To add to this thread, if you're thinking of going to triple monitors and you need to be able to do so on a budget, I'd strongly recommend going with an ATI video card (R9 290 being a "sweet spot" price-wise and performance-wise). The reason is that the ATI Eyefinity drivers alllow you to run "mixed" monitors of different sizes.
I'm currently running "mixed" monitors with my PC setup -- I've got a 24" 1920x1080 (16:9) center monitor, and two 19" 1280x1024 (4:3) monitors for the left and right views. I'm able to do this thanks to the newer Eyefinity drivers, which let let you mix monitor types/sizes.
This setup works GREAT, and I was able to get everything to line-up perfectly using the Eyefinity tools (so far I've tried iRacing and Assetto Corsa and the monitor alignment is perfect for both games). I did have to adjust the height of my center monitor a bit (it needed to be lowered slightly) to get everything just right with the triple monitor stand, but overall the three monitors work very well.
I picked up the 19" HP LP1965 monitors cheap on ebay -- $45 each, which was pretty reasonable, IMO. I picked these monitors specifically because they have DVI inputs, and because the physical height of the monitor was very close to the height of my existing 24" 16:9 monitor. The physical height and the need for DVI inputs were critical in order to make all this work, so I had to choose the monitors carefully, and I paid more than if I'd just grabbed the cheapest 19" 4:3 monitors I could find, but it still worked out to be
very cheap compared to two new 24" 16:9 monitors, and it was worth the effort to know going in that everything would work fine with my R9 290 card because of the DVI inputs.
Having two identical monitors for the left and right side also meant that I would be guaranteed that the VESA mounting holes would be identical on both monitors, which meant that they would both sit at the same height on my Sim-Seats triple monitor stand, so I only had to monkey with adjusting the center monitor to get it to sit at the right height to match-up with the side monitors.
Setting everything up was easy, so the extra effort in sourcing the "right" 4:3 monitors paid off. I use one DVI cable to connect to my center 24" monitor, another DVI cable to connect to one of the 19" monitors, and a Display Port-to-DVI cable to connect to the other 19" monitor, so I didn't have to mess with any active Display Port adapters or anything.
With my i5 2500k CPU overclocked to 4.0GHz, and my R9 290 video card, I'm getting around 120+ fps in iRacing at a minimum at tracks like Phillip Island and such. Haven't tried any of the "difficult" tracks like Suzuka, Monza, or COTA yet, but I'm guessing I'll be able to maintain better than 90 fps minimum with this setup.
Considering that I already had the R9 290 video card and the 24" 16:9 monitor, going to triples only cost me around $90 for the two monitors, plus the cost of a Display Port-to-DVI cable (which cost about another $5 on ebay). That's about as "budget" as you can get.
ATI and Eyefinity is a great way to go if you're going to try to do triples on a budget, IMO.
I will try to post additional pics later showing how well it all lines-up once you do all the fine-tuning with the Eyefinity drivers, but I have to say that I am very impressed and satisfied with the final result.
The attached images show my "mixed" 16:9 and 4:3 monitors -- I hadn't gotten the images all lined-up properly yet, but since I took these pictures I've managed to line everything up
perfectly with the Eyefinity drives. Very satisfying.
That last image does NOT show my final monitor alignment -- I will try to post a current picture later, because ALL the edges line-up perfectly now thanks to the adjustments available via the Eyefinity drivers.
