PC Hardware → Building 4-monitor system; Need motherboard/video pointers

I'm looking to build a PC that can support 4 displays.. and maybe have a little room for expandability if desired I have 3 17" 1280x1024 VGA-only monitors and any additional monitors would probably be DVI but I'm not 100% sure.

This system will be going into an Antec Sonata III w/ EarthWatts 500W PSU. I have a 500gb SATA and 4x2gb DDR2-800 RAM ready already. Low-end processing power is probably enough. The system will run Ubuntu and Firefox/gnome-terminal/Thunderbird/VNC/RDP/ssh are pretty much the only things that run.

Two ways of approaching this that I have run into
•Motherboard with decent integrated graphics and 1 PCI-E slot, using hybrid SLI to supply both video controllers to the OS. - I have this type of setup already, but it's my HTPC. It's an Asus M3N78-VM (onboard GeForce 8200 HDMI+DVI-D+VGA) but I don't have a secondary video card for it. This is where/how I discovered hybrid SLI was possible to output to 2 different video cards at once.
•A motherboard with 2 PCI-E slots. Simple enough. SLI (performance) is unnecessary, just need the outputs to work.

Notes/questions/etc
•Cheap video cards with decent acceleration. The $15-30 ATI HD4000 series or nVidia GeForce 200 series. As long as it can do Compiz decently I'm happy. I don't need pointers to deals, I'm a regular SlickDeals/FatWallet user and Fry's shopper. I just don't want to buy something wrong.
•I'm not sure if ATI or nVidia restricted drivers run better on Ubuntu. I've been using nVidia for a long time but have no preference. But if there is a significant difference then I will consider.
•I also don't know if hybrid SLI vs dual cards (but not quite SLI?) makes a big difference.

You don't need hybrid sli. That allows the integrated and a standalone card to work in concert to render game scenes.

I would stick with nvidia for linux. That is also what you are used to.

Another option should be simply adding a pci graphics card to support the additional monitors. You shouldn't need multiple pci-express x16 slots or sli or anything like that. I would look into an approach like one standard graphics card in the x16 slot and a dual display pci card. This would leave your motherboard options wide open.

if you can deal with only have 3 monitors you can get away with one ATi 5x00 card

one monitor would have to have dvi, or display port for this to work

active display port to DVI connector and not like its hard to find a monitor with display port any way *cough*Dell*cough*

umm, still a requirement, so the OP would need to know this....

I use the same exact board your HTPC is with a PCIe GTX260SSC primary card with 3x 17" Dell ultra sharps, and a 17" Samsung (bezel is the same size as the Dells) I used to run the three 17s and a 32".....

Is there some reason the OP can't pick up an nVidia Quadro NVS card? These are what we use (specifically NVS 450 cards) at my workplace in standard Dell PCs, and they drive 4 monitors via DisplayPort (or DVI if you buy DP->DVI adapters).

Yes, they're more expensive than 2 generic video cards, but there's an added bonus: the recent NVS cards don't have fans on them (pure heat sink), which means silence.

I have no idea how these cards work under Linux, but if they don't, someone needs to seriously punch nVidia and/or OSS folks, because they're business-class cards.

It looks like Nvidia does provide linux drivers.

»www.nvidia.com/object/pr ··· _us.html

Only uses about 35 watts too (or so it says).

-P

Keep in mind that 3 of these monitors are vga only.

yeah, I have a card with HDMI+DVI+VGA so I would be able to connect DVI+VGA+VGA but not 3 VGA.what kind of configuration are you using? 2 connected to the card and 2 connected to the mobo? any special motherboard settings to set? how does the OS recognize them?money is an issue, noise isn't I see what you mean though.

3+ VGA is a pretty strict requirement that I am sticking to, unfortunately.

Thanks all for the help so far. I'll stick to nVidia for Ubuntu since I use it already, but I'm going to assume that I can't use TwinView since I have more than 2, and will need to do some xorg.conf hacking.

One question about PCI cards: how? It seems to me that PCI video cards are dated and specific. I used to buy FX5200 AGPs for free after rebate from Fry's and it never made sense to me to buy the PCI versions. I guess it would make sense now since I'm trying for multiple displays.. would I configure them the same way in Linux as I would a multiple-PCIE-card system? (PCI bus/function number pointing)

Yes, two connected to the add on card via DVI (you could use dvi-vga adapters, or whatever) and two on the motherboard, but you can only use VGA+either of the others. You can't simultaneously use DVI and HDMI.

just make sure your add-in card is a 6000 series or newer. You can grab an 8600 for less than $50 right now. One of the monitors on the add in card will be the primary.

Hope this helps.

"It seems to me that PCI video cards are dated and specific. I used to buy FX5200 AGPs for free after rebate from Fry's and it never made sense to me to buy the PCI versions. I guess it would make sense now since I'm trying for multiple displays.. would I configure them the same way in Linux as I would a multiple-PCIE-card system? (PCI bus/function number pointing)"

There's no disadvantage to pci. Performance isn't an issue, you just need low end cards that can drive the needed number of monitors.
I offered it as an alternative because it is a common approach and it doesn't force any limitations on platform/motherboard choices.

»www.instructables.com/id ··· screens/