Colorgraphic Xentera GT 8

If you need to run multiple displays, such as plasma screens for a business lobby, using multiple PCs isn't the most cost-effective method. Instead, Colorgraphic has the Xentera GT 8 PCI card, which can run eight displays at once.

The card looks strange as it has two heatsink/fan units that cover four ATI Radeon Mobility 9000 packages. Each includes 64MB of memory for every chip, giving a total of 256MB for the whole card, yet there are no memory chips visible to the eye.

Colorgraphic chose mobile chips to cut power consumption and heat generated from running so many displays. The rear of the card is also different, with eight proprietary Colorgraphic ports designated as MV20.

Each port accepts an adaptor cable, which connects to a TV or monitor. This graphics card supports up to eight analogue displays, or a maximum of four digital displays plus four analogue displays.

This is also the reason that it is a PCI card. Windows can support at least 10 displays but AGP has limitations. So far, only Colorgraphic has managed to support even four displays from an AGP card.

On the downside, the Xentera GT 8 has poor 3D performance.

If you're specifying a multi-monitor desktop system at a trading house or building a public display system to show train timetables, this graphics card could solve a tricky problem, in which case the £600 price tag will be of little concern.

Contact: Colorgraphic 01202 747 044
www.colorgraphic.co.uk

Specifications:

• Four 200MHz ATI Radeon 9000
• Eight 400MHz Ramdacs
• 256MB memory (64MB per core)
• 28.16Gbytes/sec memory bandwidth
• Eight outputs (four analogue, four digital)
• DirectX 8.1
• PCI 2.2
• Mover Window Management software