6-monitor setup: stand, monitors, PC, mice, mat

[Anne-Marie]

• Intro
  
  • On a height-adjustable desk
  • 3 monitors across, 2 in height
  • At least 90° rotation on all 6
  • And the difficult one:
  • 1-finger move to raise the whole shebang up significantly, freeing up space to do other things on the height-adjustable desk (arts & crafts, etc). And not allowed to put screws into the wall
    
• Categories/questions
  
  • Type
    
    • Buying parts, putting them together myself.
    • Hardware experience-level: Seen a bunch of LTT-videos, and installed RAM and SSD a few times
      
  • Used for
    • Office work (Emacs, org-mode)
    • Web browsing (Firefox. Sometimes hundreds of tabs)
    • Watching movies & shows (I predict mainly on the main monitor)
    • Programming
    • 3D (Blender)
    • Light gaming (Also Linux. No dualbooting here). Aiming for "Yeah, there's a 90% chance my computer can run this well enough that I'd play it". I don't need 1ms response time for FPS or similar. I'm guessing more intense things on the main monitor only, and more casual ones on 3*1=3, 2*2=4 or 3*2=6
    • These 2, Blender and gaming, seem like a chicken and egg-situation to me: the better it's able to, the more I'll use it for those
    • While I do want a better gaming experience than I currently have (80 fps in Portal at 1920*1080p on default settings meaning no anti-aliasing babyyy), I don't want to start spending dozens of hours a week gaming. Would 120 fps in Portal 2 spread over all 6 monitors necessitate a better GPU than otherwise planned?
    • Productivity is the priority
    • Although yes, ability to drive 6x 60 Hz monitors probably means ability to drive games alright on one of them
      
  • Location
    
    • Norway (in a city). I use https://prisguiden.no/ for price comparisons
  • Budget
    
    • Currency: NOK
    • Amount: Unsure. 20k?
    • Currently €1,936 / $2,358 / £1,722 / INR 171,970 / AUD 3,052 / CAD 2.999
    • Interested in lowest- mid- and high-end options
      
  • Budget includes:
    
    • Computer (MB, CPU, thermal paste, GPU, fans, PSU, case, other)
    • Monitors
    • Monitor stand/arm/holder
    • Cables
    • Cable management
    • 2 wireless mice (Linus has recommended Logitech G305 somewhat recently, but something with charging stations to plop them into would be nicer than plugging in a cable, even if it is only once a month or so)
    • Mousepad/deskpad that covers the whole desk (80*160cm)
    • Speakers. I have some space concerns there. I like the idea of having the hole desk free from stuff when using it for other things than the computer, and having to put away yet another set of things in addition to rolling up the mousepad is - A small soundbar that attaches to the bottom of the main monitor, perhaps?
    • Plastic plants above the top row of monitors - All the way across - I'm thinking these: https://www.ikea.com/no/no/p/fejka-kunstig-potteplante-inne-ute-hengende-40349531/ - these are too tall, unfortunately: https://www.ikea.com/no/no/p/fejka-kunstig-plante-veggmontert-inne-ute-gronn-lilla-20349532/
    • A way to hold those plants up
    • Lighting from on top of the plants. I'm already using several IKEA TRÅDFRI 3-colour lights (white, white/orange, orange). I'm thinking this style (clamp & adjustable snakey) - https://www.ikea.com/no/no/p/naevlinge-led-klemmespot-lys-bla-80477258/ - Seems IKEA doesn't have any in those style that are compatible with the white/white-orange/orange
    • Storage for peripherals (see pegboard and "Special features")
    • Microphone arm & shockmount
    • Webcam(DSLR)-stand
      
  • Overclocking?
    
    • No
      
  • Reusing parts?
    
    • Doubtful:
    • MB: Asus P5Q SE2 P45 Socket-775
    • CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 3,00GHz w/stock cooler
    • Monitor: NEC MultiSync EA231WMi
    • Pegboards from IKEA: Got both a 36*56cm and some 76*56cm. 36*56 show in illustrations. I like having a pegboard on just the wall-side, as I feel a bit boxed in and blocked off from the rest of the room otherwise. SKÅDIS: https://www.ikea.com/no/no/search/products/?q=sk%C3%A5dis
      
  • OS:
    
    • Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, with window manager "awesome" (not GNOME, KDE or somesuch)
      
  • Case preferences?
    
    • Easy to work with/in
    • Fits underneath the desk
    • Not water-cooled (never tried before, hassle, risk)
    • No RGB necessary
    • Air filters
      
  • Special features:
    
    • 500GB SSD (nice to have some room that is still fast)
    • 4TB HDD (never had this much space, experimentation)
    • WiFi (5GHz & 2GHz)
    • Bluetooth
    • Is on a height-adjustable desk (IKEA Bekant, 70kg capacity, 63-123 cm height). PC is on the floor under the desk. Therefore doesn't count towards the 70kg capacity
    • Peripherals:
      
