WHats better? three 24 inch monitors in eyefinity or 30" 2560x1600 monitor

[ryan2258]

Hello, I am currently running my core i7 rig with crossfire 5870's on a dell 3008wfp 30" monitor and ever since I got my 5870's I've been dying to try eyefinity. Two more 30 inchers would be ideal but its really pricey. I was considering selling my Dell and grabbing three 24's. What would you do?

 

[vvhocare5]

Beg or borrow the 2 monitors to try Eyefinity. I borrowed monitors from work and it was impressive - but not enough for me to go out and buy them. You will drop down in performance because you have more pixels to draw - but you are in good shape with 2 x 5870's - I did it with 2 x 5850's overclocked (and it was good). Live with them for a little while if you can... then decide before selling that 30"

That Dell 30" has a displayport as I recall (my 24" did). You need one monitor to have a DP adapter or you have to buy an ACTIVE DVI to DP adapter for $100.

Do try it if you can

 

[hunuok]

Hey there,

You need to consider a few things:

1. At the moment, contrary to what AMD say, Eyefinity doesnt perform that well on crossfire setups. It seems to "just" work. I have to disable crossfire to get playable frame rates.
2. Some games dont run well on Eyefinity. Here is a list that "do":

http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTI1NDE2Nzk2NjBpOFVuVWt6c0RfMV8xNl9sLmpwZw==
http://support.amd.com/us/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity-software.aspx

Thanks to paperfox for the links.

3. FOV issues in FPS applications such as MW2. There is a fix on widescreengaming.com but it doesnt seem to work in my case.
4. You will have to turn down settings (AA/AF/Post processing) to get good frame rates. You may even have to run in Directx9 to run.

Having said that, Eyefinity is fantastic. Hopefully driver support will eventually come out, hopefully. For FPS, I use a single screen (motion sickness on Eyefinity!) while on flight sims/racing I use Eyefinity.
As vvhocare5 mentioned, beg/borrow a couple of monitors and try it first. You may need an ACTIVE displayport adapter first (~$100).

Good luck.

 

[ryan2258]

you are correct. the Dell 3008wfp does have a displayport adapter. All i would need is two more 30" screens with DVI ports but there doesn't seem to be a bargain 30" monitor available at the moment. I think they're kind of a niche product still, just aimed at enthusiasts. Alot of my friends have never even heard of 1600p and just get confused when I tell them 1080p isnt "the best". Then I try to explain about resolution and pixels and then they call me a nerd lol. I should probably start saving my pennies and start scouring the web for a couple nice dell 3007 or 3008 monitors. Putting out another 2k is gonna hurt though.

 

[ryan2258]

Best answer selected by Ryan2258.