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Your first and probably most common option
for a desktop system is to buy a multi-port video card. These cards
generally have a DVI and a VGA port, both of which can be hooked to any
monitor with the use of adapters. These cards can either be PCI, PCI-Express,
or AGP-compatible. Generally speaking, the drivers for multi-monitor
support come with the card.
Another desktop option is to buy multiple video cards and put them in
your system. As far as we can tell, this only works so long as the
chipsets are the same and each card uses a different type of slot (i.e.,
an ATi PCI card and an ATi AGP card.) Conceivably you could use two
two-port cards, giving you a total of four monitors. This is a good way
to go if you want to go to the trouble of matching everything up.
These solutions are all well and good
for the desktop user, you say, but what about my laptop? Well, don’t
worry, there are options for notebooks as well. Probably your best
option is to spring for the VTBook DVI/VGA Dual Display Video PCMCIA
Card. It’s a bit pricey, but it’s the only card like it on the market.
The VTBook gives you an additional DVI-out port on your computer, which
can be plugged into a high-def display. If you crave even more monitor
madness, you can buy a VTBook Dualhead Cable, which splits the out port,
giving you yet another monitor. With this setup, you could have up to
four monitors (your laptop screen, the laptop out port, and the two
VTBook ports).
The last, and probably most expensive
method to add multiple monitors to your laptop is to buy a PCMCIA to PCI
card. Realistically, this $1000-plus item is for more specialty PCI
cards that aren’t available in PCMCIA version, but if you have an
amazing and absolutely necessary PCI or PCI Express video card that you
want to use with your laptop, this is the solution for you. As far as I
can tell, I have only found one such adapter, made by Magma.
I’m sure that somewhere there is some
engineer dreaming up other ways to add multiple monitors to computers,
but for now, these are the most common and most feasible options I know
of. Now go to, and enjoy the greater productivity of multiple monitors. |
