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Quad Monitors (11.7 Million Pixels)
December 20th, 2007 by 
Jay Westerdal
I started with one 30 Inch monitor in 2006 and that was great, I was able to get more work done and did less alt-tabbing. Having to flip between applications and juggle things on screen is a chore that most technology workers need to do on a daily bases. All our developers had dual 21 inch monitor to avoid this, however one 30 inch monitor is double the space of two 21 inch monitors so we made the corporate decision earlier this year to upgrade all developers to a one 30 inch monitor. While we were in the upgrade process I decided to move to dual 30 inch monitors to personally test the productivity increase we might get if we had dual 30s in the future. It is hard work, but someone had to do test it out. With all the 21 inch monitors that we were phasing out, I decided I would plug them in and see if my system could handle them too. So with all this plug and play I am now running Quad Monitors with over 11.7 Million pixels. Pretty neat, here are the calculations.
| Width | Height | Pixels | |
| Monitor 1 | 1050 | 1680 | 1,764,000 |
| Monitor 2 | 2560 | 1600 | 4,096,000 |
| Monitor 3 | 2560 | 1600 | 4,096,000 |
| Monitor 4 | 1050 | 1680 | 1,764,000 |
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| 11,720,000 | |||
I highly suggest upgrading all your employees to at least one 30 inch monitor. If you can save them 10 minutes a day that is over 40 hours more productivity per year. That is an entire work week for the cost of a Monitor, in my book that is a good purchase since you don’t need to purchase it again next year. These Dell 30 inch monitors are getting cheaper each month (Dell Model Number: 3007WFP), I think they are around $1150 right now and should drop below $700 in 2008 at some point.
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15 Comments »
December 20th, 2007 at 5:46 am
Nice set up Jay! Now all you need is a wireless mouse and keyboard.
December 20th, 2007 at 8:12 am
I walk by your office almost everyday and see all of those monstrous monitors and think, “damn, I’d like to work for that company”.
At my work, we have the standard dual setup which really hinders my production.
I actually have a 30″ at home. While I think it’s great, I think it’s a little too big for development. I have innate urge to maximize everything and that doesn’t work well for an IDE on a 30″. For me, dual 24″ would be good enough for programming.
What 30″ works perfectly for is Photoshop, video and audio editing. I would say a 30″ is required for those professions.
December 20th, 2007 at 9:20 am
Pretty sweet man
Have you tried a custom desktop background that spans all 4 monitors? Also, how do you like that little foot stool you got there?
Mark Fulton
http://www.DotSauce.com
UPDATE BY JAY: The foot stool is the best; just take an old office chair and rip the back off of it. Now you have a springy stool that is on wheels. The custom desktops are extremely hard to find. AKA impossible. There are a few out there for dual 30 inchers but nothing (Zero Google hits) for the size I have. I could just create something and I have the ability to put different wallpaper selections on each monitor.
December 20th, 2007 at 10:33 am
It looks like you ran out of desk space and put another table next to your desk. You should consider getting one of those braces and putting two more 30s above your current 30s.
December 20th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Cool Setup. I’m curious as to what video card / OS you use to achieve 4 monitor setup?
UPDATE BY JAY: Just Windows XP with two Nvidia Quadro FX 570 video cards.
December 20th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Jay – nice setup. We require multiple monitors for everyone as well. Definitely worth it! I can tell from looking at your picture that you are NOT USING UltraMon!!!! This little program is so important! It’s the one program I can not go without using. It lets you have a separate taskbar on each monitor. Each monitor can now keep track of the specific tasks it displays. This tool also provides very efficient monitor jumping / maximizing tools. It’s a small footprint program too – we’ve never had a single issue with it. It’s only $30 per license.
Site: realtimesoft.com
One day you will thank me for making you buy this little utility for anyone using multiple monitors!
December 20th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Looks nice, but man that has to be killer on your eyes!
December 20th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
What’s the point of this blog?
December 20th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Jay,
After reading your post I think I may understand my productivity issues a little better. I have just one monitor. But now I’m considering adding another monitor as I have a nice video card left over from a job I did this morning. Thanks!!!
But I do have two KVM switches and three computers. And one keyboard and one mouse works two of the computers but the third computer has a bad mouse port so it has its own USB mouse. And the one computer has a graphics tablet and a mouse came with that so that computer has two mice. And I’m left handed but right moused so I have the graphic tablet on the left side so I have a mouse for each hand. But only on one computer. It’s real weird here.
Oh and there’s three printers. One isn’t hooked up (took much work) one is on the other computer but we can use it through the network and then the third one is a real old Epson dot matrix with a ink ribbon. Remember ribbons?
And there’s three routers and a IP phone adapter and a A/B switch box that I’m afraid to unhook cause I can’t remember what’s on it. Then there’s the USB hubs and the bank of old hard drives and a XT with a “Blue Something” Pentium shoehorned into it. but that’s another story.
Anyway Jay, (seriously) that UltraMon utility that a_reberry spoke of looks real good (I just looked). The machines I work on (when I’m not otherwise occupied with this mess) have two monitors. One in the front and one in the back and we service them from the back but the desktop always opens on the front monitor (with the mouse pointer still out back).
I usually stick a spare keyboard cable in from outside through a hole in the unit. This could very well be the answer we really needed. When I finish this post I’m emailing our tech people to see what they think.
BTW: Anyone have a spare nine inch VGA monitor? There’s no room left on my desk for anything bigger.
December 20th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Jay,
You look like you are slouching in the photo. You need to buy a LCD desk mount for your 4 screens now. That way you can move the screens up and down and sideways. I got one on my desk for just 2 screens; and it is excellent for posture and ergonomics.
Here is the cheapest place i bought LCD mount. You will need to buy a different one for 4 screens.
http://www.keenzo.com/showproduct.asp?ID=925745
I also use Ultramon software, and it is excellent as described. I cannot use a computer now without a 2 screen hookup and Ultramon software.
Hope this information helps.
December 20th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
I use three 20.1″ wide screen monitors, and I thought I was cool.
December 30th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
dam you lucky… i cant even get flat screen at work… i use a big ugly crt… which totally sucks.