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usb video card for non-game stuff?Follow

#1 Sep 05 2013 at 7:01 AM Rating: Decent
I'm looking for a usb video card to drive my 4th monitor while I'm playing the game. I was playing single after my one video card fried, but now that i've replaced it im back to tri screen sli. However it's nice to be able to throw up a video or something while you're playing, or have a web page up.

So has anyone had a good experience with a usb video card? I'm looking to go to vga at 1920x1200, and preferably be under $100. It needs to be compatible with windows 8 x64 and be usb 2.0.

Thank you

Edited, Sep 5th 2013 9:02am by PocketHockey
#2 Sep 05 2013 at 7:16 AM Rating: Decent
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4,511 posts
Pretty sure what you're trying to do with it is an indication of you frying yet another card soon...

It will run pretty hot just from XIV alone, so unless you're running a secret govermental NSA-spec'd super computer i'd just go the one screen route and have a laptop on hand next to you for browsing and/or movies. You wouldnt need more than that really.

Heavy card-intensive game + browsers + HD Video playing = overstressing your computer.
____________________________
[XI] Surivere of Valefor
[XIV] Sir Surian Bedivere of Behemoth
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#3 Sep 05 2013 at 7:27 AM Rating: Decent
My cpu is at 30% at best when both cards are at 100%, I'm not sure how adding an external video card to drive a 4th display would put the video cards at greater risk. They're made to be worked, why get a high end video card if you don't use it, and why have the SLI option if it fries cards?

I don't know if I'd call it NSA spec'd super computer, it's a simple intel i7 950 with 12gb ram and dual gtx 580's in SLI, output to 3 28" 1920x1200 monitors.
http://i.imgur.com/xIbZ0ra.jpg

However since my case is a microatx case with microatx board, i don't have space to add another video card internally, so I was looking to drive a 4th monitor with a usb card, however I've read a lot of mixed reviews, so I was hoping to hear from someone who had tried it.
http://i.imgur.com/udzPS8c.jpg

#4 Sep 05 2013 at 7:56 AM Rating: Decent
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62 posts
PocketHockey wrote:
My cpu is at 30% at best when both cards are at 100%, I'm not sure how adding an external video card to drive a 4th display would put the video cards at greater risk. They're made to be worked, why get a high end video card if you don't use it, and why have the SLI option if it fries cards?

I don't know if I'd call it NSA spec'd super computer, it's a simple intel i7 950 with 12gb ram and dual gtx 580's in SLI, output to 3 28" 1920x1200 monitors.
http://i.imgur.com/xIbZ0ra.jpg

However since my case is a microatx case with microatx board, i don't have space to add another video card internally, so I was looking to drive a 4th monitor with a usb card, however I've read a lot of mixed reviews, so I was hoping to hear from someone who had tried it.
http://i.imgur.com/udzPS8c.jpg


hey bud. sounds to me like your just straight up overheating. try undervolting your videocard and cpu as low as you can while not reducing performance too greatly. It will decrease your heat, but also your power bill. not by much, but it helps.
Also. i know it's nice to have a super tiny, super computer. but alas, when it comes to cooling, bigger is always going to be better in my opinion.... (and science's i think too.) ;)
with a bigger case, you can load in more fans or even liquid cooling if you don't have that. also, a bigger case will allow for heat to dissipate further from the main components that your trying to cool, before leaving the case itself. board size doesnt matter for cooling as far as i see it though. it's not your board that gets hot, but you probably knew that.
get a better cooling fan if you cannot upgrade the casing. if that cannot be done either, due to size restraints. try dremel tooling a new slot for a auxillary fan to increase airflow. and other than that, make sure to re apply cooling past to the underside of your heatsinks every year or so. i find it help tons.
oh.... and get rid of any dust buildup. dust is the devil.

edit- from looking at the photo supplied of your game running. i would also like to add, to decreasing any anti aliasing and other graphical extra's until you find a "happy place" in your temp range. then work up from there. I know it's nice to be able to play games at highest graphics capable, but just because it CAN run it at Max, doesn't mean it should be run at Max. I could speculate more, but anything i say isn't going to be truly helpful till i can see more detailed specs as to what your running. and even background programs in some cases. Fraps for example, while being used to figure out FPS of a game, also slows stuff down, and i found contributed to a heating issue in my gpu a few years back. got rid of Fraps and the issue practically dissapeared.)

