I use four screens, 1 30", 1 24", and 2 20", for a total of 9.7 million pixels, with some awesome monitor arms. I wrote all about it at http://littlebitofcode.

I use four screens, 1 30", 1 24", and 2 20", for a total of 9.7 million pixels, with some awesome monitor arms. I wrote all about it at http://littlebitofcode.com/2010/02/07/how-i-learned-to-love-monitor-arms http://littlebitofcode.com/2010/02/07/how-i-learned-to-love-.... I like to think of multiple monitors like a large physical workspace. While you are only working on one thing at a time, you can have reams of supporting information available ready to view without stopping what you are doing, saving yourself a context switch. In a physical workspace, you spread your work out so you can see it all at once, it's not advantageous to pile it all on top of each other and shuffle piles, same with computers. I added monitors one at a time over a period of about a year. This gave me time to adjust my workflow across each transition, and I had a specific idea of what I would use additional screen space for each time. There are still times when I feel like I could use some additional work area, but they are relatively spread out. If money were no object, I would have 3 30" displays, with 2 24" displays above them. I might replace a 20" display with a 30", but I don't want to use less than 4 monitors, and I probably won't do that any time soon.