Hey guys, I'm going to buy an extra 2 monitors as I got paid $1000 from some pay to click site (you can send me a pm if you want to know anything about that, its great)

Buying 2 of these:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135667/

I also need to get an extra graphics card so I have 3 DVI/AVG slots. I have 2 on my 8800GT, so can someone tell me the best low price secondary graphics card from ebuyer that would work fine for SoftTH?

Also will it work OK on a ASUS P5KC AiLifestyle Series:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132275/

I was thinking of something like a Nvidia 6600? Would this be OK or is there a better one to go for?

Thanks in advance

EDIT: I chose that monitor because it looks like it has really thin edges. If anyone knows of one with a thinner edge for a similar price please tell me

Ok - we've got really similar ideas going!

First of all make sure you have the £ in your account (never trust click-stuff).

A 6600 would be fine (and cheap), although a 6200/7200/7300/8400 would also work fine (but have turbo-crap), and a 6600GT is what i've bought for mine - the speed of the second card is irrelevant, however a 6600GT can be had ultra cheap (got mine for under £15 used), and can always be used as a gaming card in another PC.

Your mobo (a P5KC) has a slow (4x) second PCI-e lane, but 4x should be enough (I've the P5K-E, also with a 4x lane so it better be!)

Great, thanks for the reply (I have checked the money is real with a trip to the ATM, very pleased, it came on a separate mastercard that I received from the site)

Well I hope the 4x is OK too then (It should be if the main card does all the rendering)

Thanks again

EDIT: Oh btw what do you mean by the 'Turbo-crap'?

Actually I may be being stupid here. I still have my old graphics card (a Radeon X800GT) will that work with my Nvidia?

I'd avoid mixing brands of card so you don't need to install two sets of graphics drivers.

Damn, thats a good point. If there is anyway I could make it work at all though I'd rather use that, but I'll buy a Nvidia if I need to.

Would be good to use my ATI as it cost me £120 when I brought it!

I'm running triple screen SoftTH myself.. If your running XP from what I've heard (have not tried this myself) you can install two sets of graphics card drivers and it will work with SoftTH.

On Vista you cannot install two different types of graphics drivers.. They both have to use the same driver. I had the same issue as I had an old ATI PCI-E card laying around that I was not using.. it did not work at all.

I think I'm going to buy a 6200 from ebuyer, seems using an ATI may cause more headaches than its worth.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/116473

The only other PCI-E card on ebuyer is a 6800XT, which is probably a bit OTT for what it has too do.

So thats 2 Fujitsu Siemens 19" and Nvidia 6200 for £230. Not too bad when you think how big my desktop space is going to become!

Thanks for the help guys

Just thought i'd post to say I dropped a 6600GT in my PC and it works fine, so i'd imagine any nVidia card would work fine - although I do get "nVcpl.dll" errors every now and again I think that re-installing my GFX card drivers might help.

I would recommend NOT getting a TurboCache card (ie a 6200, 7100/7200/7300GS, 8400GS).

eBuyer is great, but £17.99 + P&P isn't as good as getting a good deal on a card off eBay - a 7300GT or 6600GT would be more than enough, won't have Turbo Cache and can be had in Passive versions for no extra noise!

Ah well already brought it now, due to arrive tomorrow. From what I have read about TC it seems OK, and I have 2GB memory so it won't use up too much.

I brought the graphics card from ebuyer as I know I can trust them and can get everything delivered together.

I can always return it and get one from ebay if it doesn't work great, but it should be fine though.

Right, everything arrived this morning and I have it all set up.

Seems the 6200 TC works fine, even Crysis works fine on three screens (have to turn the graphics down a bit)

LFS and RBR are awesome, the wide thin view really works well.

I'm chuffed as a result!

Here's what the final set-up looks like for anyone interested:

http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/8285/desktop3hv8.jpg

Biggest Question - Do you think it's worth it?

(Not sure why i'm asking, as it's a bit late to cancel my order but meh)

Yes totally, after playing with 3 screens for a bit I tried 1 again to see the diferance, and it looked tiny. Playing over 3 like this just feels more natural.

It's probably the cheapest way to get such a wide area of view also, so until you can buy a cheap curved 3840x1024 screen and a good enough graphics card to run it well, this is an awesome solution.

Also being able to have differrent applications in each screen is a bonus.

Quote from Jakg :

Biggest Question - Do you think it's worth it?

(Not sure why i'm asking, as it's a bit late to cancel my order but meh)

As typical with these things, after the initial wow! it just becomes "business as usual". Then one day you are forced to play on a single monitor for whatever reason and wonder how can anyone see anything. Not sure if that's good or bad

For me the main thing is that having the monitors extend almost past my own field of view helps the feeling of "being there". I feel more like I'm driving a car from inside instead of remote controlling one looking trough a small window.

Quote from jfgcatalan :

As typical with these things, after the initial wow! it just becomes "business as usual". Then one day you are forced to play on a single monitor for whatever reason and wonder how can anyone see anything. Not sure if that's good or bad

For me the main thing is that having the monitors extend almost past my own field of view helps the feeling of "being there". I feel more like I'm driving a car from inside instead of remote controlling one looking trough a small window.

Yeah that's exactly the feeling! After quickly going back to one to see what I was (not) missing, I thought I was driving looking through a tiny window! So for that fact alone, it shows how much 3 screens adds to the immersion, even though your not totally aware of it once you get used to the wide view.

I find three monitors is great for keeping you warm, don't need the heating on at all when they're running. But that's 66" of manly CRT muscle for ya. Girly TFTs might not be quite so effective.

More seriously, the immersion is great, and is damn impressive to anyone who hasn't seen it before. There's not really much else you can say. Not being able to see the interiors could also be considered a bonus (unless you use a crazy FOV and shrink them back on screen again).