• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.
  • The forums have been upgraded with support for dark mode. By default it will follow the setting on your system/browser. You may override it by scrolling to the end of the page and clicking the gears icon.

Help with 5 Monitor Setup

B

bps23

New Member
Joined
May 24, 2016
Messages
3 (0.00/day)
I'm a noob at this stuff, so bear with me...

I'm currently running a Dell XPS 8700 with Intel i7 @ 3.6 GHz with 8 GB of RAM, Windows 10, and a GT 640 Graphics Card. My current setup has 3 LG 19" monitors on it, and I'm hoping to put two more 24" monitors on top of my current 3. My question is what is the easiest/cheapest way to accomplish this without breaking the bank? This isn't meant for gaming, but will require some CPU usage since I'm a trader and run multiple platforms at once.

Thank you for any help!
 
We just got some DisplayLink USB to DVI adapters by Plugable (~$50 each). I was surprised how well that worked, although it stopped working after the first time I tried to use it and couldn't get it working again. I wouldn't call that a reliable or inexpensive solution though, but possibly the easiest if it works.

The least expensive (and probably most reliable) option is to simply pick up a second video card, ideally something single slot due to the space available in your case, and slide it in on the bottom PCI-e slot. Electrically, it's only a PCI-e 1x slot, but that's fine. It looks like there's a notch in the back of the slot, so there shouldn't be any issue fitting a full 16x card in there.
It might not fit, but a second GT 640 looks like it'd only be ~$50 on eBay. (The ones from China are, if I recall correctly, a bit of a scam, just old cards flashed to say GT 640.)

Image taken from Dell's site.
8700-2.jpg
 
Last edited:
No one tagged me? C'mon guys.

6817a438b1.jpg



Running three off the GPUs and two off the iGPU (my cpu)

If needed you can get a GT520 PCIx1 card to pair with your current card for 5 total monitors if you don't want to use the iGPU.
 
Toothless said:
No one tagged me? C'mon guys.

6817a438b1.jpg



Running three off the GPUs and two off the iGPU (my cpu)

If needed you can get a GT520 PCIx1 card to pair with your current card for 5 total monitors if you don't want to use the iGPU.
Click to expand...
how did you get the igpu and gpu to run at the same time? i cant manage to do it.
 
GigabyteFanBoy said:
how did you get the igpu and gpu to run at the same time? i cant manage to do it.
Click to expand...
I just enabled the integrated in the bios and plugged in the VGA and DVI into the board, with two DVIs and a HDMI>DVI from my first 780. Also gave the iGPU 256mb to play with.

69f484affe.png
 
Toothless said:
I just enabled the integrated in the bios and plugged in the VGA and DVI into the board, with two DVIs and a HDMI>DVI from my first 780. Also gave the iGPU 256mb to play with.
Click to expand...
thanks i wonder if i can manage to do that.
 
Third rig need to put into my system specs
 
Toothless said:
As long as it has an iGPU in it (Not some FX junk) you should be good.
Click to expand...
thank you! i got it set up... i didnt think it was possible
 
So I got my GT 640 in the mail and it won't fit in either of the bottom two slots. Any other options that come to mind?

Thanks
 
Last edited:
bps23 said:
So I got my GT 640 in the mail and it won't fit in either of the bottom two slots. Any other options that come to mind?
Thanks
Click to expand...
You'll need a GPU with a single-slot cooler then. This EVGA GeForce GT 620 ($30) should do well. It's worthy to note that it only has one DVI, one HDMI, and one VGA port. I think you can use all three at the same time, but I'm not sure. You'll need to make sure your monitors accept the right inputs, of course.

There are quite a few options for what GPU you could use. The only limitation would be the type of bus it's designed for (you'll want pretty much anything that's PCI-e), how many slots it takes (its physical thickness, which is the problem with that second GT 640) and it's power consumption (more power hungry GPUs will have a power plug on them that your computer might not be able to accommodate). Taking all that in to consideration, low power and inexpensive will be best.
jaggerwild said:
Dell XPS 8700 doesn't have 2 PCI-e you'll need another motherboard. Should be able to get one Z97 for a good price, make sure if you use the power supply it has enough to power everything.
Here's one in the forums.........
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...-sli-1150-mb-core-i5-3570s-ivy-bridge.220385/
Click to expand...
It has four PCI-e slots, but only one of them is 16x. The bottom slot is electrically 1x, but that'll be more than good enough to drive a display.
I doubt bps23 wants to build a PC anyways.
 
Last edited:
xvi said:
You'll need a GPU with a single-slot cooler then. This EVGA GeForce GT 620 ($30) should do well. It's worthy to note that it only has one DVI, one HDMI, and one VGA port. I think you can use all three at the same time, but I'm not sure. You'll need to make sure your monitors accept the right inputs, of course.

There are quite a few options for what GPU you could use. The only limitation would be the type of bus it's designed for (you'll want pretty much anything that's PCI-e), how many slots it takes (its physical thickness, which is the problem with that second GT 640) and it's power consumption (more power hungry GPUs will have a power plug on them that your computer might not be able to accommodate). Taking all that in to consideration, low power and inexpensive will be best.

It has four PCI-e slots, but only one of them is 16x. The bottom slot is electrically 1x, but that'll be more than good enough to drive a display.
I doubt bps23 wants to build a PC anyways.
Click to expand...


So I finally got the 620 card in the mail, installed it, ran the Geforce update with drivers, and it's not recognizing the new card for some reason. I've read a little on other forums stating that the cards need to be bridged via SLI, but I don't see anywhere on the 620 card for the bridge to go. Suggestions?
 
You can't sli a 620
 
  • Like
Reactions: 64K
Yeah, no SLI support there. Minimum GPU support for SLI is a 650 Ti BOOST for Kepler.
 
The cards don't need to be bridged in SLI for the second to be recognized and used for extra monitors. Make sure the card is fully seated.
 
  • Like
Reactions: xvi
bps23 said:
So I got my GT 640 in the mail and it won't fit in either of the bottom two slots. Any other options that come to mind?

Thanks
Click to expand...
Cut the end of the PCI-e slot out so the card will fit, try not to damage the fingers in the slot.
 
Caring1 said:
Cut the end of the PCI-e slot out so the card will fit, try not to damage the fingers in the slot.
Click to expand...
The bottom most slot has a notch to allow it to accept 16x cards. It should be okay.
 
I looked up the Dell site saw only 1.............
 
xvi said:
The bottom most slot has a notch to allow it to accept 16x cards. It should be okay.
Click to expand...
Not many motherboards have the open ended slot allowing larger cards to be used.
Good to know surgery isn't required on this one :peace:
 
  • Like
Reactions: xvi
we use Visiontek 7750 Eyefinity 6 cards at work to tackle up to 6 monitors. No extra power connector required, runs decently cool and quiet, and is fairly inexpensive...ok just checked, they used to be fairly inexpensive. wtf amazon?
 
@bps23 Any luck getting that second card to work? If reseating it like newtekie1 suggested didn't work, perhaps try removing your main GPU and seeing if just the GT 620 works? If it doesn't work in the bottom slot, try moving it up to the main slot where the original GPU was. If it works in neither, it could be a bad GPU.

Caring1 said:
Not many motherboards have the open ended slot allowing larger cards to be used.
Good to know surgery isn't required on this one :peace:
Click to expand...
I've used 1x to 16x risers successfully too, moving the graphics card down to a card slot not used by the motherboard. I hate irreversible modifications. :P
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top