There is no doubt that a multi-monitor setup increases productivity. My desktop PC has three 4K displays and that seems natural to me. However, if you ever wanted to go further and have, say, eight screens and create your own mini Las Vegas Sphere, it's possible with the right hardware.
Most graphics cards only have four output ports and most motherboards would struggle to accommodate two long GPUs. The solution, coming from Synaptics, is a single-slot PCIe x1 card based on the company's DisplayLink DL-7400 chip.
DisplayLink technology has been around for some time, but the company has just started producing new DL-7400 solutions, including a GPU-independent docking system, which takes things further than previously possible.
Many connectivity options
Tom Hardware Visiting the Synaptics booth at Computex 2024, and writing about the products, Avram Piltch said: “The cards will be really compact (the one I saw was a single-slot PCIe x1 form factor), but it's unclear whether other solutions they could offer a physical version.” Connector x2, x4 or even x16. They will be cheap, however, and a DisplayLink spokesperson said they will definitely cost less than $100 and possibly much less.”
Different versions of the card will be available through Synaptics and OEM partners, and in a variety of configurations. Synaptics says the cards will be able to power four 4K monitors at 120Hz or two 8K monitors at 60Hz with HDR10, with minimal impact on system performance. The products are definitely designed for productivity rather than gaming.
Piltch notes: “If you have a small PC with an integrated GPU that supports only one or two outputs, you can easily add another two or four. If, like me, you have a discrete GPU that outputs four monitors and want to go up to six or eight monitors, this PCIe card will allow you to achieve this much cheaper than buying a second graphics card. And if you have enough slots, you could even buy multiple DisplayLink PCIe cards and keep adding more monitors – 16-way wall displays, anyone?
One idea is that the new DisplayLink card could be an interesting addition to bitcoin mining motherboards, which typically have numerous PCIe slots. However, DisplayLink requires a GPU and it's difficult to know if the card would be compatible with the different types of connectors found on these motherboards, so we'll have to wait and see.
