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DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI1, DVI2 - I’ve counted four outputs. Which two are for the same signal?
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Do new monitors have DisplayPort?
Interesting article. I’m stuck with “only” two monitors at the moment but one thing that I have found is: If you are designing an application for end users (either web based or desktop) then one of the monitors should be no bigger than the average size used by the target audience. UIs that look great on a 1600x1200 monitor often just don’t cut it on a 1280x800 screen, and many users still have smaller screens.
My understanding is that the evolution of display connectors is something like this:
Originally there was VGA, which is a purely analog RGB signal. DVI is essentially a digital version of a VGA signal, where analog voltage changes are replaced with digital values. This is due to the rise in prominence of digital flat panel displays, where the digital signal is “native” to the underlying hardware in the same way that an analog signal is “native” to a CRT. DVI also includes pins for analog VGA signal for backwards compatibility.
HDMI is basically DVI with analog VGA compatibility removed, audio channels added, and a more consumer-friendly (some would say flimsy) connector. DVI and HDMI are nearing the end of their evolution because the technology cannot support further increases in the maximum resolution.
DisplayPort is significantly different. It is a high bandwidth packetized digital signal with significantly more headroom to support higher maximum resolutions. Also the packet approach allows for alternate transmission media like fiber optics, as well as additional data streams such as multiple video signals, audio streams, or even internet packets.
That said, it is going to take awhile for DisplayPort to gather momentum. Considering how long it took for USB to be fully established as the standard connector for input devices (introduced 1996, computers as late as 2002 often still only had a single USB port and came with PS/2 mice), new standards take a long time to displace the existing installed base.
“Dual Monitors” since 1983 when I hooked up a terminal as “glass printer” and extended the BIOS to hot-key output between PRN and COM1. See the first photo here. http://bit.ly/dcmYXu (The primary monitor is off photo.) The “2nd monitor” was only slightly less functional than the primary because my DOS 1.0 Eagle 1610 was pre-graphics. Be sure to note all the space available to spread out listings and documentation. The home-built bins for wide printouts behind me are unusually empty. BTW I still have the hat. It’s quite a strange feeling to work with people younger than some of my clothing… 
(I still have the son too but he doesn’t sit on my lap and watch me code anymore.)
Crude as it was, the 2nd monitor was wonderfully productive. I’d typically Print-Screen the C variables for reference then scroll down and edit. The “glass printer” helped me get more done in less time as well as stay in flow. Even in 1983 I knew more screen space would improve my productivity. Lackus Fundus prevented a 3rd monitor – for mainframe access I’d spent $1000 on the terminal and $300 for a used 300 BAUD modem.
No photos, unfortunately, but I had dual monitors in Win 3.x. A card made the computer think it had one large monitor but the card knew it had two monitors. The monitors had to have identical specs.
The four right monitors on the 2nd photo belong to my main dev box of the era. It took a long time to get its 2 framegrabbers and VGA adapters to work at the same time, but the pixels were worth the hassle. Pre-USB imaging was a pain and I miss it not at all.
The last photo is of my 7-monitor laptop. I find 2*(1920x1200) + 5*(1600x1200) a very productive development platform (for a laptop. ) The photo is not a setup for the camera, it’s early in a workday while there is still a little free space on my “reference” monitors for non-maximized windows. Similar to how I keep my clean undies and socks in a fixed location and can usually successfully dress before that first A.M. cup of coffee, I know exactly the position of the perhaps-overlapped window I want and can click it to the front before anyone could alt-tab there. It’s great to have the space for a separate Explorer window for each folder of interest. I admit that almost never having to scroll the Locals window ain’t bad either.
No photos of my current 10-monitor system, but I wrote about it when it had but 9 for my woodworking buddies. http://lumberjocks.com/projects/28014
UltraMon profiles let me enable and disable monitors in bulk. I don’t use more than I need. Other than testing that all 10 monitors work I have yet to use more than 6. When I get to the documentation / VM testing phase no doubt I’ll use them all and wish I had more.
Mark Jerde: And they tell me 11,520,000 pixels is excessive! I concur with the overlapped non-maximised windows on the miscellaneous screen; that’s exactly what I do. I’m glad you qualified 7 monitors being a very productive development platform for a laptop. (LOL!)
You might like to try the QTTabBar tabs plugin for Windows Explorer. (Last time I checked it didn’t work properly with Windows 7 Libraries, but for XP and Vista it works great.)
I’m with David Durham. At my last job we got two monitors and I thought I could never live without it. So when I switched jobs and I only got one monitor, it took some getting used to again. However, we use Macs at my current job. Among OSX’s many great features is it has Spaces. (yes I’m aware Windows has a similar feature)
Since I’ve started using Spaces, the need for multiple monitors has virtually disappeared, as switching between spaces has taken the place of multiple monitors. Web browser and Terminal on 1, TextMate on 2, database on 3, all in fullscreen mode or close to it. It’s all convenient keyboard shortcuts, so it takes basically no effort, either physically or mentally to switch. One advantage of this setup is when I am using my laptop without a monitor, I don’t feel like I’m sacrificing anything. Plus you can’t physically focus on two monitors at once anyway.
