Multi-monitor computing is an idea that has been challenging me for some time – that and a spaghetti junction of wires.

I have super-powerful Alienware laptop but there is only one HDMI port, and it doesn’t like running HDMI and anything else simultaneously.

I am wondering if I should build a PC that will have video cards and ports to support three screens and have a separate, dedicated travel laptop. What do you think?

I am considering an office set up like Bill Gates had in 2006. I believe this will greatly improve my efficiency. Cameron

I am strongly in favour of having separate desktop and laptop PCs, though it’s perfectly possible to use a laptop or tablet to do both jobs. For example, you can use something like a Microsoft Surface Pro as a desktop PC, if you set it up with a docking station, an external keyboard and mouse, and two or three separate monitors. Brett Gilbertson provides an example.

Desktop tower systems have some advantages, however Towers can use faster, hotter, cheaper processors, and performance won’t be throttled to prevent overheating, as it is in ultra-thin laptops. Tower systems are easier to repair and/or upgrade: you can add more memory, a faster graphics card, bigger hard drives and screens, and so on.

And as I’ve said before, desktop PCs have much better ergonomics than laptops, so they are better for your long-term health.

You can ameliorate the ergonomic problems by using docks and external peripherals, as mentioned above. However, it’s usually cheaper to buy both a fast desktop PC and a usable ultraportable than to buy a fast ultraportable plus the dock and other peripherals.

Of course, it really depends on the kind of computing you do, and where you do it. If you spend most of your time at your desk, and if you do processor-intensive tasks such as video editing, then you should spend as much as you can on a desktop and buy a low-end laptop or 2-in-1 for word processing, web browsing and email on the move. If you spend most of your time away from your desk, then you may want to spend more of your budget on a better laptop.

Multiple monitors

People are usually more productive if they have more screen area available, and many people prefer to have two or – like Bill Gates – three monitors. You can work on the centre screen, use a second screen for background research, and keep the third screen for things that update continuously, such as email and messaging services. Some gamers like to have three screens that function as a single widescreen, to provide a semi-surround effect. This works well with flight simulators and racing games, for example.

One of the problems with multi-monitor set-ups is that almost everyone seems to have a different system. Some people just use different ports to support different screens – HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort, VGA, USB etc. Some people buy graphics cards that support two or more monitors. Some (mostly gamers) buy or build PCs that have more than one graphics card. Some buy integrated three-screen monitors like the Zenview Trio from Digital Tigers.

Today, however, I suspect the simplest idea is to attach a USB 3.0 docking station to a laptop or, less commonly, a desktop PC. You drive the main external display from the HDMI port in the usual way, then use the USB 3.0 hub to drive two extra screens. This is the approach I described last year in How can I add two external monitors to my laptop?

This works well for normal office and productivity software, which uses 2D graphics. It’s not suitable for 3D graphics purposes, such as gaming. Any modern PC or graphics card should be able to handle multiple screens showing documents, spreadsheets, browser windows and so on. Fast-action 3D graphics with lighting and texture effects are a different matter. With some games, just handling one screen can be a problem.

Pick a card

If you need a gaming rig, you should look elsewhere for advice: I don’t know enough about the topic. Once you have a rough idea of what you want, you can post your proposed build at PC Part Picker and ask for advice.

However, for multiscreen gaming, you will need a powerful graphics card with 3GB or preferably 4GB of memory, such as a GeForce GTX 960 or GTX 970. Both of these cards have three DisplayPorts, as well as HDMI and DVI ports. All modern monitors have DisplayPort connections, and that’s the one to use if you have a choice.

Note that you have to be careful when choosing multi-port graphics cards. A card that offers five ports for convenience may only support two monitors. If you plug in a third, it will come up with a blank screen, or a duplicate of one of the first two screens. However, some cards can support three screens – such as the EVGA GeForce GT 740 – and some can support four, such as the GeForce GTX 960 and GTX 970.

The GeForce website has a configuration tool. If you select your GPU, it will tell you the maximum number of displays, the resolutions supported, and the connector diagrams.

Eliminating wires

It’s a standard feature of desktop PCs that they end up with “a spaghetti junction of wires”. There may be cables to connect the mouse, keyboard, one or more screens, loudspeakers, an internet router, and one or more external hard drives. Most devices need a power cable as well. Fortunately, most wiring is usually out of sight, except when you’re under your desk.

There’s really not much you can do, beyond using wireless connections for the keyboard, mouse and printer.

There are lots of systems that provide wireless connections to monitors, including Intel’s WiDi, which was launched a decade ago and has never really taken off. The Wi-Fi Alliance – which standardised IEEE 802.11 as Wi-Fi – has done a similar job with wireless screens, and its Miracast system is widely supported (except by Apple).

There are now about 5,000 certified Miracast products, but the bulk of them are smartphones (1,066) or televisions and set-top boxes (3,438). In other words, you can probably use a smartphone to display content on a TV set, but it’s not a very attractive solution for driving high-resolution PC monitors. You’d probably have to buy an adapter for each screen, and there are latency and connection issues.

You might be able to save a cable by using products that match the DisplayPort 1.2 (or later) specification, which allows you to daisy-chain screens. Unfortunately, this would greatly restrict your choice of monitors. You’d need to buy ones with two DisplayPort 1.2-compatible connectors, one in and one out. It would be simpler to use a DisplayPort hub to support three monitors, but you might as well buy a more flexible USB 3.0 docking station instead.

You’d probably be better off using sheaths, sleeves or other cable tidying systems to combine two or more thin wires into one fat cable. These work until you start to change or rearrange things ...

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