Question about Eyefinity, and Crossfire

[ehcastro3]

I wanna ask these questions. I know I can surf around but these past days I've been reading and theres at least about 2 RESPECTABLE websites who don't know jack about Eyefinity (both of them said that Eyefinity can be up to 3 monitors even without Digital Port, since you can use a DP to DVI adaptor, which is WRONG as you need ONE DP monitor to have Eyefinity). And I have faith to you Tommies that you know more than them

Anyhoo, these are the questions:

1.) If, for example, I crossfire 2 HD 5870s, can Eyefinity still work? Or only one Vid card can support Eyefinity?

2.) If I have 2 22" monitors that have a native resolution of 1900x1200 resolution, and I have another 22" monitor with Digital Port, but its native resolution is 1680x1050, will the latter monitor affect the quality of Eyefinity in games?

3.) In principle, if you have 2-3 monitors running in one video card in your rig, will it affect FPS and overall performance in gaming? Compared, like say, using only 1 monitor with the same other hardware?

4.) Is the restriction of HD 5870 and 5850 to require a Digital Port monitor for Eyefinity a DRIVER issue or a HARDWARE issue? Can we not see in the future, future drivers that can allow a Digital port to DVI adapters and 2 DVI monitors supporting Eyefinity?

 

[hunter315]

Eyefinity versions of the 5870 and 5850 are not yet available, they will be the versions that pack 6 display ports, so if you crossfire them you will still be able to run 6 monitors, the current versions can run 3 monitors.

Are you running your games across all 3 screens or just 1? If its just 1 then that third monitor will have no affect on the quality, if you plan to run it across all 3 you may have to get a bit creative with your display settings to get it working right but you should be able to run each at their native resolution.

If you are running the game across all 3 screens you will definitely take a performance hit, if you are only running it on one the hit will be minimal, maybe 1 FPS lost.

The eyefinity restrictions are hardware based, as there are only 2 DACs it will only ever be able to run 2 analog monitors, the restrictions on the 6 miniDisplay port one will become more known once it gets released but it should be able to handle 6 DVI-D monitors fine as they dont require DACs.

 

[ehcastro3]

Thanks....really cleared a lot of things

BTW whats a DAC?

 

[hunter315]

Digital to Analog converter, its what allows you to run a VGA monitor off of a DVI-I connector, the GPU senses that the monitor on the other end is analog and used the DAC to convert the normal DVI signal into an analog cable the VGA cable can carry.

 

[ehcastro3]

ok...thanks

 

[sburner]

You CAN run 3 monitors of a Ati Radeon 5870 with Eyefinity. You need only a displayport to dvi adapter. Since you don't believe those 3 respectible sites (they are correct btw..) here is a video of 3*30" screens running of a 5870 with a resolution of 7680 * 1600

video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_ryCJKz1N8


cheers

 

[dwn2brasstacks]

You have to use an active display port to use the third monitor, Std adapter will not work. Really dissapointing you have to buy this special adapter, why didn't they either include it or just go with 3 dvi, who the heck uses anything else really? 1% of the market?

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey