Hello, I have a Dell Optiplex 7010 desktop and need to connect 6 Dell U2415 monitors to it for a trading setup (not graphics intensive, or gaming). I first of all tried daisy-chaining 2, 3 and 4 of the monitors using the onboard DP port (the Optiplex comes with 2 onboard DP ports). I used DP cables and every possible combination of DP1.2 enabled/disabled as described in the instructions of how to daisy chain multiple monitors. No matter what I did I could only get subsequent monitors to mirror the main display, I couldn't get them to extend the desktop. Since the Optiplex 7010 has 2 onboard DP ports, I could get a 2 monitor setup working fine, but no more than 2. So, I bought 2 NVidia Quadro NVS 295 dual port DP PCI cards. I thought that maybe I could run 4 monitors with these 2 cards and use the 2 onboard DP ports to drive an additional 2, but once I plugged the NVidia cards into the motherboard, it wouldn't let me use the onboard video ports anymore.
So, I've been using this Optiplex with only 4 monitors for the past month. While the setup displays the images correctly and lets me move the configuration around, it seems that the video response time is not very fast or solid. While it will play Netflix or Youtube videos (on one screen) fine (with no noticeable lag), when using big spreadsheets that scroll a long ways, or when using internet browsers with many tabs open, there is a definite lag and slow-down...and sometimes the monitors will black-out for a minute and then come back to life. I don't know if this is related to the video cards, or the computer, but I suspect it is more related to the video cards as I have slower computers that don't do this. I use an app called Jing for screen capturing and when I use it to capture something on the screen it is so slow and sluggish that I can barely move the mouse around, much slower than my old computers that are not nearly as fast as this computer. I also wonder if this is related to the video cards, or my current array.
I would appreciate some suggestions and input on how I should go about setting up a 6 monitor display on this Optiplex 7010. Should I use a single video card?--or will it be cheaper and just as effective if I use 2 3-port cards or 3 2-port cards that are better than the NVidia cars I'm currently using?
Any input would be much appreciated!
Thank you