[Isura]

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I haven't read a ton of reviews, but the ones that I've seen seem to indicate that the Antec power supply is pretty good. This is the one that comes with that case. I really like that case because it seems to be one of the quietest cases available. I like the looks of it too. Reviews say that it's a nice, well built, easy to work with case. Do you think that this power supply will be OK?


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Sorry, didn't realize it was the Sonata II. That comes with the Truepower 2.0 430W, which is a pretty good supply. Your case choice is fine. HINT: Do not plug in the blue and black cables on your power supply. It is meant for monitoring, and will cause your supply fan to run at full speed and cause a lot of noise (this isn't mentioned in the antec manual). I'm actually thinking of getting the same case now. Seems like a great price/performance tradeoff.

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I am not sure if I will ever spend the money for an LCD. If I get one, dual DVI will obviously be unnecessary. If I get 2, I'd prefer to run both off of DVI. Since I'm not planning on spending $900 on LCDs any time soon (maybe never, who knows...) I don't want to run a dual DVI card right now. I figure later on down the road, I can either get a dual DVI card or a normal DVI+VGA card if I ever do get 2 LCDs. I was just curious whether or not I'd be able to support more than 2 displays at once with 2 video cards. It isn't clear to me whether the Asus A8N-SLI supports 2 PCI-express video cards running independently. On the Newegg site, it says:

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2 x PCI Express X 16 (*SLI mode : x8 , x8 *Default Single VGA mode : x16, x1)



I just wondered if there was a x16, x16 option for 2 independent video cards. I will probably never need more than 2 displays anyway, but I was just curious about future possibilities. It would be nice to have a third screen for lobbies and PT related stuff.

Ignoring all of that, what card would you recommend for running 2 CRTs at 1600x1200 and no real gaming?


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An SLI board with 2 x PCIe x16 means you can fit 2 PCI express video cards on your motherboard and run them concurrently. But if you want to dual monitor, it's cheaper to get a dual video card. But since you are only using crt's, a standard AGP graphics card will be cheaper and jusst as good. PCI express is the new graphics technology, but at the moment, there is very little performance difference (except for in the newest and fastest games). But then you need to get an AGP motherboard, so you might as well get any decent PCI express card (your choice seems fine for poker). I'm pretty sure you can get 2 dual video cards and have 4-monitor support using the 2 PCI express slots on your mobo. Hope that helps a bit.