Edited, Sep 5th 2013 10:00am by YggdrasilSlepnir
#5 Sep 05 2013 at 8:00 AM Rating: Good
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2,550 posts
4 monitors? 4?

I use 2 at work and am able to accomplish work significantly faster than if I used one. But I have never found myself in a position where I would need 3. 4? That's just, why? Smiley: dubious

-Edit: Ok I saw your pics, that looks prety cool. Didn't know you could do that. Might as well make and octogon and get a swively chair so you can do the 360 thing Smiley: tongue

Edited, Sep 5th 2013 9:01am by Valkayree
#6 Sep 05 2013 at 8:01 AM Rating: Decent
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62 posts
Valkayree wrote:
4 monitors? 4?

I use 2 at work and am able to accomplish work significantly faster than if I used one. But I have never found myself in a position where I would need 3. 4? That's just, why? Smiley: dubious



I would speculate that the reason has to do with having everything right in front of you, instead of having to use multiple machines. plus it looks cool. i say cool, cause i don't think it looks nice, but it is cool.
#7 Sep 05 2013 at 8:02 AM Rating: Good
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2,550 posts
YggdrasilSlepnir wrote:
Valkayree wrote:
4 monitors? 4?

I use 2 at work and am able to accomplish work significantly faster than if I used one. But I have never found myself in a position where I would need 3. 4? That's just, why? Smiley: dubious



I would speculate that the reason has to do with having everything right in front of you, instead of having to use multiple machines. plus it looks cool. i say cool, cause i don't think it looks nice, but it is cool.


Yeah, just saw the pics. He needs 8 and a swively chair, seriously. I wonder what that would look like.
#8 Sep 05 2013 at 8:04 AM Rating: Excellent
I could use another monitor for each of the tabs I have open on Mozilla. Wanna talk about heat. This place would be boiling if I did that!
#9 Sep 05 2013 at 8:06 AM Rating: Good
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749 posts
You could always upgrade to sandy/ivy/haswell and drive it with integrated gfx

Kinda shocked tho. . you can't drive 4 screens off the 560? my 7950 can [granted, that's using both mini displayport outs, but there are converters from min displayport to DVI]
#10 Sep 05 2013 at 8:08 AM Rating: Decent
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62 posts
StateAlchemist, Om nom nom... wrote:
I could use another monitor for each of the tabs I have open on Mozilla. Wanna talk about heat. This place would be boiling if I did that!


yup. would be intense, egg frying, steak medium raring heat. provided you don't have your computer properly vented, and the room venting/replenishing cool air as well. seriously people. get your computer's out of the big wooden boxes that you call desks, and give them some damn air.

this isn't directed to you statealchemist, in particular, i just rant..... and ramble. some of it's coherent, but it always comes out when someone says something that triggers it.....
#11 Sep 05 2013 at 8:10 AM Rating: Excellent
seneleron wrote:
You could always upgrade to sandy/ivy/haswell and drive it with integrated gfx

Kinda shocked tho. . you can't drive 4 screens off the 560? my 7950 can [granted, that's using both mini displayport outs, but there are converters from min displayport to DVI]


Iirc the 5xx generation cards were limited to 2 monitors for a single card, 3 monitors in surround or 4 monitors NOT in surround for two cards.
#12 Sep 05 2013 at 8:11 AM Rating: Excellent
YggdrasilSlepnir wrote:
StateAlchemist, Om nom nom... wrote:
I could use another monitor for each of the tabs I have open on Mozilla. Wanna talk about heat. This place would be boiling if I did that!


yup. would be intense, egg frying, steak medium raring heat.


actually this could work...i can just sit bacon in front of me and have it cook on the plate while i play in nothing but my underwear
#13 Sep 05 2013 at 8:13 AM Rating: Decent
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62 posts
seneleron wrote:
You could always upgrade to sandy/ivy/haswell and drive it with integrated gfx

Kinda shocked tho. . you can't drive 4 screens off the 560? my 7950 can [granted, that's using both mini displayport outs, but there are converters from min displayport to DVI]


Intel integrated graphics are terrible in my honest opinion. my mothers laptop can't even play civ 5 properly, and it's spec'd to play it no problem. the only problem is intel on that laptop. I go Amd all the way, every day. better value, and less bugs that i have ever had to deal with. granted amd isn't perfect, but considering i can make an amd computer that is just as powerful as anything intel that can be built by anyone else, for the same cost or less... usually less. i prefer amd.

