New graphics card(s) for 6 monitors

[arex1337]

I currently have a 6 monitor setup running on 2x GTX 295. I use all monitors for office applications, and when I play games I only game on 1 monitor (the other 5 are still on and showing office applications). I'm looking to improve this setup by replacing the graphics cards with 1, 2 or 3 new cards. I need a solution that:

* Supports 6 monitors (DVI/HDMI)
* Provides excellent performance when gaming fullscreen on 1 monitor while the other 5 are showing desktop applications

What is the best solution?

[Skid]

I expect as your running 6 monitors you never had any form of SLI turned on, in which case most mid to high end cards from the current gen, GTX400s, HD5000s, GTX500, HD6000 will out perform your current card. If you have enough room for 3 cards and will never run play games with 3 screen, just buy one new card and attach your main monitor to that on its own.

The reason you won't be running in SLI is that each core can only handle 2 outputs at a time, and if you turn SLI on for just one card you will loss the HDMI port as an output, and if you turn 4 way on you will loss all the outputs on the second card.

[Delphium]

+1 to skips reply.
Here you can see the config options available to you when using SLI technology
http://www.slizone.com/object/sli_multi_monitor.html#confoptions

As such you may well be better off just replacing 1 of your cards for the newer nvidia/ati series which have support for DX11 and a bit more grunt behind them.

Bear in mind that ATI do provide a 5870 E6 card which is able to drive 6 monitors off a single card with a HD6xxx E6 coming soon, and more importantly, the new HD6xxx series supports the use of DisplayPort 1.2 connectivity which it is possible to split to 4 monitors (each at a max resolution of 1920x1080/1200?) off a single connector when the monitor hubs that will eventualy be on the market which I understand is to be soon.
The HD6xxx series are also much more energy effecient than the GTX295's and above including the 4xx and 5xx series.

Unfortunately however the downside of the ATI HD5/6xxx series cards is that to run anythign more than 2 monitors off a single card it is required for you to use the displayport connectors which you would require adaptors to convert to dvi/hdmi - there has however been known issues with these adaptors which has let the side down a bit for ATI's multi monitor configurations.

Personally I think for your use, I would be more inclined to replace 1 of the existing cards for a more powerful one.
Any of the ATI HD5/6xxx series card will provide you with 3 display outputs although the 3rd output will as I said above, use active adaptors.

Hope that gives you some options to think about :)

:welcome

[Skid]

Personally I think for your use, I would be more inclined to replace 1 of the existing cards for a more powerful one.

Replacing won't work if he replaces with a NVidia, he can only run 3 monitors off the GTX295 because its a dual GPU card. That's why I suggested adding a 3rd card and using it for the main monitor only. Replacing with an ATI will work but you have the aforementioned display port adaptor problem. Also if his connects his displays correctly he will be able to free up one of the GTX295 cores and dedicate it to PhysX if he wanted.

[suiken_2mieu]

Or you can run an ATI 5870 Eyefinity 6 Card and use Active Mini-DP to DVI adapters ($30 for Single Link, more for duel-link)