Tom's Readers Get the Eyefinity Treatment

By Devin Connors
published

Three monitors are always better than one!

This past weekend, six lucky Tom's Hardware readers got to sit down with us here in our Culver City office. It's always fun to meet and chat with readers of both Hardware and Guide, be it at a convention or LAN party... but it’s always more fun on our home turf, especially when we have a surprise in store for them.

In conjunction with AMD and EA, Tom's brought the readers in to play with a top-of-the-line Eyefinity gaming rig, complete with a Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition processor, 5870 graphics card, and three Dell 2310 23-inch (1920x1080) monitors. The day was replete with Dragon Age: Origins, Modern Warfare 2, and Supreme Commander. Playing any game at a 5760x1080 resolution is going to be amazing, but Dragon Age was especially fun because it's optimized for an Eyefinity setup.

Games were played, prizes were won, and plenty of Red Bull and soda was consumed, without a doubt. What you see is here merely a glimpse of the days' events, as there will be plenty of pictures and video over the next week. Stay tuned!

Devin Connors
40 Comments Comment from the forums
  • presidenteody
    I want me some of that I-phinaty! is it on that new winders' 7? I hear that makes your magic box go zoom. -i heard that from somebody the other day... i live in the south... so.... yea
    Reply
  • sliem
    Booth at E3... displaying what?
    Reply
  • rpmrush
    I wonder what Supreme commander would be like! I love it's graphics!
    Reply
  • griffed88
    wow, i. want. that...a 955 with a 5870 isn't all that expensive either! What kinda fps were you getting at that resolution? and did you have all the settings maxed out?
    Reply
  • exfileme
    I agree we should be at E3. So who would be our booth babe? Marcus? -KP
    Reply
  • lowguppy
    How is it optimized for EyeFinity? Even at 1680x1050 the buttons and text are nearly unreadable tiny with no way to scale them. I can't imagine trying to play the game at higher resolutions.
    Reply
  • El_Capitan
    Picture that, but instead with an i7 920 and three Hanspree/Hanns G 28" (1920 x 1200) monitors, and that's what I get to play with everyday. Well, more like work with everyday... but I never want to seem to play in a 5760x1200 resolution.
    Reply
  • empstar
    I got R5870 with 32" Sony LCD TV(KLV-32W550A). I like Eyefinity setup but I hate the black flame/border between 2 monitor. LG borderless TV seen to be a good idea. ;-b but I like Samsung LED TV (slim), sony outdated, can't catch up with market..... any manufacturer have borderless LED TV + slim. I'm sure get 3 of that and Eyefinity here I come. but another problem .... DP (display port) why don't just make 3 HDMI or 3 DVI or 3 DP on one graphic card..
    Reply
  • zelannii
    What's with all the friggin 22" + monitors only having 1080 vertical lines!?!?!?

    My 22" acer monitor at home has 1200, and I certainly would NEVER consider fewer vertical lines, especially on a larger screen were I to replace it. 1200 vertical is just BARELY enough. I suffer with 1280x1024 at work and I regularly can't get enough vertical screen space when looking at documents. I've re-oriented my second display into Portrait just to make it usable. 1080 on a GAMING screen? Say it ain't so Toms, Say it ain't so!
    Reply
  • one-shot
    My 22" Samsung is 1680x1050 and my Acer 24" is 1920x1200. I tried playing an RTS game across both monitors by setting the resolution to 1680x1050 for both. I ended up only looking at one monitor the entire time because I wasn't used to gaming on 2 screens at once. I can't imagine 3 monitors except for Flight Sim X or unless the game is truly optimized to run Eye-Finity.
    Reply