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[Cortexian]

Or he can get sandy bridge which supports up to quad channel where as ivy bridge only supports dual.

Since when? IB is the yet to be released chips for socket 2011.

Either way, going with Ivy would probably net you better performance.

[InnerGoat]

w hat

Ivy Bridge, like Sandy Bridge, is for socket 1155

IVB-E and SB-E are for s2011

[InnerGoat]

Can someone tell me if this Lucid Virtu stuff would allow me to run three monitors with one Nvidia card + the 2500-2700k's GPU? I only actually use two monitors at my desk, but I have my TV connected as well that I frequently run XBMC on to watch movies. I'm considering building a new computer and I really don't want to get another AMD GPU (ever again) just for Eyefinity.

No and yes. You don't need any of the Lucid stuff installed to do what you want. Just install Intel's GPU driver and your Nvidia driver as usual, that's it. I'm running two displays off of a GTX570 and the third off the onboard Intel GPU. Some motherboards have two outputs so you can drive 4 displays if you wanted to.

[=sw=warlord]

w hat

Ivy Bridge, like Sandy Bridge, is for socket 1155

IVB-E and SB-E are for s2011

Ah I've not seen any info about IB-E yet that's where my comment was coming from.

[Cortexian]

Yeah, what I meant is that the 2011 socket processors support quad-channel memory.

else wtf

[Warsaw]

Since when? IB is the yet to be released chips for socket 2011.

Either way, going with Ivy would probably net you better performance.

Ivy Bridge is the drop-in upgrade for owners of Z68 or the up-coming IVB-specific chipsets. It does not support quad-channel memory or feature a full compliment of PCIe lanes. Performance is also likely to be a marginal upgrade to Sandy Bridge; the main focus of Ivy is to get the power-performance ratio to an all time low. It might net better performance per clock than SNB-E, but then I can always drop in an IVB-E CPU later if it turns out that the computing difference is all that great. And I doubt it will be.

As for IVB-E, it's essentially just a die-shrink of SNB-E, allowing for better performance per watt. Probably also add native support for USB 3.0 in a chipset revision. Since SNB-E already has PCI-E 3.0, it's hardly that different.

[king_nothing_]

No and yes. You don't need any of the Lucid stuff installed to do what you want. Just install Intel's GPU driver and your Nvidia driver as usual, that's it. I'm running two displays off of a GTX570 and the third off the onboard Intel GPU. Some motherboards have two outputs so you can drive 4 displays if you wanted to.

Ah, good deal, thanks.

[Zeph]

I'm going to be getting two 24" ultrasharps some time next week and placing an order for a 24" Cintiq. The Cintiq is going to eat up a huge portion of my desk so I'd like to have some adjustable arms for the ultrasharps to make best use of space at any time. It can't be wall mounted and needs the ability to reach negative elevation. I also want them to be able to rotate into portrait mode from landscape. Here are some screens roughing out my desk.


It's an odd desk considering tech nowadays, but the original idea on the desk was that the tower went in the thing in the middle and the monitor (crt era) went on the stand up top. Left and right were shelves for books, notes, etc. that have been cannibalized for other parts of my room. Now, I have a small subwoofer on the lower rack and use the upper rack as a leg rest.

I got away with using this desk over the past four/five years because the hole in front of the "monitor area" gave my laptop amazing ventilation.


Here's what's on there now that needs to be worked around. Big thing is my tower and the gray is length/width of my keyboard. I'm right handed so the space on the inside right of the keyboard is mouse space.


This, unfortunately, is the footprint and face space of a 24" cintiq on my desk. It's too large to be centered and pushing it to the right is cutting into my mouse space. Until I get it, I can't even be sure if my keyboard will fit underneath it (Logitech G510). I've never really used that side of my desk other than for trash and a lamp. I'll have to find a new source of light for the desk when I get the cintiq.




This is the rough eye level of the ultrasharps I want. It wouldn't be possible without adjustable monitor arms. The blue circled area is where I usually have a center channel speaker for 5.1. I'd like to keep that there if possible.

Any suggestion on what to buy for monitor arms or another arrangement?

[Cortexian]

If that desk is actually in a corner with walls behind the tower and second monitor you could just get two adjustable wall-mounts for the monitors. The ones that let you push/pull/tilt/rotate would be perfect.

[Zeph]

Not in a corner. Left side of the desk is flush against a wall and there's about a me-sized gap between the right side and another wall. I'll have to mount the arms on the desk itself.