I will need to build a new home Centos 6 (maybe 7) system in January. I have somewhat unusual requirements and haven't built a home system in many years, so I could use some advice.

I want to cut as many corners to reduce cost as I can, but no more than I can. I expect that will end up somewhere over $1500.

My primary unusual requirement is three portrait orientation displays of at least 1200x1920 resolution each, all merged together in one 3600x1920 (or more) desktop. So I need to buy displays and I need graphics support (motherboard and/or card) to drive three displays.

When I re-purposed old hardware at work to build a 4 display Centos 6 system, I got a lemon first try, because the four displays (split across two cards) were hopelessly slow using Xinerama, but not well enough integrated when not using Xinerama. I fixed that with different old hardware splitting four displays across a different two cards. Then later, testing Centos 7 on newer old hardware, hit that same issue much much worse again splitting four displays over two cards.

All I learned is that trying to have a single desktop across multiple display cards sometimes works and sometimes is unusably slow. I'd prefer to get the three monitor support from one card, or better yet from motherboard graphics, rather than taking the apparent risk in combining them.

Please understand, I am not talking about gaming, nor videos nor any form of high performance graphics. I'm talking about lots and lots of text on screen at once, and being able to scroll text quickly. That does not need any impressive GPU. The lamest motherboard graphics can do it instantly for one display, but for some reason Xinerama destroys that performance in some configurations.

The work I will be doing will be a slow internet connection away. I don't have any good prediction of how much of the edit/compile/debug work I will be able (and/or forced) to move onto the home machine vs. slow access to faster machines. So I'm completely guessing on how many cores I should have and ram, etc.

OK, I've no idea, but I agree that you'd need a dedicated graphics card. You can't run a four head set up from an on-board video port, it's only designed to drive one monitor; GPU, video memory, etc. If you could split it, all four monitors would have the same display.

You might want to check out nVidia's Quadro cards, see here for the general spec. Note the OS requirements, Linux is included.
The Quadro NVS 450 may be a possibility? £300.00 may be a bit steep price wise. You'd really have to do a proper comparison as only you know what you want to do with your set up.

Compiling? Probably go for as many cores as you can within your budget though it may depend on how the compiler you're using in optimised.

Anyway, that's my

Have a good Christmas and New Year!

Play Bonny!

3 monitors plus decent graphics card will definitely be over $1500, that's not even counting the computer. If you are really tight on budget you may need used parts although I cannot recommend them.

I'm seeing much better than that at NewEgg. So I can't even guess what assumptions you are making.

I said I do not want a gaming graphics card. The performance "features" to let you smooth scroll a lot of text are almost certainly not the same as those for high frame rate in gaming and likely aren't card performance features at all (rather it is simply the lack of horrid performance flaws in the driver interface).

The same super old hardware, that massively failed to scroll text acceptably in Xinerama on my 4x1920x1440 giant desktop, had smooth scrolled text perfectly well for years before that on 64-bit Windiws XP. I doubt you could even find a 3 monitor card today that is in any way slower than that old hardware was. So the lowest cost 3 monitor card is probably enough. I have been told (but can't find) that there is a low cost motherboard with 3 monitor built-in graphics. Even that should be enough. I'm convinced all those text scrolling problems were software flaws in coordinating the work of multiple cards. Absent such software problems, the slowest graphics card available ought to do the job.

Well you will still need a graphics cards with 3 outputs, right ? On newegg choosing the cheapest or almost cheapest that can do it that would be $250 for each monitor at that specific resolution and $350 for the graphics card with 3 outputs, so that's $1100, less than $1500, but still without the computer. If you say I'm just assuming then how about you post the newegg links to prove it.

I find multi-monitor support very hard to dig out of the info shown for most video cards at NewEgg. But some of them seem to be clear. For example $180 for five monitor support with
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814129296

For multi-monitor support it's probably better to search the manufacturer's site for info. Some cards may have more outputs than they support (probably more true for NVIDIA, as an example, the Geforce GT 610 only supports 2 monitors but might have 3 connectors). The NVIDIA and AMD websites are useful too.

