triple head question...?

[jetsaredim]

I'm planning on upgrading my monitor setup from two laptops on either side of my desktop 24" to either two or three 24" monitors (ASUS VW246H). I'm currently "rocking" a SFF Dell Optiplex system, so my options are rather limited as to size. I was considering investing in a new beefy desktop to go along with a really nice video card, but it seems like overkill at this point. My current plan, if this would actually work, would be to use an ASUS ENGT220 (GeForce GT 220) card and use all three of the outputs - one to each monitor. So, the questions are:

1 - Will this even work? I've previously done TwinView with VGA+DVI on older 21" CRTs, but can the card support using all three interfaces at once for one large TwinView (TripleView?) screen?
2 - Will I need a bigger power supply in the system than the stock Dell PSU?

I'm not really a gamer, mostly just code/development work. I might start to do more gaming once Steam is released next year, but for now, I'm leaving that alone.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[deanjo]

I'm planning on upgrading my monitor setup from two laptops on either side of my desktop 24" to either two or three 24" monitors (ASUS VW246H). I'm currently "rocking" a SFF Dell Optiplex system, so my options are rather limited as to size. I was considering investing in a new beefy desktop to go along with a really nice video card, but it seems like overkill at this point. My current plan, if this would actually work, would be to use an ASUS ENGT220 (GeForce GT 220) card and use all three of the outputs - one to each monitor. So, the questions are:

1 - Will this even work? I've previously done TwinView with VGA+DVI on older 21" CRTs, but can the card support using all three interfaces at once for one large TwinView (TripleView?) screen?
2 - Will I need a bigger power supply in the system than the stock Dell PSU?

I'm not really a gamer, mostly just code/development work. I might start to do more gaming once Steam is released next year, but for now, I'm leaving that alone.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

No it will not work, you cannot use 3 outputs at the same time with that card but any combination of the two outputs.

[jetsaredim]

What prevents it? Not that I don't believe you, but just so I know what to not look for in a card. Do you know of any low-profile cards that can do a triple monitor setup?

[curaga]

It so happens only some AMD and Matrox cards can do more than two heads per card currently.

The tech side is something about only two CRTCs despite having three outputs, someone else will probably know more.

[chithanh]

All Radeon 5000 series cards which have a DisplayPort output can output to three monitors. One of the monitors needs to be native DisplayPort or has to be connected via an active adapter (which costs around 30 USD nowadays).

Some NVidia dual-GPU cards such as the dual-PCB Geforce GTX 295 can drive three monitors as well. But they don't come in low profile variants.