2 monitors?

closed

:)You obviously enjoy making assumptions.

If all it's going to be used for is playing music via itunes (minimize button), and an occasional video (which are hard to watch if you're working on the other screen) a dual monitor card and a big second monitor taking up desk space seems overkill to me.

TwistedPsycho

S0litaire wrote: »

Done a quick google search on the "Dell Dimention e521"

That Dell Motherboard has a 16x PCI-express slot for a video card. so any PCI-Express video card will do.

Yes I did something similar on the Dell website, however it was non-commital, mentioning both at one point.

JasX

According to the service manual (link below) the Dell Dimension E521 does indeed have a PCI-express slot (marked as item 16 on the motherboard diagram -but as above worth a physical check by opening the side b4 spending money)

http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dime521/en/SM_EN/techov.htm#wp1053345

Now you need a PCIe graphics card with at least 2 outputs suitable for plugging into whatever inputs your monitor(s) take... an HDMI monitor can be fed from DVI or HDMI, sVGA will plug into sVGA (and usually DVI thats been designed backward compatible) DVI should be fed from DVI (not sure if HDMI can feed DVI too, someone might come along and correct me).

Finally you need to decide what you will use your PC for as you can spend anything from £20 to £500 on a card fitting the above description, if its very basic web browsing only perhaps something close to the £20 mark will be suitable.

If you want to do some 3D type gaming dependding on how often and future proof you want to be you could consider looking in the £40-£60-£120 regions, anything above that you'll likely not get full benefit from with a 3.5 year old Dell.

eg for £28 as a starting point :

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/222068
XFX HD 4550 512MB DDR2 With Hyper Memory DVI VGA Out PCI-E Low Profile Graphics Card

(maybe look on other sites for a better deal with free postage, ebuyer isn't great on that front if you're spending <£50 as you can't get it for free)

use a benchmarking site like http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/ to compare performance if you want to spend more as model numbers can be a bit confusing and more expensive + higher number doesn;t necessarily mean better performance (you might just be getting a slow card from their 'newer' range that spending less on last years high performance card would be a better bet -check them individually!)

daniel_owen_uk

Just pick up a cheapo dual headed GFX card, as long as you aren't a gamer (and with a 3-5 year old PC you won't be).

The one recommended above is fine.

Just make sure that both monitors aren't DVI (you want a VGA plug for 1 of them) google images will show you the difference, the fitting part is a piece of cake).

DCFC79

tronator wrote: »

Most likely yes. What is the make and model of the graphics card?

its a ATI HD 4850

tronator

DCFC79 wrote: »

its a ATI HD 4850

It should work with one VGA and one DVI monitor, since the DVI connector is a DVI-I according to this website. I think the VGA connector carries the same signals as the analogue pins on the DVI connector, so you can connect one monitor to each connector without the need of a splitter cable.

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/organization/twomonitors.aspx

Guilt_is_a_rope

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