UPDATE. New card in, new monitors setup, looking awesome! Pics below.

UPDATE. Card was DOA, have to ship back and ordered a Radeon HD 6870 instead. The new monitor is fantastic though so that is a keeper atleast. Will post pics as soon as new card comes in (hopefully by Saturday).

As I await for my new 24 LED slim monitors and Radeon HD 5830 video card to be delivered I thought itd be fun to share some of the recent debate and excitement over making the decision to upgrade to three monitors versus the dual setup I currently use.

For me, my history with different multi-monitor and computer solutions has been hit and miss. Ive used a traditional dual monitor setup, triple monitor setup (hardware issues ended that party though quickly), a laptop + 1 external alongside a dual monitor setup to get four monitors, and even two PCs with two monitors to also obtain four monitors. In the end having one computer was the most energy efficient and simple way to go for a trade station.

IMAGE 1: Triple monitor setup (three 24 LED monitors) with thinkorswim running.

IMAGE 2: Triple monitor setup (three 24 LED monitors) with wide-screen HD background.

I hated having to boot up two separate computers (on two separate OSs) and manage my laptop alongside PC, keyboards, mice, sound, screens, blah blah So, being the part computer geek I am I decided to build a custom rig that could handle future expansion. My custom computer specs *build took place Jan 2009*:

• Dual 22 Acer LCD Monitors (Now 3 ASUS LED HD 24 Monitors)
• Thermaltake Armor Aluminum / Steel Case
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor
• CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) RAM
• Seagate 500 GB Hard Drive 7200 RPM
• ASUS P5Q-E LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
• Antec 850W Modular Power Supply 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified
• XFX GeForce 9800 GTX+ XXX PCI Express 2.0 (Now a Radeon HD 6870)

Long story short after numerous hours of research what I am doing is upgrading my video card to an ATI based card versus Nvidea. Since my mobo has two PCI express slots I can buy another graphics card to run a maximum of 6 monitors total. This setup also supports CrossfireX which means run both cards in Crossfire mode for EyeFinity technology (basically gaming with max graphics across 3 monitors).

I havent quite figured out how I will use my new 24 screens real estate but I am sure by the end of the week the 24 monitor will be completely accounted for .

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