Doubts before buying a new computer: Graphic card and disks

[Sanva]

Hi!

I'm planing to buy a new computer that would run Linux Mint 13 or 14 to replace my main computer, and since it is a big investment I've thought I should ask advice in a couple of things...

First, the graphics card: My idea is to have a 3 monitors configuration. I have been using 2 monitors from some time and I feel that I need a third one in some situations. My idea is to have 2 20'' monitors, the main one and another one just above it. The third one would be of 23'' and would be placed on the right but in portrait mode. I'm using xrand to have the 2 monitors configuration and I assume that it would be the same to configure 3 monitors... right? May I'm wrong here?

And, the main doubt with this is about the graphics card. I don't need anything superb, I don't play video games nor use design apps to retouch high resolution images. But the graphic card needs to manage those 3 monitors to make such giant desktop without problems, and of course I would like to have 3D desktop effects.

I've been reading over there and there are people doing 3 monitor configurations, and it looks like it's fine with the graphics card if it has 3 outputs —maybe having to use an adapter from DisplayPort to VGA—, but I don't know if all the graphics cards with 3 outputs would work or I should look for any special feature of the card.

What do you think about this?? And... nVidia or ATI?

The other doubt is about the hard disks configurations. I'm planing to use a SSD disk to install Linux Mint root partition and a RAID 10 to install the home. What do you think about this? And, another "binary" doubt, should I use hardware or software configuration to configure the RAID (the plan is to have only Linux installed on that computer)?

Thanks a lot in advance for your time! (:

[wavespot]

IMHO, I would recommand you an nvidia Card. i tested several hardware and vdpau driver are likely better than ATI's one.

For your RAID stuff, I don't really know : I let people who knows talking about it.