It says something about my finances...

[wolfwings]

...when I can honestly entertain the idea of buying the hardware to hook up 7 external monitors to my laptop.

Hell, the key is is a useful combination for many desktop users if you don't want to deal with slapping down multiple video cards and the hastles that entails: Six screens, one card.

PNY's Quadro FX570 has two Dual-link DVI ports.

Not that useful by itself, but Matrox makes the wonderful TripleHead2Go Digital Edition that takes one DVI-DL input, and splits it out into three DVI-D outputs. DVI-DL's limitations prevent using anything higher than three 1680x1050 screens, you're stuck with only two outputs if you run at 1920x1200.

So you'd end up with six 1680x1050 screens driven by one video card. In my laptop's case, that card would go into the Advanced Dock which also reveals a DVI-D connector powered by the on-board video card on the laptop. Which happens to also be an FX 570, albeit the Mobile version.

So in theory I'd be staring down (at a limit) two 1920x1200 screens (the laptop's internal 15.4" screens and one external) and six 1680x1050 screens when hooked into the docking station, all digitally driven end-to-end. Would cost about $1000, which isn't that bad a total cost as far as I can tell for driving six screens digitally.

Comments

[degaetus.livejournal.com]

There're many consumer-grade video cards supporting dual dual-link DVI connections, that's not incredibly new. If you wanna do this on the cheap, here ya go: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143150

Yeah... the video card isn't the big deal.

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

Except for use in a Laptop docking station, most of them have x16 ports inside now, but only wire them up for x1 internally. (Which is valid per the PCI Express spec.) However, most newer high-end video cards refuse to actually operate correctly or at all if they don't detect a full x16 PCI Express port. That PNY card is one of the few that does, and it happens to be the exact same chipset as the video card built into my laptop which is also useful from a driver standpoint.

Re: Yeah... the video card isn't the big deal.

[degaetus.livejournal.com]

Ah. That makes sense, then. I was only speaking from a price-point perspective. Why let friends fleece themselves? ;)

[qdot.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I did 5 monitors on a G5 tower a few years ago.

It was so damn sexy.

Yeah...

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

...but run off of a 15.4" laptop that gets 3-5 hours battery life undocked? =^.^=

I'll likely never blow that kind of cash unless I decide to go to school for art or something, but it's still sorely tempting just on the Geek Scale.

[chaoswolf]

*Poke* Just wondering what happened.