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Ports on the rear of a GPU

Tags:
  • DVI
  • Graphics
  • GPUs
  • Graphics Cards
  • Monitors
  • Displays
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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a b U Graphics card
July 22, 2013 6:31:36 AM

Hi everyone!

Just a quick question, I know that the average GPU typically comes with 4 ports on the back, namely HDMI, Display, and 2 x DVI's (DVI-I and DVI-D I believe? Please correct me if I am wrong?).

Here are my questions:

- How do the 2 DVI's differ, and how are they used?
- What is a display port? I've never needed or used one and so I am unfamilliar with them...
- Is there a maximum of 4 monitors per GPU
- Theoretically, if I had a 4 way SLI setup, how many monitors could I use at once? (Eliminating VRAM and power etc.). or
- If I had a mobo with 5 PCI-e slots, and I used 5 monitor cards each with 12 display outputs, such as the Powercolor HD5970, could I theoretically have 60 monitors on one PC?
- Out of the total number of possible monitors in use, how many of them can be used for multi-screen gaming at once? (Again, eliminating VRAM, just assume I had 4 titans! XD)

I know that alot of the above is very exteme, and is unlikely to be done by anyone, I am just interested to know if it CAN be done.

Please do not post comments that are unrelated to the above questions
Please treat this thread on a general discussion basis
All of the above questions are hypothetical, and should be treated as such

Thanks in advance for those who give valid responses. =)

More about : ports rear gpu

a b U Graphics card
a b C Monitor
July 22, 2013 6:43:17 AM

Based on the two DVIs. If you have two monitors then the main monitor will be chosen by which DVI slot you use.

DisplayPort is like DVI but different. It too doesn't carry sound.

I believe most monitors max out at 3 monitors even though there may be 4 ports.

4 way SLI...probably 12 monitors.

A 5970 is a weak GPU and could not run that many monitors.

As many as possible. However, performance takes a huge hit.
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a b U Graphics card
a b C Monitor
July 22, 2013 6:46:47 AM

Singles cards in a system running non-sli, you can have as many monitors hooked up to each card as they would support, so if you had 4 cards with 4 ports each, you could 16 monitors. You could only game on 1, the primary.

If you SLI 4 cards together, you can still only have the maximum number of monitors connected from 1 card, the "master" card basically. So if you had 4 cards with 4 ports on each but were SLI'ing them and wanted to run surround gaming, you could only use 4 monitors. The other 3 cards would simply provide processing power to the first card, but no additional outputs.

Some very select cards have more than 4 ports, like I think powercolor makes a 6 port AMD based card, but 3-4 is the norm.

Displayport is a new standard that came out for extremely high resolution. DVI-I, VGA and early HDMI specs didn't allow for ultra-high resolution, so display port was crreated. New HDMI specs can go higher resolution now, as can DVI-D, dual link DVI's. Basically patched together 2 DVI outputs to 1 output to allow a high resolution.
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a c 119 U Graphics card
a b C Monitor
July 22, 2013 6:51:34 AM

envy14tpe said:
Based on the two DVIs. If you have two monitors then the main monitor will be chosen by which DVI slot you use.

DisplayPort is like DVI but different. It too doesn't carry sound.

I believe most monitors max out at 3 monitors even though there may be 4 ports.

4 way SLI...probably 12 monitors.

A 5970 is a weak GPU and could not run that many monitors.

As many as possible. However, performance takes a huge hit.


5970 weak?

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a c 205 U Graphics card
a c 117 C Monitor
July 22, 2013 8:05:50 AM

getochkn said:
Singles cards in a system running non-sli, you can have as many monitors hooked up to each card as they would support, so if you had 4 cards with 4 ports each, you could 16 monitors. You could only game on 1, the primary.

If you SLI 4 cards together, you can still only have the maximum number of monitors connected from 1 card, the "master" card basically. So if you had 4 cards with 4 ports on each but were SLI'ing them and wanted to run surround gaming, you could only use 4 monitors. The other 3 cards would simply provide processing power to the first card, but no additional outputs.

Some very select cards have more than 4 ports, like I think powercolor makes a 6 port AMD based card, but 3-4 is the norm.

