computer setup + two monitors, advice needed..

[stoxtrader]

I can kick myself for not taking advantage of the 2 dell 2001FPs and an 8400 for like 1600 about a month ago. That would have been perfect.

given that i screwed that one up, I'd love advice/links on a desktop + 2 monitor system from scratch...

thanks,
stox.

[VinnyTheFish]

Old Post

This is for setting it up. I think this maybe what you are asking.

[k000k]

There's really nothing to it.. Get yourself an extra video card, stick it in a PCI slot, hook a monitor up to it and go! Windows should recognize it and with minimal (if any)configuration you'll have a 2-monitor desktop.

You don't need a lot of horsepower to run the party software, I've multitabled on a 350MHz pentium 2. Just make sure your extra video card is PCI, not AGP, since you probably don't have an extra AGP slot on your MB.

I recommend any video card / monitor capable of 1600x1200 resolution. 1600x1200 is enough to run 4 tables per monitor with no overlap, and if you do it just right, you can get 4 PT game windows to show you the player icons/seat numbers in the little leftover vertical strip on the sides. I'd rather run 1 monitor at 1600x1200 than 2 at anything lower.

[stoxtrader]

I think I was unclear - I'm confident I can set it up, I'm looking for advice on what/where to buy and how much to pay for it....

thanks.

[Blarg]

I'm not sure if you're planning on buying right now and making that a big priority or not, or whether you're willing to wait a bit and scout for bargains.

The latter is probably the best way to do things at this time. Thanksgiving is coming up, the biggest sales day of the year, in just a couple weeks. There will probably be bargains.

If I were you I'd scout the bargain sites like www.edealinfo.net, www.fatwallet.com, www.gottadeal.com, and others to scout for Dell and HP/Compaq coupons, and also www.outpost.com for Frys Electronics deals, which can be very very good. Really good deals can sometimes come from coupons valid only for a few hours, or until "X" number of units have been sold, and are generally subject to being yanked at any time, so when it comes to getting a good deal, it's something you have to pursue actively almost every day.

I'd definitely at least wait until you start seeing the Thanksgiving day/weekend deals, and the day or two before that, before you make a decision to buy anything, unless you find something really spectacular. The best prices of the year on most items is coming up in just a week or two.

Any computer with an ATI 9800 video card or better will let you run two monitors, by the way, so you don't have to get everything from Dell or in a unified package. The only thing you have to worry about, and it's not that big a worry, is getting a DIV to VGA or VGA to DIV adaptor, depending on what kind of monitors you want to set up. The 9800's have one VGA and one DVI connector. If you want to get two DVI connectors, you're generally going to be looking at adding in a better video card yourself, or paying the big premiums charged on a premium system that comes with that kind of video card, which manufacturers generally refuse to put on lower-margin computers.

I got a dirt cheap Athlon 3200 computer myself, and just plugged a 9800 in myself after disabling the on-board video. Running 8 tables now like a charm, and I love it.