First Thread Re Basic Spec for Multi Monitors - Thanks for Help

Hello Everyone

I look forward to learning more about flight simulation capable hardware, but in the meantime, I thought some of the experts here could help me with a simpler problem as I set up a new office.

If my primary concern for a business computer is operating in a multi screen environment, are there any reasonably priced, off the shelf, readily available PCs that you would recommend?

Or can I buy a basic off the shelf PC, downgrade to XP and simply add a video card or two to get 4 or more monitors working?

(It is amazing to me that most people give you a blank or incredulous stare when you tell them you want to use 4 or more monitors.)

It may never be more than 4, but I would like to start with 4. Dell has quoted me on some pricey "workstations" which probably do rendering and graphics and/or gaming with more power and sophistication than I need for these machines.

For these machines, I only need to open and run multiple applications across multiple windows, which I am trying to do as inexpensively as possible.

I am assuming XP will be better than Vista, which is fine.....some of you may be familiar with Bloomberg, which will be our main application and apparently is not so bandwidth or memory intensive.

Finally, should I care about HDMI or other inputs on the multiple monitors? Or can I save a lot of cash on less expensive monitors?

Now, for my own, personal machine at home....that will be different, and I look forward to learning more here.

Thank you.

Vista will work with multi monitors, just need two dual head graphics cards. If you can specify the PC, you would be better off with multiple PCIe ports as PCIe cards are more readilly available than straight PCI cards. I bought a PCI card but it turned out that it would only run monitor despite it having 2 output ports! No problem because my need is only 3 monitors.

To add to what Ian said,

I'm running six monitors off three NVidia 7600GS cards from way back when. These cards are cheap, offer true dual-monitor support (both on at the same time for each card) and work flawlessly in Windows XP. You should be able to find them cheaply on eBay as well.

use maxivista program ! you can connect as much as you want you need an extra pc and LAN then you got four monitors controlled by one pc :D

What about wideview? Not using it but it does sound interesting!