their new APU's for example, are what is powering this laptop, and it is powerful enough to run the Deus Ex on max while hooked up to my 65" bigscreen led. and it's only a quad core processor with 512 mb of video ram, not including the integrated ram that is shared between cpu and gpu processes on the apu.
#14 Sep 05 2013 at 8:14 AM Rating: Decent
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62 posts
StateAlchemist, Om nom nom... wrote:
YggdrasilSlepnir wrote:
StateAlchemist, Om nom nom... wrote:
I could use another monitor for each of the tabs I have open on Mozilla. Wanna talk about heat. This place would be boiling if I did that!


yup. would be intense, egg frying, steak medium raring heat.


actually this could work...i can just sit bacon in front of me and have it cook on the plate while i play in nothing but my underwear



0.o disturbing
#15 Sep 05 2013 at 8:14 AM Rating: Decent
That 3 monitor setup is sick. How do you do that?

I have 1 7950. Would I be able to run 3 monitors using that or do you have to have 2 monitors for SLI? Is there any other software or hardware I would need?

Thanks!
#16 Sep 05 2013 at 8:16 AM Rating: Decent
I'm not overheating :( I have no heat related problems and monitor my temperatures regularly. My card failed because nvidia cards that get artifacting comes from micro-cracks in the solder used to adhere the chips tot he pcb. You can bake them to "resolder" everything, but it doesn't always work. My initial card failed 2 years ago, I just hadn't gotten around to replacing it until recently.

My problem comes from not having enough display ports. I don't have room for another internal video card. If I want to use nvidia surround, it takes all of my 2 video cards, I cannot drive a 4th monitor and not have it be wrapped up in a single display. When you enable SLI, the video cards bind together and tell windows you have one single monitor with a resolution that is the combination of all of your displays connected to the cards.

What I'm after is an extra video card. Due to physical limitations of my configuration I can't put another video card in my computer, but I can connect one via usb.

Using nvidia surround, it spans 3 monitors. I have a spare monitor I'm going to mount above my main monitor which I can use for web browsers, or watching tv/movie while playing game. Once you get used to peripheral vision in the game, with large monitors like that, it is hard to give up. It's like you're looking through windows, not looking at monitors. However I don't like tabbing out of game to bring stuff up over top of game, and since I have the monitor, it's not that much work to get it mounted up on top.
#17 Sep 05 2013 at 8:17 AM Rating: Excellent
I have 3 monitors in surround running off of one EVGA GTX 660 Ti FTW+ edition card. I was very happy when the 6xx generation came out supporting nvidia surround on one card, considering my mobo only supports one. xD
#18 Sep 05 2013 at 8:18 AM Rating: Decent
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62 posts
AliraLay wrote:
That 3 monitor setup is sick. How do you do that?

I have 1 7950. Would I be able to run 3 monitors using that or do you have to have 2 monitors for SLI? Is there any other software or hardware I would need?

Thanks!


no sli needed, just a powerful enough gpu and enough ram to handle it all. a good cpu is nice to have as well. but i don't think it's required for using the multi monitor setup. however to play games, the cpu should be as good as possible as well.
i recomend AMD parts. but to each their own.

the video card just needs to have enough outputs, preferably hdmi, dvi, or display port.
#19 Sep 05 2013 at 8:19 AM Rating: Excellent
I guess I should mention that the 6xx generation supports 3 monitor nvidia surround as well as one display port so 3+1 on one card.
#20 Sep 05 2013 at 8:20 AM Rating: Decent
AliraLay wrote:
That 3 monitor setup is sick. How do you do that?

I have 1 7950. Would I be able to run 3 monitors using that or do you have to have 2 monitors for SLI? Is there any other software or hardware I would need?

Thanks!

ATI's are different, they use something called crossfire if you have multiple cards. However, you don't need multiple cards to use ATI's eyefinity, all display ports on the card are available. You could use two, but I think that it centers and it will put your character split betweent he monitors. Ideally you would want 3 identical monitors. You can do it on a single card, and the 7950 should have enough horsepower to drive 3 monitors at high resolution with decent graphics settings.

