dual monitor issues.

[KatHug]

Hello there! Hopefully I'm posting this in the right place. It seemed the most appropriate forum, but if not let me know and I'll shift the thread.

I have a beautiful, perfect PCS machine which has been going strong for 2 years now, and is still as perfect as the day I first got it. (Thank you, PCS!) I've had a single monitor for the duration, but the time's finally come where my workflow means I need 2. I recall when the machine came, a sticker covered some HDMI ports saying "Do NOT plug monitors here" or something along those lines, and one day, after unplugging everything to move the PC to another room and then forgetting where I had my monitor plugged in, I must have plugged the monitor into the wrong HDMI port. The MB made a long beep that sounded like it was screaming, and the PC lost power and shut down. Scary.

I would like to get 2 monitors for my PC, but I can't stop thinking about that time. I know next to nothing about PCs (but just enough to be dangerous) and so I was wondering if you lovely people could take a look at my spec and see if there's any hardware reason why I absolutely can't have 2 monitors without switching out some components. Thanks!


Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 5700X Eight Core CPU (3.4GHz-4.6GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B550-PLUS (DDR4, USB 3.2, 6Gb/s) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB PRO DDR4 3600MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3060 Ti - HDMI, DP, LHR Upgraded: ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX™ 4070 12GB




I think that's all that's required for this question, but here's the rest below if you need:

Graphics Card Support Bracket
PCS ARGB GRAPHICS CARD SUPPORT BRACKET
1st Storage Drive
2TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (up to 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR iCUE H100i ELITE LCD Display RGB CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
LED Lighting
2x 50cm ARGB LED Strip
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
2.5G ETHERNET PCI-EXPRESS CARD (10/100/1000M/2.5G) (1 x RJ45)
Wireless Network Card
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
USB/Thunderbolt Options
2 PORT (2 x TYPE A) USB 3.0 PCI-E CARD + STANDARD USB PORTS
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00003]

Thanks again for any insight you can provide!

 

[AgentCooper]

There’s nothing to stop you getting more monitors, you’ll just need to make sure you’re plugging them into the graphics card and not the motherboard (I imagine that’s what happened previously, most AMD chips don’t have integrated graphics which is what probably caused the screech you’re referring to). Have a wee look at the back of your PC and see how many and what type of connections there are, you’ll likely have one HDMI and a couple of DisplayPorts.

Now… do you need any advice on what monitor to purchase?

 

[KatHug]

Thanks for the response! I think I'm good on what monitor to get (I have a cheapy iiyama atm which is terrible for screentearing with games but fine for work) so I'll probably just get another of those.

Question though: I do have one HDMI and three Displayports, exactly as you thought. When I get the 2nd monitor, can I plug it into a displayport and leave the original in HDMI? Or should I put both into displayport ports?

Thanks again!

 

[AgentCooper]

I would personally use two DisplayPorts over mixing with HDMI. You absolutely CAN do it but DisplayPort tech is geared specifically towards computing and monitors whereas HDMI has a wide spectrum of uses. There’s a good chance that using DisplayPort could potentially help with the screen tearing issues you mentioned.

There’s a lot of decent monitors out there for very reasonable prices, it might be worth checking with the more technically minded on here to see what kind of bang for the buck you could get. And it’s not just about resolution and refresh rates, the panel type of the screen can make a difference to your work/gaming experiences.

What’s the monitor budget and what kind of work do you do and games would you play?

 

[KatHug]

Oh- good to know! tbh, I assumed displayport/HDMI was about the same bc both (iirc) transfer audio and video so I thought it was just a "use what you've got" kind of thing. I think I only used HDMI with this monitor because I had a spare cable I wasn't sure worked and wanted to use! But noted for mixing and matching- I'll definately pick up 2 displayport cables for the future. Confusing things isn't going to help with performance.

At the moment, I have an iiyama G-Master G2730HSU-B1, which is 75hz, and 1080p. it has freesync but iirc freesync is an AMD-card only thing. (might be wrong, please advise!) I typically cap my framerate in games to 90fps in the hope it'll help with screentears, and with badly optimised stuff the lowest I go is 60. (30 makes my head hurt. I'd take the screentears over eyestrain.)

Games I play are typically medium intensivity. I did play cyberpunk quite a lot, but typically it's things like BG3, FF7r, nothing major. Workwise, I'm a web designer, so there's nothing graphically intensive happening there.

While I was looking up the specs for my monitor I noticed that it's no longer made, so I might as well upgrade tbh. The dream is 2 of the Asus TUF VG27AQ3A monitors (here!) because at 27 inches each, I'll still have deskspace. (I'm not fancy enough to mount them!) I'll probably get them at 180hz each, because (I may be wrong but!) while I have a perfectly viable GPU with the 4070, it's not the best in the world and anything more than that is probably overkill for the frames it can reasonably put out at 2x1440p. If I'm deluded with any of that reasoning, please say! I won't take offense and monitors are not my forte.

Budget isn't of particular concern. I (obviously!) don't want to get ripped off, but I'd rather spend more than what I thought and get something that's perfect, than make do and quietly regret everything (like with my current monitor.)