After experience with both, and liking both, I would choose virtual desktops over multiple monitors.
I use three monitors with two cards without a problem. Very simple setup.
I did buy one of these SAPPHIRE TECHNOLOGY RADEON HD 4850X2 1GB GDDR3 PCI-E QUAD-DVI
Which in theory was great and the price was no real different from two cards. However, my workstation was unable to power it. It has no problem with two individual 4850s but this monster needed so many power cables and just caused random crashes because of the juice it pulled on my standard PSU. Bear in mind this is a high efficiency PSU on a fairly new HP Workstation. I wasn’t about to upgrade the PSU so went back to two cards!
I personally like 4 monitors…perfect for coding.
I’ve got a 4 monitor setup running on my Win7 machine with a single video card. No cables or other stuff. I’ve got an ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 that has 4 DVI outputs. Does the job rather nicely.
I’ve been multiple monitors since I put a monochrome card in alongside the CGA card - they used different address spaces.
I now have three displays on my MacBook Pro, the third running off a DisplayLink DL 195 adapter. I also use Spaces. The difference is:
three monitors allow complex and multiple related displays, e.g. score on the monitor over the keyboard, DAW on the large monitor, and property sheets on the MBP monitor.
Spaces - use for unrelated human multi-tasking, one space for office stuff (email 3tc), one for studio, one for programming.
As a couple of others have already noted, these little USB adapters do a pretty good job. But note that DisplayLink is an OEM chip company; the actual devices you will buy are made under other names. Also be aware that there are two distinct flavors, the cheap ones based on the DL 165 and the slightly pricier ones based on the DL 195. The difference is in maximum resolution. Many options on eBay or Amazon, search on “USB DIsplay Adapter”. Be sure to only buy from one that included specs and chip type used - not all sellers do.
Thank you for telling me about the USB adapters. I was going to buy a nettop and install a Radeon 5440, but if I can use the adapters I can just use the Mac Mini I already have to run it all. 
[And while Spaces is good, it doesn’t replace what I used multiple monitors for before, which is just having code on one screen and the API in the other, or work on one screen and random internet browsing on the other, or OpenOffice on one screen and internet on the other, etc. etc. I do use Spaces a lot, though I tend to max out at 4 spaces (Garageband, OpenOffice,XCode,assorted small programs [i.e. AIM/iTunes]], and at certain times I’m fliping between monitors a bunch and not being able to read on one screen+do things on the other like I’d like.
Don’t some motherboards come with embedded video and DVI out yet? But I guess that gets into running different video cards and thus drives which can get messy.
Orange.
Oh and Jeff, you left the 5750 out which is a shame as it is the sweet spot for silent gaming. Fanless 5750 cards are available with or without the 6pin “PCIe” power connector. Take a look at http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=505403&highlight=&sid=1b1e93b0ca5858a78c4c24cf8fe5b628#505403 for a comparison of 4xxx cards vs 5xxx cards and the tremendous powersavings the 5750 offers versus the 4850 it replaces.
Or read http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_5750_Go_Green/1.html which unfortunately splits the review up in 32 pages but otherwise is a good comparison of the 5750 vs the other contemporary cards.
I have two extra monitors plugged into my laptop using the Matrox DualHead2Go break out box.
I find it great for developing database driven web applications because you can have your IDE, Connection Manager and web browser all on separate monitors; my productivity shot up as soon as I had more screen space.
I use three monitors: laptop monitor, second monitor for the laptop on the right and my Linux box hooked up to the third monitor on the left. I have a script on my laptop that lets me copy and paste a URL in and it opens on the Linux box. I’d eventually like to make it into a little drag-and-drop icon so I can just drag on a file or a URL or a load of text and it’d display it on the third monitor.
It won’t be long until all programmers get issued with this kind of setup upon graduation/initial employment:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2jnsT-Tk2Ig/SzmVG7gY4_I/AAAAAAAAABg/kVAnHvQaOlA/s1600-h/swordfish02.jpg
The EyeFinity ATIs go all the way down to 5450 for a truly entry-level 3-monitor video card ($45). Since I am only using it for coding, it works for me. You still need to use a DisplayPort to get all three monitors going though.
I’ve been a proponent of Three Monikers For Every Developer, since the 90’s
You can call me g0thX, PHB, or of course, Sam
Hooray, there’s finally a GFX board capable of connecting more than two monitors!
Wait…
What about Matrox? They’ve been in the business of triple-head gfx solutions for years now. Last time I looked, they had a 4-DisplayPort card for offer. No, wait, now I see they’ve got an 8-port card…