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Affordable gfx card that can run three monitors

As I'm working on my new film in Cinema 4d with my dual monitor setup I always find myself having to open a new window to access the Content Browser, Picture viewer and Render settings- I know you can put them on tabs but with my animation layout I try to avoid tabs- so I figured the only solution would be to run three monitors as I'd also like to avoid having to load a different layout to render out shots and watch render previews in the picture viewer.

I've had graphics cards with 3 outputs in the past, usually a mixture of DVI, HDMI, and Display Port or all three BUT they could only run two at a time...

Then this week I found this little $89 gem by Asus, the Asus HD 6670
It can run three monitors, its only $89 - $99, its a lower power card (doesn't even need any power plugged into it), its very quiet, and it has really good Open GL performance-  its a big upgrade to from old Ati 4870 card that I've been using up until now- My Cinebench Open GL score went from 26fps with my old card to 56fps with this one.

I did my first workday today with three monitors and it allows me to work faster and its more fun

So on the monitor to the left I have the Content Browser, Picture Viewer, and Render settings on their own tabs. On the middle monitor I have the viewport, attribute manager and visual selector. On the monitor to the right I have the layer manager, object manager, and timeline/f-curves.

It's also useful when editing with Premiere Pro

I have my bins on the left, source monitor + timeline in the center and output monitor on the right.

So if you need a new graphics card and you don't care about having the fastest/most expensive card and want to run three monitors check out the Asus HD 6670- I got mine at Frys where it was on sale for $89. I should mention even though it is relatively inexpensive it performs really well.

It has DVI, HDMI, and Display Port outputs AND if you want to run three monitors and want to connect the display port to a DVI monitor you must get an ACTIVE display port to DVI adapter- it won't work with a passive one- so make sure the adapter says its active. I got this one from Amazon.

When you're spending thousands of hours working in front of your PC like me even small workflow enhancements like this can save you a lot of time in the long run. 

Comments

  1. Thats gota save time with workflow

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  2. Can't believe the price of that graphics card, Mdot. Amazing. Beautiful set up you have there.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sweet setup. What monitors do you use? What monitors would you get if you were building a workstation today? Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have three different monitors- an ancient Apple 23" LCD, a 24" BenQ, and a 20 inch Asus LCD- hmmm if I we're to buy them today- I'd go for 2-3 24" LED monitors- there's some nice Asus and Dell ones that are not that expensive- I'd hope to not pay more than $600 for each- So I'd go for multiple 20"+ ones ideally 22" or 24" and LED not Lcd

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    2. All right, thanks for the lowdown Mdot! On the C4D Cafe forum, user Decade also recommends a 24" Dell (UltraSharp U2412M) as the same used in Apple Cinema displays but with a matt finish, so I will definitely check them out. The 23" UltraSharp looks like the best value, although its 16:9 rather than 16:10 in aspect ratio (1920x1080 vs. 1920x1200 resolution).

      Delete

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