crossfire dual monitor gpu power division

[giddi]

Hi,

I'm currently looking at upgrading, and would like some advice about the right graphics card direction for me. I will have a dual monitor setup so I am looking at ATI over Nvidia as crossfire supports multi monitors, and would like some advice about how crossfire etc. works in this situation.

My question is If I am running 1 card, or 2 in crossfire with 2 monitors doing basic tasks etc. and say each monitor is using 10% of the max graphics power, then I power up a game in the primary monitor (say something intensive like crysis) which would use say 80% of the total cable graphics cards capable output, will the game and the primary monitor get the output required or will it only get 50% of the cards capability because the output is split evenly over the 2 monitors and the second monitor has 50% associated to it even tho it only ever uses 10%?

As a mobo like an asus p6t has 3 x16 slots, but only really 2 that can be used due to the double slot nature of most decent cards I'm wondering whether I should get 2 cards to run in crossfire, or whether I am better off with a single card for the primary monitor and a low end card to run the second monitor standalone without crossfire.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[AdioKIP]

I would get two cards and crossfire. You can hook one monitor to the primary and the other to the second card and leave crossfire disabled by default, then when enabled the second monitor will automatically cut off. You can also connect them both to the primary adaptor and leave crossfire enabled. When running a game yes the primary will get the advantage of crossfire but if you try having anything running on the second screen you will notice a performance hit.

Right now I run 2x4850's in crossfire with a 3 monitor setup. Normally I leave crossfire disabled (no game has really needed it). I have my primary screen (22 inch) on one 4850 and my other two screens on the other. This way when I game one card is dedicated to gaming while the other card handles the other two screens (tv on one screen, gadgets and temp monitoring on the other). If I need extra power I simply disable my two side screens, activate crossfire which then gives me all the power to one screen.