StarTech SP123DP2DVI review

StarTech's snappily named SP123DP2DVI is a triple-headed display splitter that lets you run three DVI monitors off a single DisplayPort socket. There's no driver required - the device presents your three (or two) monitors to Windows as a single very wide display device, and automatically stretches or clones the desktop, depending on the resolution you select. Cleverly, it draws its power from a USB socket, so it's a compact and portable gadget.

There are two catches, though. First, a practical one: the SP123DP2DVI works only via a DisplayPort socket, and its DVI connectors are of the purely digital variety (DVI-D) - you can't use an analogue cable with a DVI adaptor. This restricts the range of graphics cards and monitors you can use it with.

Second, and rather more seriously, it's short on bandwidth. If you do connect three monitors, you're limited to a maximum resolution of 1,280 x 1,024 per screen, so with modern widescreen displays the image loses sharpness and detail, and it's unpleasantly stretched to boot.

You could drop down to a two-screen system, allowing each screen to go up to 1,920 x 1,200, but if you're going to do that there's no reason to buy the SP123DP2DVI at all, as dual-display support is already built in to current graphics cards.

In fact, if you're using a graphics card from the latest generation - either an ATI Radeon HD 5000 model, or one of Nvidia's recent GTX 400-series cards - you'll find you can run three monitors out of the box, without the need for external hardware. And, as a bonus, you'll have more connector options (no limits here on analogue connectors), plus the ability to use each screen at its native resolution. This leaves the SP123DP2DVI looking rather redundant.

To be fair, if you're a laptop user, you might find yourself stuck with an older GPU and limited output options. Or, in a different scenario, you might be using a workstation GPU, such as an ISV-certified Nvidia Quadro card, which you only occasionally need to hook up for triple-screen presentations. No doubt, there are specialist cases where the SP123DP2DVI makes sense.

For general use, however, the SP123DP2DVI is too limited to recommend, especially when you consider the price. For £140 exc VAT you could buy a brand new three-screen graphics card, such as an ATI Radeon HD 5830 or an Nvidia GeForce GTX 465 or, if you don't care about 3D, a humble Radeon HD 5450 for under £30. Laptop users could save a significant sum by opting for USB graphics instead.

All of which makes the SP123DP2DVI, with its comparatively high price, poor resolution and limited connector support, a fallback option at best.

Author: Darien Graham-Smith