Excuse my ignorance (still very new to all this) but why would two monitors be used with one PC? Can you actually have two different things going on on each one, and to do this do you need a duel processor or better? Would you also have to have two hard drives? Thanks for humoring me
The real question is "Why not?". You can choose between 2 seperate displays i.e. a window will be displayed on either or one display spanning both screens. You don't need dual processors or HDD's just a decent graphics card with 2 outputs on. My current card has both a DVI and VGA, my HTPC has dual DVI. I run dual 22" Samsung's and I mainly use it when building websites as I can code in Dreamweaver on one (the one infront of me) and have a browser on the second one (sits on the right) this enables me to check how sites look quickly without having to alt-tab between windows. I'd think that gamers will run games spread across both displays (I don't game). Next try looking at crossfire or SLI (using 2 or more graphics cards just to confuse you)
Yeah, I did wonder what 'crossfire' was all about,but that's just one more of the many questions I have in my quest to get myself a half decent computer and be able to use it to its potential. Mainly gaming admitedly but I would like to get into photoshop and similar. Ofcourse!
Well, price for one... Actually that's the only one I can think of. For everything else, dual monitors is better. Put it this way: once you've gone dual, you won't want to go back. Double the monitors = double the productivity, no matter what you're doing.
If you're a gamer, you're better spending the money of two displays on one REALLY good 24" display like the £470 odd HP panel that CustomPC/BIT really love at the moment, and a graphics card to drive games at 1920x1200 IMO. I have a laptop and a second monitor at work, because a lot of what I do at work is benefitted by having two things side by side, but at home I have a single really good 20" display (Dell 2007WFP) and a fast gfx card to play native in 1680x1050.
One thing to point out is that very few games can actually use 2 displays natively (Supreme Commander is the first that springs to mind that can use 2 screens), so as said above 1 better screen may be more beneficial. But saying that, dual screens are extremely useful, I had a 2 screen setup at home and I really wish that I could use 2 screens in work, I'm a SAS database coder and being able to have SAS running in one screen while having the database specs open in the other screen would really increase productivity instead of having to flip between programs or waste paper printing the spec out. At home I usually had a web browser open on one screen whilst MSN/music/dvd player was running on the other.
Dual screens are great for productivity software also. Photoshop is great on 2 monitors. All your tool bars and palettes on one screen, and then just a great big space on the other for the image you're editing. Useful in games like WoW where you may need to google something while gaming... WoW on one, and internet on the other so you don't have to keep alt+tabbing to the desktop each time you want to look up a certain weapon, or enchant. However, for simply getting more space in games, it sucks, because you'll always have a great big line down the middle of the screen where the 2 bezels meet.... just where you're target crosshairs are. For straightforward gaming one huge monitor wins every time.
I think Nexxo said something akin to; Screen real estate is like money: You can never have enough. And I agree :B
Ive always preferred the DualHead2GO way of doing dual screen (and the triplehead2go for 3) that way nearly ALL GAMES WORK with it.
triple head 2 go for the win though it will only support 2 monitors if they are above 20" for the most part
Productivity is an argument TO A POINT. there has been research (can't be buggered to actually find it) that says productivity goes DOWN from 24" screen size. I use a single 22" at home, and 22"/Laptop setup at work... At work i end up only using the 22", as that and the lappy's screen don't align - that means traversing from one to the other is a bit more effort, as the mouse changes position relative to the screen's resolution. At my old job i used to run outlook/remote desktop on one screen, and the rest on the second screen. I can also see myself using dual screens for my web dev needs at home, but the price tag is keeping me at bay a bit. Would want another 22" 1680*1050, and they aren't quite cheap over here. Anther advantage i could see to that would be being able to put on a movie for the missus while i work... that'd mean that she'd not complain about me working as much...
I use to run dual screens, a 24in and a 17in side by side, but the 17in was only used for winamp, or TV and i couldn't bear thinking what a waste of electricity it was to use that display. I could never use dual 24in screens, thats a little bit excessive, but a 20in 4:3 screen next to my 24in would be awesome. Note to the Original post, no you dont need two HDD's or dual processors, as long as the video card has dual outputs such as twin DVI ports or one DVI and one VGA you can use two monitors. You can make both screens display the same thing, or you can use the 2nd monitor to extend you current desktop, to make one big one. This is what is commonly done.
How much performance will you lose by having two screens? I've never really thought about this before. If you have one large primary screen (games will be running on one screen only) and a smaller screen for internet, toolbars.. that kind of stuff... how much of a performance hit will the primary screen suffer from? Is it worth getting a cheap GPU just to drive a small 2nd display?
Considering most internet or toolbars are CPU intensive, i wouldn't call it much of a performance hit at all, especially in your case as your running a GTX295.