The end result looks like this:
http://i.imgur.com/F1GESks.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/azzjluw.jpg
#21 Sep 05 2013 at 8:22 AM Rating: Decent
StateAlchemist, Om nom nom... wrote:
I have 3 monitors in surround running off of one EVGA GTX 660 Ti FTW+ edition card. I was very happy when the 6xx generation came out supporting nvidia surround on one card, considering my mobo only supports one. xD

6xx cards were nice that they had all ports available, but I have gtx 580's, which don't. And they work well, I'm not ready to dump a grand in a new card that can outperform 2 580's in SLI. Can't believe they're 2 generations old already....
#22 Sep 05 2013 at 8:27 AM Rating: Good
So.... anyone ever used one of those usb video card things?
#23 Sep 05 2013 at 8:36 AM Rating: Decent
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62 posts
PocketHockey wrote:
So.... anyone ever used one of those usb video card things?



sure, i suppose i can answer your original question...... not really. used the usb video cards i mean. i had one at one point, that was mostly for video capture, but could display as well. it was sufficent. but not for anything above using the internet. 20$ so it wasn't a waste.... much.
#24 Sep 05 2013 at 8:45 AM Rating: Decent
PocketHockey wrote:
AliraLay wrote:
That 3 monitor setup is sick. How do you do that?

I have 1 7950. Would I be able to run 3 monitors using that or do you have to have 2 monitors for SLI? Is there any other software or hardware I would need?

Thanks!

ATI's are different, they use something called crossfire if you have multiple cards. However, you don't need multiple cards to use ATI's eyefinity, all display ports on the card are available. You could use two, but I think that it centers and it will put your character split betweent he monitors. Ideally you would want 3 identical monitors. You can do it on a single card, and the 7950 should have enough horsepower to drive 3 monitors at high resolution with decent graphics settings.

The end result looks like this:
http://i.imgur.com/F1GESks.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/azzjluw.jpg



I have 2 monitors connected now which i'd like to get working before i buy a third. Do you have to use the display port or will 2xdvi 1xhdmi work? Looks like I may have to use the on board mini display port?
#25 Sep 05 2013 at 8:52 AM Rating: Decent
YggdrasilSlepnir wrote:
PocketHockey wrote:
So.... anyone ever used one of those usb video card things?



sure, i suppose i can answer your original question...... not really. used the usb video cards i mean. i had one at one point, that was mostly for video capture, but could display as well. it was sufficent. but not for anything above using the internet. 20$ so it wasn't a waste.... much.

Sounds good, I don't want to do anything beyond watching some shows or browsing the web anyway. Spending endless hours fishing isn't all that exciting.


AliraLay wrote:
PocketHockey wrote:
AliraLay wrote:
That 3 monitor setup is sick. How do you do that?

I have 1 7950. Would I be able to run 3 monitors using that or do you have to have 2 monitors for SLI? Is there any other software or hardware I would need?

Thanks!

ATI's are different, they use something called crossfire if you have multiple cards. However, you don't need multiple cards to use ATI's eyefinity, all display ports on the card are available. You could use two, but I think that it centers and it will put your character split betweent he monitors. Ideally you would want 3 identical monitors. You can do it on a single card, and the 7950 should have enough horsepower to drive 3 monitors at high resolution with decent graphics settings.

The end result looks like this:
http://i.imgur.com/F1GESks.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/azzjluw.jpg



I have 2 monitors connected now which i'd like to get working before i buy a third. Do you have to use the display port or will 2xdvi 1xhdmi work? Looks like I may have to use the on board mini display port?

I think you must use the display port and any combination of other ports, but I'm not sure. Can't hurt to try! You have to go into the catalyst control panel and enable eyefinity. You can find display port to hdmi/dvi on ebay for $5, don't buy the $50 one from best buy.

Edit, I was wrong. You need active display port to hdmi or dvi adapter, passive will not work.

Edited, Sep 5th 2013 10:57am by PocketHockey
#26 Sep 05 2013 at 9:48 AM Rating: Decent
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62 posts
PocketHockey wrote:
AliraLay wrote:
That 3 monitor setup is sick. How do you do that?

I have 1 7950. Would I be able to run 3 monitors using that or do you have to have 2 monitors for SLI? Is there any other software or hardware I would need?

Thanks!

ATI's are different, they use something called crossfire if you have multiple cards. However, you don't need multiple cards to use ATI's eyefinity, all display ports on the card are available. You could use two, but I think that it centers and it will put your character split betweent he monitors. Ideally you would want 3 identical monitors. You can do it on a single card, and the 7950 should have enough horsepower to drive 3 monitors at high resolution with decent graphics settings.

The end result looks like this:
http://i.imgur.com/F1GESks.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/azzjluw.jpg


please don't refer to them as ati's. they are AMD now, and the AMD cards are way different from the Ati's of the past.
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