4 port out video card?

[Airbozo]

I know matrox sells a 4 out video card.

Are there any more out there?


EDIT: Forgot to mention it needs to have linux support...

[Luke122]

I was going to suggest the Matrox also.. If you need a single slot solution, I can look around a bit, but I dont know of any off hand.

There's always the "dual head 2 go" setup.. two of those + a dual display card = 4 monitors from 1 pci-e slot (or agp slot).

[progbuddy]

They make a Radeon 4850 X2 that has 4 DVI-outs.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102809

As far as I know, the Radeon series (except for the 9200 IGP for some reason) has great linux support. Never had a hitch running my 4870 in Ubuntu.

[Airbozo]

ATI has great linux support, but I need a 1 slot solution. The rest of the system is stuffed.


...

[Zephik]

Would a DMS cable work?

http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/644/dms.png

[Airbozo]

Would a DMS cable work?

http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/644/dms.png

Not sure I have seen this before except on a quadro card... Then only one per card.

But yes it would work so long as I can get 4 separate images.

I found out the reason that Matrox is out of the running; No Linux OpenGL support. Which is odd since OpenGL was originally developed on IRIX, SGI's UNIX OS.

[x88x]

DMS cables require a DMS port on the card (it's basically two DVI ports jammed together). There are several possible options, though if you need single slot, they're all pretty expensive. You'll have the most luck looking at workstation cards, because that's more often where you'll find people wanting lots of monitors and not caring about GPU power. I found a few solutions with a quick look at NewEgg:
4xDVI Geforce 8400 PCI: $200 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814139047)
4xDVI FireMV 2400 PCI: $370 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814195040)
4xDVI FirePro 2450 PCIe x16: $410 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814195086)
4xDVI Quadro4 NVS420 PCIe x1: $435 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133260)
4xDisplayPort Quadro4 NVS420: PCIe x16: $420 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133259)
4xDisplayPort Quadro4 NVS420: PCIe x1: $440 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133261)

Point being; unless money is no object, I'd consider if it might be better to consolidate some of the other cards in your system (if possible) and get the dual-slot 4850X2 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102809).

EDIT: I just remembered about this, but another option you might want to look at, assuming you don't need to do anything at all graphics intensive on the additional displays, you could use one of these:
USB->DVI (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815136002)
USB->VGA (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815118301)

Looks like they both support up to 1600x1200 or 1680x1050, though I have no clue what their Linux driver support is like.

[Airbozo]

Not able to consolidate any of the other cards as they are extremely unique (xray frame grabbers and robotics control cards).

The firepro 2450 and quadro 420 x16 look exactly what we are looking for. Not that cost isn't an option, but lets just say the memory in this system costs more than any of those graphics cards...combined...

Thanks!

[x88x]

Haha, ok, fair enough. I was thinking this was for a home system :D Good to know one of those was useful though.

[Airbozo]

Haha, ok, fair enough. I was thinking this was for a home system :D Good to know one of those was useful though.

Since it is for work, I owe you (rather my sales guy owes you since it is his client...). Got a wish list?

[SgtM]

I'll take a look at the ones we at work when I go in tonight. Might be the matrox cards though.

[progbuddy]

I'll take a look at the ones we at work when I go in tonight. Might be the matrox cards though.

Yeah. Matrox makes nice workstation cards. Just keep in mind that plastic fin/hydrofoil thing on the end of the card.

[x88x]

Since it is for work, I owe you (rather my sales guy owes you since it is his client...). Got a wish list?

Heheh, nah, the rep's enough :D I actually found out about most of those a couple weeks ago when I was contemplating a quad-head card for my home system (ended up deciding not to b/c of space restrictions).

[Airbozo]

The funny thing is that we have contacted several of our vendors and they all say there is no such beast except the Matrox solution (no linux opengl support) and 9xMedia (which is not what the customer wants).

I just Knew that nVidia and ATI had a solution so thanks for finding the cards. It looks like they will go with the Quadro NVS420 or NVS450 (which has fanless cooling), since they currently use an 8500gt in that box. It is 10 times the cost of the 8500gt, but cheaper than they expected. (they buy other quadro cards for $1800)

EDIT: btw, the nvs420 has an adapter that gives you 4 dvi outs instead of the display port connections.

[x88x]

That's really odd that your vendors didn't know about them...though it makes me wonder if perhaps it's not that they didn't know about them, just that they don't stock them....but on the other hand, the only corporate vendor I've ever dealt with (PCConnection) seemed to have pretty incompetent salespeople, so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised :think:

[SgtM]

Sorry I didn't get a chance to post back yesterday.. but yeah, we use the Matrox cards.