Best LJ brains...

So, to celebrate my new employment with Microsoft, I did something I'd been aching to do for a while... I bought a new set of computer components and built myself a new PC.

(AMD dual core 2.9ghz - I wanted a quad core, just because, you know, they exist, but then I had to choose energy usage, and 65 watts seemed too attractive to me... 95 and 125+ were just too high for a PC I'd like to have running 24x7. So I had to choose between quad core at 1.8ghz, or dual core at 2.9. Now, yes, 4x1.8 is bigger than 2x2.9, but unless I'm running multiple threads simultaneously, the extra cores won't be used, so 2.9 it was.)

(Okay, okay: 4 gigs dual channel 1066 memory, but restricted to 800 because I'm not using the latest and greatest AMD CPU. Windows XP 32bit for now; it's what I had available - and plus, with only 4 gigs of memory, there's no compelling reason to go 64bit yet. 500 gig SATA hard drive. I'm hoping to go to RAID someday, but I figured it wasn't worth it yet.)

Now for the questions.

First, my motherboard seems to have decent video capabilities. Looking at DVI connectors, I have the DVI-I Dual Link.

Does that mean with a splitter I can hook two monitors to this? I've seen such setups before, I know they're possible, but I don't know if this is, in fact, the right hookup (even though the "dual link" strongly suggests it is). And, are DVI cables expensive? I've seen some hideously expensive ones, but I don't know if they weren't like high priced cat-5 cable... the same as the cheap stuff, more or less, but they think some sucker will pay the higher prices.

Second: How does one go about measuring video performance? If, e.g., I want a PCIe video card for this, how do I check to see that I'm not actually connecting something slower to my machine?

And does anyone know anything about interactions between multiple video cards? I assume that I'd always want to run the most video-intensive thing to the most powerful card (i.e., run it on the monitor attached to that card), but is there anything funny that happens when you mix video cards up?

e.g., if you have a high speed disk drive, you never put it on the same channel as a low speed CD-ROM when using ATA connectors. The CD-ROM can slow down the entire channel (or so they say - I've heard conflicting opinions and never tested it myself). Is there anything like that with video, where if I put a slower video card in my PC, it could slow down the on-board video?

Best LJ brains...

So, to celebrate my new employment with Microsoft, I did something I'd been aching to do for a while... I bought a new set of computer components and built myself a new PC.

(AMD dual core 2.9ghz - I wanted a quad core, just because, you know, they exist, but then I had to choose energy usage, and 65 watts seemed too attractive to me... 95 and 125+ were just too high for a PC I'd like to have running 24x7. So I had to choose between quad core at 1.8ghz, or dual core at 2.9. Now, yes, 4x1.8 is bigger than 2x2.9, but unless I'm running multiple threads simultaneously, the extra cores won't be used, so 2.9 it was.)

(Okay, okay: 4 gigs dual channel 1066 memory, but restricted to 800 because I'm not using the latest and greatest AMD CPU. Windows XP 32bit for now; it's what I had available - and plus, with only 4 gigs of memory, there's no compelling reason to go 64bit yet. 500 gig SATA hard drive. I'm hoping to go to RAID someday, but I figured it wasn't worth it yet.)

Now for the questions.

First, my motherboard seems to have decent video capabilities. Looking at DVI connectors, I have the DVI-I Dual Link.

Does that mean with a splitter I can hook two monitors to this? I've seen such setups before, I know they're possible, but I don't know if this is, in fact, the right hookup (even though the "dual link" strongly suggests it is). And, are DVI cables expensive? I've seen some hideously expensive ones, but I don't know if they weren't like high priced cat-5 cable... the same as the cheap stuff, more or less, but they think some sucker will pay the higher prices.

Second: How does one go about measuring video performance? If, e.g., I want a PCIe video card for this, how do I check to see that I'm not actually connecting something slower to my machine?

And does anyone know anything about interactions between multiple video cards? I assume that I'd always want to run the most video-intensive thing to the most powerful card (i.e., run it on the monitor attached to that card), but is there anything funny that happens when you mix video cards up?

e.g., if you have a high speed disk drive, you never put it on the same channel as a low speed CD-ROM when using ATA connectors. The CD-ROM can slow down the entire channel (or so they say - I've heard conflicting opinions and never tested it myself). Is there anything like that with video, where if I put a slower video card in my PC, it could slow down the on-board video?