[OT] computer monitor recommendations

Though with some cards the required resolution appears not to be available but becomes so when the monitor's driver is installed. I met this with a Samsung monitor with (I think still fairly rare) 2048x1152 native resolution.

I am not so sure you can, but you can always turn sli/crossfire off and run them as separate cards. In sli/crossfire the workload is spread across the cards but still goes out on the one card afaik. I haven't tried it so I will yield if someone has done it.

Thanks for all the replies so far. I did use two screen set-up once and it was very useful. Now I am confused: do I go for two 4:3 screens or 1 wide screen one... or two wide screen ones!

Don't most monitors tell most graphics cards what they can support these days?

or even one of each...

I expect that a wide centre and a pair of 4:3 either side could be good ;-)

screen sitting around spare...

However it can be disconcerting if things change size as you drag them from one screen to another. So same physical height and same number of pixels vertically is recommended (though I manage with three different heights and numbers of pixels).

Yup, I found a 23" CRT beside a 20.4" TFT worked really well at

They do, but that's no guarantee the card can deliver it.

No for that you need two monitors.

Of course there is no such guarantee. But as I understand, there is also rarely any need for software monitor "drivers" just to identify to the driver what the monitor could support if sent the right stream. And I was surprised that Robin seemed to have found a case where such was necessary.

And it can be very useful if at least one of the monitors can rotate 90 degrees to allow portrait or landscape mode - depending on document design.

That is one advantage of the edge 10 IIRC

Well it was Ubuntu which I had rarely touched (and don't think I've touched since)

ISTR that Terry Pratchett has either 4 or 6 on his desk; I forget which.

I have used two, but now that I have a 24" one, I use one with 4 switchable desktops (compiz).

There's another one in the bedroom with a separate keyboard/mouse/audio for occasional use (a SunRay, for those in the know).

I bought a new one about 18 months ago. I had had a very good (for its day) 1600x1200 LCD HP monitor, but at 5 years old, it had got a fair amount of screen burn from a window manager I no longer use, resulting in an old ghost on the screen. Also, it would not run properly at a PC BIOS's 24x80 resolution which was a pain on rare occasions I needed to get into the BIOS.

My requirements were at least as high resolution as the HP one, and at least the same screen height. I would have been happy with another 1600x1200, but 4:3 monitors no longer exist, so I was pushed up to 1900x1200, and 24" to keep at least same screen height.

When you go over 1080 vertical, there's a price hike as these are manufactured for monitors only, whereas 1080 screens are made for HDTV too, which makes them cheaper in volume.

There were also two different response rates - one is high response for gaming with fast movement without blurring, and the other is slower response for normal computer use. I don't do gaming, so the slower response was fine. I think the slower response has a higher contrast ratio, but this sort of thing may have changed 18 months on.

So I went for a Sansung 2443, which is of course obsolete now, but it's been fine. Went to see it in operation in Novatech, and then bought it from them.

In message , Andrew Gabriel writes

ISTR it was 4 up and 4 down

Until recently, I had two sets of three computers on KVM switches with twin monitors

You can still get them:

Yup I got one of those to replace my CRT. There were surprisingly few available at the time that could do 1200 vertical (still not that many now!)

Ah - this is a single computer but 4 desktops you can drag things between all on the same login session. No KVM.