Graphics 4 monitor support, will it work?

Hello friends,
Just wondering if there was any reason using 4 monitors wouldnt work?

I would use 2 dual head cards (Nvidia cards, probable 6600s). I hope to have two idenical pci-e 6600s so that i can run them in SLI for gaming, when i wont be using 4 monitors.

However i might end up using 1 AGP card and one PCI card. This would still work though right?

Thanks for the help.

 

This is how I understand the situation:

Works:
2 x PCIe (NON SLI)
1 x AGP + 1 x PCI
1 x AGP + 1 x PCIe (I'm not 100% sure about this one)

I don't think you can run SLI and 4 monitors at the same time. You'll have to disable SLI to use both outputs of both cards. The agp + pci solution will work, but you'll basically be limited by the speed of your pci card...which won't be great (at all). I know they make AGP + PCIe boards, but I don't know if both slots can be used at the same time. I have a suspicion that they don't, but it is possible. You best option in this case would be to go for 2 x PCIe. You'll have the option to run SLI if you no longer need 4 monitor support, and you'll have the capability of running all the card's video outputs. 6600gts are pretty cheap nowadays, the real limiting factor will be whether you want to upgrade your cpu-mobo-ram.

 

I'll explain this as best I can, as they make it nice and confusing.

When you're using two cards in SLI mode, only one monitor can be active. When you've got two cards NOT in SLI (only needs to be at the driver level), all four ports are active. So if you either go into the CP or perhaps assign a hotkey to en/disable SLI before and after gaming, you can get the speed and the virtual real estate. However you still can't do both at once, and considering how long SLI's been around, I'm questioning whether it'll ever be possible.

If you're using an AGP board, you can use all four monitors (provide you add a dual-head PCI card in), but of course you've only got one card rendering in 3d, so it won't be as fast. The PCI card should do no 3d rendering at all, so its speed is irrelavent.

But dual PCIE is the best option, easily. Aside from SLI being an option, it's not a legacy tech.

 

Yea ok thats what I thought. I will be getting two PCI-E 6600s. I understand that SLI is for just 1 monitor. I just needed to make sure that there wasnt something i was missing about running 4 monitors at once.

Thank you for the replies