Re: [PLUG] 3 MOnitor Video Hardware

"DP doesn’t intrinsically mean 4K support." I had TONS of issues with a single 4k monitor and video card choices under Linux. Trying to find a card that runs 3x 4k monitors even if it has enough output might prove to be a real pain. You might have to just buy one, try it, and be prepared to return it. Even something like this https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAE8D8EG8576 says it supports 4 monitors, but it doesn't say what resolution it outputs on those monitors.

The card I have supports 4k on HDMI at 60hz, but in Linux it only does 30hz. That's not listed anywhere on the vendor site or the card makers site, it just says "supports 4k monitors".

While I'm not answering your question at all, I might as well as one back. Why 4k? I know that sounds like a dumb question because 4k is awesome (like said I have a 4k monitor at my desk). However if I had to rebuild my desk setup again, I'd spend the same amount of cash on really nice 1080p monitors. Both Linux and Windows have issues with scaling (though Windows is WAY better handling that), which drives me bananas. If you plan on gaming at 4k then it's awesome, but I'd be hard pressed to say that the extra pixels are better for desktop use. If you run at 1:1 then you have a boatload of desktop space, but then everything is really small. If you're going to run 3 monitors and you need the extra space of 4k at 1:1, then holy crap I'm scared of your workflow. By all means tell me to STFU, just throwing my 2 cents where nobody asked.

-Chris T.

On Tue, Jan 15, 2019 at 8:26 AM Rich Mingin (PLUG) <plug@frags.us> wrote:

There's a lot of outdated info here. Three (or more) DP outputs is actually the default in current mid-range and high end consumer/gamer GPUs. It went this way with the late editions of the GTX 960/970 and is spreading down the lineups as DP monitors become more common. This is because DP ports are actually cheaper than HDMI/DVI for modern GPUs. That said, even in the Pro lineups, you’ll need to be careful to check specs, as a DP doesn’t intrinsically mean 4K support.

Also, unless you need multiple monitors being treated as a single physical display, or you are planning to mix different GPU vendors, multi-card multi-monitor solutions are perfectly valid and generally not any harder to configure/use than a single-card multi-monitor setup.

On Mon, Jan 14, 2019 at 12:51 Soren Harward <stharward@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jan 13, 2019 at 5:53 PM Casey Bralla <MailList@nerdworld.org> wrote:
Should I go with ?
- HDMI
- DVI
- DisplayPort

DisplayPort. It's no contest.

"Drives three 4k monitors" as a "must have" makes it pretty easy to answer the rest of the question:

Intel GPUs can drive three displays, but I don't know of a single mobo that has three DP outputs; there aren't even many with two. Consumer (read: gamer) oriented AMD and nVidia cards typically have one DP output, and very few have two. So for three DP outputs, you're pretty much limited to professional graphics boards: nVidia's Quadro and NVS lines, AMD's Radeon Pro (or older FirePro) series, or something uncommon like a Matrox C680. My recommendation is an AMD FirePro W4100 or NVS 510, both of which are about $250.

If your mobo has two 16× PCIe slots, then it might seem like a cheap solution would be to buy two cards, each with dual DP outputs. But my experience with Xinerama back before cards had multiple (independent) outputs was that this setup was always finicky. Googling "how to set up three monitors in X" suggests that things haven't improved.
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___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug