Triple-head with a 2nd (different) gfx card, possible?

Wed Apr 18 05:49:34 UTC 2012

Thomas Cameron <thomas.cameron at camerontech.com> writes:
> I've been researching triple-head for quite a while, and the lest evil
> option I've come up with is the AMD FirePro 4900. It natively supports
> triple head from one card, has Linux drivers and config tools
> available from AMD, and is not horrifically expensive.
>
> Have a look at
> http://www.amd.com/us/products/workstation/graphics/ati-firepro-3d/Pages/product-comparison.aspx
> for some comparisons of various video cards including how many
> monitors they support.

I ended up buying an ATI FirePro 2460 (not shown on that chart).  It is
very much a mixed blessing.  It is fanless and has 4 DisplayPort outputs
and comes with a 4 adaptors to drive 4 single-link DVI (max. 1200x1600,
from memory) monitors.  The downside is the price is ridiculous.  The
card costs $235 while the same ATI 5430 CEDAR chip on a card with a
dvi/vga/hdmi output is ~$50.  Xorg also doesn't yet deal with
displayport very well.  Using the front panel soft-switches on the
monitors to keep them off when not using the computer causes the
displayes to wedge in an off state.  The docs for that card do mention
it can drive vga with the appropriate displayport to vga adaptor cables,
but that sounds like a rather rude and expensive conversion hack at
~$20-$30/cable.

-wolfgang
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