Some hardware advice please.

[ECA]

Heyhey.

I need a new PC, but a little specific.

I need two reasonable PCIE 8800xxx or 9600x type cards, for running 3-4 monitors.

I'd like an E8500 CPU.

My questions are:

What decent motherboards can I get?
Which graphics cards should I go for? ( ~£150 or so max price )

Thanks as always <3

[Kryten]

Go for ATI Crossfire rather than nvidia for the sole purpose of running multiple screens, so suggest a stable Intel chipset mainboard, a P45 chipset will serve you best with the available bandwidth it gives you. Asus P5Q or Gigabyte P45 are the best two to choose between.
CPU is fine but the e8400 will save you some pennies and is more overclockable should you wish to do so, but it's so easy it makes the e8500 a fairly odd choice of purchase.

Graphics cards, what sort of thing you doing with them? ATI's 4850s are around £100 a shot and will do just about anything you need but if it's not gaming then hold fire, ATI are releasing their midrange cards within the next couple of weeks and you should be able to get a decent pair of them for £100.

[ECA]

My problem is _every_ ATI card I've ever had has died on me rather than lasted till an upgrade like my nvidia cards have.

I don't do much gaming would stuff like warhammer/the odd FPS etc.

Basically the cards need dual DVI on each so I can run 4 monitors total. ( will be switching to 3 v soon and 3 is as easy as 4 ), but don't need to be top of the range omgwtfbbq type cards at all, just something that runs all my monitors and lets me game on 1 + run video on another.

[Kryten]

Understand that, but things do change, the tables have certainly turned and it's nVidia with cards dying left right and centre currently. On top of which, nVidia's support of anything other than a single screen is diabolical to say the least, there's been a couple of threads about that already.

ATI have now definately released the HD4550 for £30 a shot which may well be worth a look, I'm not sure what gaming performance is like so that may be worth looking up beforehand, but it will certainly do the trick for 4 monitor jiggery-pokery.

Otherwise just grab yourself a pair of 9600's on the cheap but you'd be best off choosing some with a good warranty and then using third party software like UltraMon on top to make correct usage of your screens.

[inactionman]

I'd suggest getting a 4850 and a 4550. They will both work together and I believe that they will even crossfire together to improve warhammer performance.

[Helme]

Not really sure how good Hybrid Crossfire is, but yeah - they'll work together with no problems, and 1x 4850 is enough to run Warhammer at with good FPS with 1920x1200 resolution and everything on max.

[Kryten]

Or half inbetween, the 4670 cards are only about £45 to 50 a shot and offer similar if not better performance than the 9600/8800

[ECA]

Thanks for the advice so far, the 4850s look promising, definitely better price/performance than nvidia options.

I really am clueless about the motherboard I'd need to run 2x4850s for example however.

Any recommendations on a specific board?

Also cant rep you guys must spread around more before I can.

[inactionman]

Lol. An intel P45 board would be best, probably an Asus P5Q of some description.