Displayport is a new standard that came out for extremely high resolution. DVI-I, VGA and early HDMI specs didn't allow for ultra-high resolution, so display port was crreated. New HDMI specs can go higher resolution now, as can DVI-D, dual link DVI's. Basically patched together 2 DVI outputs to 1 output to allow a high resolution.


For amd all the monitors are on the first. For nvidia, you can actually use the other cards' ports. http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/3dvision-sur... They have a config tool to figure out which ports you can use. On kepler you can run surround on a single card, you do not need sli like previous generations. This is because before they only supported 2 monitors per card, but kepler supports 4. Here's amd's tool. http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/amd-eyefini...

Eyefinity can game on 6 monitors, surround is only 3. Both can setup accessory monitors depending on the setup. The 5970 with 12 ports never went on sale. You can google and see higher than eyefinity 6 but they never came out and were only seen as demonstrations.

Dvi-i has analog and digital signals, dvi-d is just digital. This only matters when using a dvi to vga adapter because vga is analog, you need the analog capability.
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a b U Graphics card
July 22, 2013 9:00:00 AM

Its great to see so many people replying! Thanks!

The 5970 I was on about actually had 12 display ports on the rear, so I assume that this card could run 12 monitors yes?
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a c 205 U Graphics card
a c 117 C Monitor
July 22, 2013 10:14:45 AM

As I said the 5970 eyefinity 12 card never went on sale. It was just a concept. You will find special cards for eyefinity 6. There are also flex cards from sapphire which don't require displayport for 3 monitors. There are also other custom cards for nvidia which go beyond their normal capabilities. But you really aren't going to find a card on sale that can do more than 6.

Just a bit more info I thought was worth mentioning; if you have an igpu, you could run even more monitors. Monitors can also be run off usb, though limited in uses. There are also of course pci or pcie x1 cards so you technically don't need pcie x16 slots. I should also mention thunderbolt, you could daisy chain displays depending on the capabilities (as with dp). There are also docks which can combine multiple monitors so your pc sees them as 1.
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a b U Graphics card
July 23, 2013 1:15:40 AM

k1114 said:
As I said the 5970 eyefinity 12 card never went on sale. It was just a concept. You will find special cards for eyefinity 6. There are also flex cards from sapphire which don't require displayport for 3 monitors. There are also other custom cards for nvidia which go beyond their normal capabilities. But you really aren't going to find a card on sale that can do more than 6.

Just a bit more info I thought was worth mentioning; if you have an igpu, you could run even more monitors. Monitors can also be run off usb, though limited in uses. There are also of course pci or pcie x1 cards so you technically don't need pcie x16 slots. I should also mention thunderbolt, you could daisy chain displays depending on the capabilities (as with dp). There are also docks which can combine multiple monitors so your pc sees them as 1.

I see. Well it was just a hypothetical question anyway. It would be quite cool though to get 3 or 4 of those eyefinity 12 cards and be running all those monitors! Best game of skyrim ever...

IGPU? I'm not familiar with these, please elaborate...
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a c 205 U Graphics card
a c 117 C Monitor
July 23, 2013 9:41:28 AM

Integrated graphics. Do I really need to elaborate? Other than docks, none of the other solutions I mentioned would give more monitors to game on. Multi monitors may sound great but the bezels completely ruin the experience for me. I always go for higher res screens. If I wanted a bigger display area, I'd get a 4k display.
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a b U Graphics card
July 24, 2013 1:15:55 AM

k1114 said:
Integrated graphics. Do I really need to elaborate? Other than docks, none of the other solutions I mentioned would give more monitors to game on. Multi monitors may sound great but the bezels completely ruin the experience for me. I always go for higher res screens. If I wanted a bigger display area, I'd get a 4k display.


Ah, apologies, I haven't heard of integrated graphics being called IGPU's before! Just another acronym to add the the PC dictionary. =) No need to elaborate, no.

I know exactly what you mean about the bezels, it's the only reason why I dont already have a multi monitor setup. Even a 5mm line would be enough to put me off personally. You are right though, higher res is definatly better for the time being. The new 4k monitor from LG looks good, ultrawide? Should get plenty of FOV on one of those!
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