Major changes to the PC graphics experience come few and far in between. Perhaps the last significant update was the move to multi-GPU rendering, a la ATI CrossFire. Of course, despite the well-known performance benefits of employing multiple GPUs, the technology has some obvious drawbacks. More than one motherboard slot is usually required for multi-GPU configurations, which in turn means that you wind up consuming two or more cards worth of power, rather than just one.
On the application front, you're free to span a desktop across multiple screens, running multiple apps across one or more displays concurrently. However, traditionally, spanning an application across more than one screen meant that it had to be non-accelerated. You could have size or you could have speed, but you couldn’t have both.
Times have changed. AMD’s new Eyefinity technology takes us to the next level in mainstream multi-monitor output. Known as “SunSpot” to only a handful within AMD up until its launch day, Eyefinity enables up to six monitors to be controlled from one card, enabling a massive “surface” area exceeding 24 megapixels. If you read AMD’s literature on Eyefinity, it says that “we are inexorably on the road to the ‘holodeck’ (as conceptualized on Star Trek).” Given that the Star Trek holodeck involved haptics (tactile feedback) based on force fields and such, this might be a tad hyperbolic. A better, if less-known, analogy might be the CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment), a small chamber comprised of three to six screens showing rear-mounted 3D projections. Dozens of universities use CAVE systems for research around the world, so imagining a consumer version of CAVE enabled by AMD’s technology isn’t at all far-fetched. If you’ve read Fahrenheit 451 and recall the three-walled, immersive home entertainment systems Bradbury imagined, that’s where Eyefinity (with a little help from ultra-high-speed broadband) is headed.
If your primary PC is a single-screen notebook, the thought of having six monitors may seem overwhelming and excessive. So let’s be clear at the outset: Eyefinity is a means, not an end. If CrossFire was ATI/AMD’s method for helping consumers go multi-GPU, then Eyefinity is the next evolution of that. The object is not to pile on as many screens as possible. Rather, the object is to make computing “surfaces,” the real estate on which you visualize a computer-generated environment, as scalable as possible.
Today, DisplayPort is a key piece in making that scalability happen, as is a redesign in how multi-monitor computing happens on the video card. Let’s dig in and see what Eyefinity really is and does.


The key word in your statement is DUAL monitors. I recall another study that tested how much people prefer 3 or 4 monitors over 2, and it was a very small percent (~10%). For a lot of tasks outside of gaming, you don't want your entire vision filled with pixels. You don't want to get dizzy constantly from moving your head back and forth. Of course eyefinity is great if you want to blow a ton of money for a wall of monitors and your career is a stock trader, CERN mission controller, etc, but I'd rather stick with 3 physical and use virtual desktops for 3+.
Absolutely, this one is quite ridiculous. Multiple displays only make sense for games if you sit closely and angle them. But the borders would still annoy the hell out of me.
This may be a nice gimmick for some, but ultimately we'll be moving to curved screens.
How can you not notice .5" bezels?
Too many people comment on this without having the first idea about what it is like. In fps games, driving games, flight sims you DO NOT notice the bezels. The only games where the bezels are noticable is in flat 2d type board games ie empire total war campaign map.
I have it so I know what it's like. Read some reviews and they will tell you the same thing.
It actually amazing how the human mind works......
let me ask you this, have you ever done a dual screen setup? If so then how many times have you payed attention to different resolutions, bezels/ bezels thicknesses, and different makers of monitors? My guess would probably be no.
Now i haven't used eyefinity although i have used dual screen setups, but i can understand how people don't notice thing when your that focus on something. In this case, most peoples don't looking for the unlit bezels, there eyes are going to jump to the next bright screen that they need to see and there minds will just filter the bezels out, giving the full clean picture.
I actually arranged mine so the side two overlap the middle one to reduce some of the bezel space but still...it's really not noticeable. The 10.3 drivers will introduce a "hide" option where instead of having a gap between monitors (half of a building on one monitor and the other half on the other monitor) it will actually hide the image behind the bezel so you get, maybe, 1/3 of the building on each monitor and the other 1/3 hidden by the bezel (think tall thin building, obviously). Sort of like wearing a pair of sunglasses with bigger rims. The image is there, but will be hidden by the rims. You'll specify how wide your bezels are and the driver will handle it from there. That, actually, will make things a bit more interesting. Of course, I'm not so sure in FPS it would be good as you could, theoretically, have someone hiding in that bezel area as they approach instead of definitely seeing them on a monitor somewhere.
Bottom line - don't knock it before you at least try it. See if you can borrow some friends' monitors and hook 'em up to your 58xx card and try it out. I promise it'll be your next expense to budget for.
Just like you don't notice the pillars between the windshield and side windows of your car. Your brain just ignores the parts that it doesn't want to see.
Man Cave! Six large screens! I need a larger apartment. I may even have to rent a large house.
i meant 3 because i saw 3 outputs on my graphics card never tried it thought.....
can someone explain..... the article just said you cant have speed and size....(scratching head)