General Question

mrentropy's avatar

Can I run three monitors off one video card?

Asked by mrentropy (17213points) March 9th, 2011

I have an nVidia GTX 470 video card and it has two DVI and one mini-HDMI connector. Does this mean I can hook up three monitors to this thing or does one of the DVIs get disabled when the mini-HDMI is connected?

I’ve never seen any info that says it can or can’t. Even now I can’t find any information on it being able to, but nothing saying that it can’t be done. I’ve always worked off the assumption that one of the DVIs would get shut off. I’m not sure why, probably because I’ve been used to one-card-two-displays for so long.

I ask now because I just information on ATI’s new monster HD6990 and it has one DVI and four mini-HDMI ports and the article says it will run five monitors. But, it also has two GPUs vs my one.

So… anyone know? Anyone have a video card with two DVI and one mini-HDMI and knows it can do all three at once?

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8 Answers

funkdaddy's avatar

Way more than you’re asking but here’s

Nvidia GTX 470+3 monitors?

Short answer appears to be 2 monitors max with what you have.

funkdaddy (17777points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
Lightlyseared's avatar

No, not unless you add a second card in sli.

Lightlyseared (34624points)“Great Answer” (1points) Flag as…
mrentropy's avatar

@funkdaddy Thanks. I’m not sure how Google missed Toms Hardware for me, but good enough. I may have to switch over to ATI.

@Lightlyseared So it would appear.

mrentropy (17213points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
Lightlyseared's avatar

Well if you’re going to do that get a 6990 (and a bigger psu) and hook up 6 screens.

Lightlyseared (34624points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
mrentropy's avatar

@Lightlyseared The 6990 only has five display outputs. I’d need to Crossfire two of them and get 10 displays.

mrentropy (17213points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
Lightlyseared's avatar

It may only have five outputs but the card can run 6 displays. The displayports support multistream transport so you can have 2 monitors running off 1 port.

Lightlyseared (34624points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
mrentropy's avatar

I had thought the article said it could support five displays. 12 monitors would be the bees knees, though.

mrentropy (17213points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
Lightlyseared's avatar

AMD says it can run 6 and given that they made it I’m gonna assume they know what they are talking about.

Lightlyseared (34624points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…

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