Angus Higgins
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Posted by Angus // Sun, Mar 26, 2006 7:20 AM
Recently I was purchasing a joystick at my local computer store; I was talking to the guy at the counter about how I was using a dual monitor system in Flight Simulator and that I was hoping to upgrade to a triple monitor system by adding the new monitor to a new PCI grpahics card. He responded to this by telling me that inserting and installing the PCI grpahics card would disable the primary AGP graphics card that I currently use.
My questions are:
1) Is this true, I am sure I have seen places where they have had both AGP and PCI grpahics cards running in the same system?
2) Also, if I could set up a PCI graphics card with my AGP graphics card, could anyone suggest one that would be good for just normal activities such as web browsing etc. that has been reliable and not broken down? (This is because my AGP primary graphics card has given me loads of problems and wasted me both time and money)
Thanks in advance
Angus Higgins
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This is not true, it helps though if both cards are from the same chip manufacturer (ATI/NVidia/Matrox).
Try getting a Matrox Parhelia second hand, they are capable of tripple monitor support. I've got one lying around here which I don't plan to use anymore... AGP. But don't expect recent games to run smoothly on it.
You could also try out http://www.matrox.com/graphics/offhome/gxm.cfm, which should work with any recent video card that supports high resolutions.
Peter
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I've ran dual monitors with an Nvidia AGP card + S3 PCI card under both Windows NT and GNU/Linux with no problems.
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W3bbo
Long Haired Freaky Person
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 | Angus wrote:
. He responded to this by telling me that inserting and installing the PCI grpahics card would disable the primary AGP graphics card that I currently use. |
The guy is underqualified and should NOT be working at a computer shop, telling people what to do.
My setup has a single AGP card and a single PCI card, contrary to what he thinks.
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Yeah, thanks for those replies; I did think that he was wrong, but decided not to tell him what I thought because the shop is a very good one if you need something fast as it is very close to my house.
Angus Higgins
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matrix millenium (pci) ati all in wonder (pci) saphire radeon (pci express) is what i have installed - although the saphire supports 2 (so i could have 4 with one more monitor
my question still wasnt answered from other thread in regards to Vista Aero: So assume Aero is ok with saphire card - so i could have it on 2 monitors. Now lets say i want more than 2 monitors - but there is only one pci express slot - and no agp.
I doubt there are any pci video cards good enough to run aero - so literally - you cant run aero on any more than 2 monitors - even if you wanted to buy another great card?
*if true chalk up one more thing vista limits - that xp lets you do
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Minh
Does this make my head look fat?
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| jamie wrote:
I doubt there are any pci video cards good enough to run aero - so literally - you cant run aero on any more than 2 monitors - even if you wanted to buy another great card? |
Yep. That's the case. I'm quite sure there are no DX9-level PCI card. Maybe it's time to shop for a new motherboard.
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do they even have motherboards with 2 pci xpress slots? i dont remember ever seeing a MB with 2 agp slots...
* below - under Expansion - does that mean i can buy something to support another card?
heres my MB:
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Intel® Desktop Board D925XECV2 supports the Intel® Pentium 4 Processor supporting Hyper-Threading Technology† in the LGA775 package (including processors with Intel® EM64TΦ), and features PCI Express* x16, DDR2 memory, Intel® Matrix Storage Technology, Gigabit LAN, and Intel® High Definition Audio for your extreme performance needs. |
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| Intel® Desktop Board D925XECV2 Features |
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| Features |
Benefits |
| Form Factor |
ATX (12.00 inches by 9.60 inches [304.80 mm by 243.84 mm]) |
| Processor |
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| Memory |
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Four 240-pin DDR2 SDRAM DIMM sockets |
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Support for DDR2 533 MHz and DDR2 400 MHz DIMMs |
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Support for up to 4 GB of system memory | |
| Chipset |
Intel® 925XE Chipset |
| I/O Control |
LPC Bus I/O controller |
| Audio |
Intel® High Definition Audio subsystem |
| Video |
One PCI Express* x16 bus add-in card connector supporting PCI Express* x16 graphics cards |
| LAN Support |
Gigabit (10/100/1000 Mbits/sec) LAN subsystem using the Marvell* Yukon* 88E8050 PCI Express* Gigabit Ethernet Controller |
| Peripheral Interfaces |
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Eight USB 2.0 ports |
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One serial port |
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One parallel port |
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Four Serial ATA interfaces |
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One parallel ATA IDE interface with UDMA 33, ATA-66/100 support |
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One diskette drive interface |
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PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports | |
| Expansion Capabilities |
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Four PCI Conventional* bus add-in card connectors (SMBus routed to PCI Conventional* bus connector 2) |
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Two PCI Express* x1 bus add-in card connectors |
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One PCI Express* x16 bus add-in card connector | |
| Technologies |
Intel® Precision Cooling Technology | | |
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| jamie wrote:
I doubt there are any pci video cards good enough to run aero - so literally - you cant run aero on any more than 2 monitors - even if you wanted to buy another great card? |
If any of those cards is not up to DX9, you won't have Aero Glass. That easy.
| jamie wrote:
*if true chalk up one more thing vista limits - that xp lets you do |
XP doesn't let you run Aero Glass.
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Minh
Does this make my head look fat?
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| jamie wrote:
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Two PCI Express* x1 bus add-in card connectors |
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One PCI Express* x16 bus add-in card connector |
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I believe your video card plugs into the PCIe x16 slot -- of which there's only one. The PCIe x1 -- I don't think -- are for videos as it's too slow.
So, with this particular mobo config, you can only plug in one PCIe video card.
edit:
Found this one w/ 2 PCIe x16 slots. $200. Check compatibility w/ your current hardware if you decide to buy, though,
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W3bbo
Long Haired Freaky Person
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| Minh wrote:
Yep. That's the case. I'm quite sure there are no DX9-level PCI card. Maybe it's time to shop for a new motherboard. |
There are, they're just really slow  (Don't expect anything faster than an nVidia 6200)
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Minh
Does this make my head look fat?
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| W3bbo wrote:
| Minh wrote:
Yep. That's the case. I'm quite sure there are no DX9-level PCI card. Maybe it's time to shop for a new motherboard. |
There are, they're just really slow (Don't expect anything faster than an nVidia 6200)
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I don't know about that. To be DX9 compat, you gotta support Pixel Shader 2.0. I don't know when they stopped making PCI video cards, but PS 2.0 didn't come out that long ago.
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| PaoloM wrote:
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jamie wrote:
*if true chalk up one more thing vista limits - that xp lets you do |
XP doesn't let you run Aero Glass. |
..xp lets me run 4 monitors - no fuss. vista - on the other hand requires a specialty MB - to do the same thing using aero.
hmm - not a whole lot of MBs around with more than one pci express slot - although they do exist... so many multiple monitor (2+) - users will have to run vista without aero = 
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