Multiple Monitors-how much do i need

[Khaliis]

Im a full time stock trader looking to build a desktop with 12 monitors , I will not be gaming but want a graphics card that can handle 12 monitors very easily. How much VRAM do i need? The NVS810 has 4 gbs and the AMD firepro w600 has 2 gbs . I want the GPU to handle what i need very easily without getting too hot and price is not an issue. How much VRAM would i need to run 12 screens at max efficiency . Any sort of lag or failure is not an option.

[Mark77]

For something like stock trading, which is 2D, not 3D, all you "need" is enough for the screen itself, and not really a lot more.  Any video card or combination thereof that you can buy will easily have enough RAM to run all your screens. 

 

Assuming they're all 4k (ie: 3820x2160) screens, in theory, all you'd need is ~25 megabytes per screen.   Any lag or failure you experience would not be related to the amount of video RAM, but rather, to other factors.

 

 

[HPWebcamAble]

You'd probably be ok with less than 1 GB; the limiting factor here is display outputs.

[Moonzy]

grab an nvidia 950 or 960 and a few 1 to 3 DP hubs, and 1 to 3 HDMI hub if such thing exist then you're set

[twovaliant2]

4 minutes ago, HPWebcamAble said:

You'd probably be ok with less than 1 GB; the limiting factor here is display outputs.

Indeed...the NVS810 would possibly be a better option for the OP due to the fact that it has 8 display outputs vs AMD firepro 6 display outputs.

[manikyath]

theres actually "graphics" cards specificly for this purpose, they're hilareous price per "performance" wise, but they are meant to do one thing and one thing only: drive displays, LOTS of them.

EDIT: if it wasnt 2AM i'd call my local retailer for some info on those, but yeah.. they're kinda sleeping right now

[manikyath]

did some research, matrox (yeah, screw amd, nvidia, and intel ) has GPUs for this very purpose, with toys like this:

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/graphics_cards/m_series/m9188pciex16/

able to drive 8 displays without hubs or daisychaining.

and even a card able to push 9 monitors over HDMI:

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/graphics_cards/c-series/c900/

[Khaliis]

2 hours ago, manikyath said:

did some research, matrox (yeah, screw amd, nvidia, and intel ) has GPUs for this very purpose, with toys like this:

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/graphics_cards/m_series/m9188pciex16/

able to drive 8 displays without hubs or daisychaining.

and even a card able to push 9 monitors over HDMI:

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/graphics_cards/c-series/c900/

thanks alot to all of you guys, really helpful , and yea i already looked at matrox but im worried because im not sure how widely used they are. and im scared of the quality of it. Dont want to buy it and then the drivers suck, or the features suck , or something like that

[manikyath]

4 minutes ago, Khaliis said:

thanks alot to all of you guys, really helpful , and yea i already looked at matrox but im worried because im not sure how widely used they are. and im scared of the quality of it. Dont want to buy it and then the drivers suck, or the features suck , or something like that

they're more widely used than you'd think (my parents' comapny is actually running about 95% off of matrox) but they dont really put branding all over, nor do they advertise the same way nvidia and amd do.

 

they're more of an "it just does what it says on the box no more, no less" product. and actually, my local retailer of choice sells them, thats from where i know the stuff at my parents' company is matrox because the IT idiot that put those in place still thinks intel integrated will shit its pants if you hook up two monitors to it.

 

that said, if your system has 4 PCIe 4x, 8x, or 16x slots theres nothing stopping you to just drop 4 bottom of the barrel disaster GPU's in there for less than the price of a single matrox card, ending up with something rather unsightly, but probably functional.

[Khaliis]

5 minutes ago, manikyath said:

they're more widely used than you'd think (my parents' comapny is actually running about 95% off of matrox) but they dont really put branding all over, nor do they advertise the same way nvidia and amd do.

 

they're more of an "it just does what it says on the box no more, no less" product. and actually, my local retailer of choice sells them, thats from where i know the stuff at my parents' company is matrox because the IT idiot that put those in place still thinks intel integrated will shit its pants if you hook up two monitors to it.

 

that said, if your system has 4 PCIe 4x, 8x, or 16x slots theres nothing stopping you to just drop 4 bottom of the barrel disaster GPU's in there for less than the price of a single matrox card, ending up with something rather unsightly, but probably functional.

thank you . i will take a look at all 3 brands and simply use the best bang for my buck option .

[Tyler Criswell]

You don't need a super powerful GPU, a 960 or 950 would be fine. Just get display port hubs so you would have sufficient number of display ports  for all of the display cables to connect to your PC.