In term of prices, perhaps you could try pcpartpicker.com? It works pretty well in the UK, it'll probably work even better in the US. With some quick searching using the website I found:
Monitor
Acer B243PWL AJbmdrz (DisplayPort, DVI, VGA) at $193.87 from Amazon
Graphics card - Either
EVGA GeForce GT 740 FTW (DVI-D, DVI-I, mini-HDMI) at $79.99 ($99 plus $20 rebate) from Newegg or
EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Superclocked (DVI-I, HDMI, DisplayPort) at $74.99 ($94.99 plus $20 rebate) from NCIXUS.

That comes to less than $700 (EDIT: probably need a display adapter with that, forgot to check), ignoring any preferences you may have for manufacturers, retailers and so on, so you might be able to build your whole PC for less than $1500.

I found a few graphics cards that would work with 3 monitors but they aren't exactly low in price.
Nvidia Quadro-
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...30980794501410

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...30980794501410

Micro Center is another place to shop.
I've never had a problem with anything I've ever purchase from them.
http://www.microcenter.com/product/4..._Graphics_Card

Tiger Direct might have what your looking for too.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...+graphics+card

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/com...nitors-1074313

AMD/ATI is another choice but I wasn't sure if you which manufactuer you want to stay with.
http://search.amd.com/en-us/Pages/re...aphics%20cards

Are all of your monitors the same size?
If not that might make things interesting for you.

If this is going to be a production machine you could start with at least a quad core processor with at least 8 GB of RAM. (4 sticks of 2GB's of RAM each)

Most mobo's have 4 slots. RAM is available in 2GB, 4GB, etc. and some of the newer mobo's will allow up to 32 GB of RAM.

Unfortunately RAM get's pricey when you start to increase in GB's per stick.

I found that the more application's I have open the more RAM I need.

Do you know what mobo your going to go ahead and purchase?

If so we could read through the specifications and make suggestions.

I am trying to understand that? Size of the monitor should not make any difference, as the OP stated they were looking for three monitors with a specific resolution (so it wouldn't matter if one was a 23" and the other two were 29" or three different sizes, the resolutions would be the same, 16:10 aspect ratio).

Long, LONG ago, Matrox cards were about the only way to drive three monitors, without going to something more commercial (cad) oriented (more $$$$). Now, you need three DVI, VGA, or Display port connectors. HDMI has that 1080 limit that makes this not work.
You can get one video card that will drive all three, or use a couple of the same ones (crossfire/sli board), and drive them.
I was more shocked at first, by the portrait mode, and went off to educate myself about the number of monitors that can do that (swivel) now.

Thanks. That is the kind of basic fact I ought to know, but didn't.

Maybe multiple cards would cost less. My past experience with Xinerama performance problems left me confused. So I think single desktop spanning monitors will work better with a single card. But if you have more knowledge on that aspect, please share.

I am planning to buy three identical monitors. I haven't chosen those yet.

Actually HDMI 1.0 supports 1080p and WUXGA (1920×1200) at 60 Hz, and higher versions support more, so it's not a problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI

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Not on my ASUS NVIDIA GT 640 it doesn't. I'm watching a video on a 1920*1200 monitor as I type this on my secondary 1280*1024. The NVIDIA driver also lets me rotate both displays and outputs the sound through HDMI also, in case that matters.
Not that I am suggesting this card is fit for this purpose but that HDMI isn't as limited on PCs you'd think.

Hi,

Since you have looked at Newegg.com then consider some of the bare bones & combo specials they have. You can get some great deals on the combo packs but also look at refurbished units available from them. They sometimes have re-boxed Graphic cards at a reduced cost. I've been getting some good prices from them over the past month with xmas deals. They are having a year end sale now.

Apparently you had the monitors before hand. Can you reuse those? If so then you can spec a better GPU & memory by saving the cost of not purchasing new monitors.

I guess I was unclear. Despite being for work, this computer will be at home and entirely at my own cost and cannot use any parts from work. My previous 4 monitor systems were all at work. Two of them will still be there, but I will be going there fewer days per week.

I have no portrait mode displays at home.

I was looking at choices at NewEgg, and debating whether to go to even higher resolution (and price) or whether to get 1920x1200 similar to what I use at work.

Since this is not for gaming there is no "better" aspect to the GPU. Either the card drives the desired number of monitors and resolution (which is largely independent of GPU) or it doesn't.

There is a lot about current monitor interface technology that I don't understand, leading me to be less sure of what I'm doing (compared to the old 4x1920x1440 CRT system which I put together at work in a few different incarnations by now). But I think I know where the GPU fits in and it is largely a waste for my purposes.