakavirus
i work with a lot of dvi at work and it really does seem better

my card has a vga and s-video output
i searched on ebay for a S-video to vga cable and found some
would those cable do the trick? or is it not wise to use them?

[Carbon]

Actually, Dave's a little wrong here. If you're not too much of a performance guy, you can use several graphics cards - most motherboards have only one PCI Express slot, but several PCI slots in which graphics cards can be installed. They tend to be older and won't be any good for accelerating apps, but you can usually install quite a few (up to 4 in some motherboards and assuming no other PCI devices).

You can also install more than one graphics card if your motherboard has more than one PCI Express slot. You will not get any extra performance of the other card (you will need a SLI bridge or Crossfire to do so) but you will be able to use it for displays. Crossfire supports multi-monitor, so two ATI cards with two DVI outputs in Crossfire can technically do 4 monitors, but two nVidia cards in SLI can only do two.

Note though that while XP allows different drivers for different graphics cards, Vista does not. So you may want to disable your onboard graphics or current graphics card if you do this if you're running Vista and aren't gaming: if you are gaming, only have one PCI express slot, and are on Vista, you'll either have to go XP or get something like a Triplehead2Go (which is relatively expensive).

[pinoyguy07]

ahh, i unfortunately have vista, but that is quite usefull information thank you! so will s-video to vga work?