      • These don't need to all be connected at the same time, but hell yeah I want them to be
      • DSLR (Canon EOS 600D) as webcam
      • 2 wireless mice (see above)
      • Blue Yeti microphone
      • Dual Sense (PS5)-controller
      • Wacom-tablets (Intuos & Bamboo)
      • 3DConnexion Space Navigator (3D-mouse)
      • Wireless numpad (USB)
      • Wired USB-keyboard
      • Wired headphones (3.5mm jack)
      • USB-sticks, plugging in a couple
      • Phone, USB-C. Currently charging via USB-C-to-USB-A-cable. Also sometimes connecting for Android-development. No wireless charging possible with my current model. Using one of these right now: https://www.ikea.com/no/no/p/loerby-usb-lader-med-klemme-hvit-50360269/
• Monitors
  
  • Bezel
    
    • Thin pl0x
      
  • Layout
    
    • 3*2 is what I think I want
    • But I've also seen some people use this:
    • 4 columns, 2 center portrait, wings stacked landscape. Coding and reading in the middle, more space to read
    • So if there's a way to go between those, that'd be great. Low probability, but worth including
      
  • Main monitor vs rest
    • Middle bottom is probably going to be my main monitor, and I considered having that one be Extra Good™, as in OLED (still seems too pricy), 4K or other, but unless there are good reasons not to, I want 6 identical ones
    • Reasoning
      
      • Pros
        
        • Same or at least colour reproduction
        • No distracting resolution changes all the time
        • Can focus on a non-main screen without losing fidelity, which I know I've done with 2- and 3-monitor setups
        • Main breaks, gets dead pixels or other? Easy swap for an identical one while I wait for a replacement
        • Cheaper
        • Still have the option to upgrade main down the line
          
      • Cons
        
        • No 4K or OLED for movies and TV-series
        • No strong reason to use the main, ergonomically best monitor, other than its position
          
  • Inputs
    
    • DP, DVI, HDMI, other?
      
  • Mass
    
    • Desk holds 70 kg
    • Minus some mass for arms resting on keyboard, and peripherals and other. Let's say 10kg?
    • Minus e.g. 13 kg for a hex-stand a redditor used: https://libredd.it/r/battlestations/comments/fexrns/this_is_my_six_monitor_setup/
    • 47kg/6 = 7.8333kg max? Desktop itself might count towards the 70kg. Worth checking if we're getting close, but 24"-monitors seem to weigh 4-6 kg, so should be good
      
  • Resolution
    
    • I've used 1080p and 1200p so far. 1080p feels a bit cramped, and 1440p being 1.777x as large as 1080p is tempting. Thoughts?
    • I want the computer to be powerful enough for the main monitor to be 4K 60Hz down the line
      
  • Size
    
    • 23" or 24", I'm thinkin'
    • Desk width: 160cm
    • 16:9 means 24.09" monitors (oriented flat, landscape and sans bezels)
    • 160cm desk width/3 monitors = 53,33cm width per monitor
    • => sqrt(30²cm * 53,33²cm) = 61,19cm ~ 24"
    • Guessing I'm going to angle the 4 outer ones in a bit
      
  • Type
    
    • IPS-LCD, I'm guessin'
    • Matte, not glossy
      
• Time horison: A few months from now would be okay
  
  • I know about the shortage of both NVidia's and AMD's new GPUs
  • And that this has knock-on effects on older components currently being more expensive than predicted

 

Edited January 24, 2021 by Anne-Marie
Missing things added

[JetBlack]

6 Monitors.? Dang, what for might I ask.? 

[NTDaws]

10 minutes ago, JetBlack said:

6 Monitors.? Dang, what for might I ask.? 

6 episodes of Tiger King

[Anne-Marie]

Productivity. Looking at several things at the same time, instead of switching back and forth again and again, inevitably forgetting that 5th priority window

[G0dSpeed]

15 minutes ago, Anne-Marie said:

Productivity. Looking at several things at the same time, instead of switching back and forth again and again, inevitably forgetting that 5th priority window

What are you thinking GPU wise? Two mid priced GPUs in Crossfire/SLI? Maybe two RX 5700x or RTX 2060?

[Anne-Marie]

Dunno

 

AFAIK, SLI is on its way out, and Crossfire I'm guessing likewise, so it seems strange to start using that now. But mine might be such a niche case that it still makes sense

 

GPU is one of the things I'm the least confident on in this setup if I had to make that decision myself

 

What are the pros and cons of the options you're presenting?

[trag1c]

56 minutes ago, G0dSpeed said:

What are you thinking GPU wise? Two mid priced GPUs in Crossfire/SLI? Maybe two RX 5700x or RTX 2060?

 

41 minutes ago, Anne-Marie said:

Dunno

 

AFAIK, SLI is on its way out, and Crossfire I'm guessing likewise, so it seems strange to start using that now. But mine might be such a niche case that it still makes sense

 

GPU is one of the things I'm the least confident on in this setup if I had to make that decision myself

 

What are the pros and cons of the options you're presenting?

Nvidia you would need 2 GPU's since they only support 4 displays a piece. I believe Radeons can support up to 6 per card. Having more than 1 gpu doesn't mean you have to run SLI or crossfire. For GPU acceleration in productivity they typically use the cards as independent discrete compute devices so you would actually would disable SLI or crossfire.

[Anne-Marie]

@trag1cSeems supported by https://www.asus.com/us/support/FAQ/1035209/ from 2019

 

AMD with DisplayPort it is then. Some down, many to go