3 screen eyefinity + more LCD's questions

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Spun Ducky

Gawd
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Feb 1, 2009
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I have a radeon 5870 with 3 dell 2209wa's in eyefinity and I have 2 spare hannsg 28 inch lcd's. I only have pci express 1x slots on my board besides the single 16x. I am wondering if its possible to make an even further extended desktop of some sort by adding in a card such as:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161280

I normally know it would work but eyefinity kind of changes everything I know at least in theory so if anyone has done this it would be helpful to know the results. I also wonder if it would still be possible to game on just the 3 screens powered by the radeon 5870 possibly through windowed mode for games?
 
From what I understand it should work just fine.

That said, no way in hell would I spend $100+ on a 4350 - who the hell are they kidding? You can plug an x16 card into an x1 slot, by the way, you just have to cut the back of the x1 slot off so that the card physically fits. Electrically they are compatible. Obviously it will only operate at x1 bandwidth, but if you are just using it to add 2 monitor outputs that is what I would do. That way you only need to spend like $30 on card.
 
How are you getting 5x LCDs to fit on one desktop? Do you have some awesome monitor mounts? If so you've gotta share what mount you're using for your Eyefinity setup.
 
kllrnohj said:
From what I understand it should work just fine.

That said, no way in hell would I spend $100+ on a 4350 - who the hell are they kidding? You can plug an x16 card into an x1 slot, by the way, you just have to cut the back of the x1 slot off so that the card physically fits. Electrically they are compatible. Obviously it will only operate at x1 bandwidth, but if you are just using it to add 2 monitor outputs that is what I would do. That way you only need to spend like $30 on card.
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If he did that though, the monitors wouldn't be able to operate as one big screen right? Don't you need a crossfire compatible mobo in order to have two gfx cards run eyefinity on multiple monitors as one screen? Besides, is there even a 5x1 display group? I think he'd have to buy a sixth monitor.
 
vjcsmoke said:
How are you getting 5x LCDs to fit on one desktop? Do you have some awesome monitor mounts? If so you've gotta share what mount you're using for your Eyefinity setup.
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I am using a very large desk I bought at an auction from a public school that closed. It is heavy duty metal and measures 4x10 it was used in a science lab. I am not using a mount at the moment for the 3 screens just have them lined up level with their base stands. I have the equipment though to build my own stand in my shop.

I am researching all around about this question hopefully I will find someone who has actually gone through with the setup in a similar fashion before dumping more money into an already very expensive system. I will check into what you guys have already said and hopefully get the setup going as I would like otherwise I will just end up with one of the 6 port cards eventually or crossfire 5870s I suppose.
 
Aaron11 said:
If he did that though, the monitors wouldn't be able to operate as one big screen right? Don't you need a crossfire compatible mobo in order to have two gfx cards run eyefinity on multiple monitors as one screen? Besides, is there even a 5x1 display group? I think he'd have to buy a sixth monitor.
Click to expand...

Oh, I read that as wanting to run a 3x1 Eyefinity group with 2 more extended desktop monitors (NOT in Eyefinity). That should work just fine, but using another card to add to an Eyefinity group will *NOT* work currently. Won't even work with two 5xxx series cards in Crossfire (yet).

There is a 5x1 display group I think - I thought I saw it during on the the ATI demo videos or some such of 5x1 portrait display group - could be mistaken though.
 
kllrnohj said:
Oh, I read that as wanting to run a 3x1 Eyefinity group with 2 more extended desktop monitors (NOT in Eyefinity).
Click to expand...
This is exactly what I want to do as I know they wouldn't be part of the eyefinity group. I will do that setup when the 6 card or crossfire support becomes possible but for now I want to run the 3x1 as a group and when not in games or anything run the others as an extended desktop for things like ventrillo,winamp,vlc,etc.

So the question becomes which video card to get to do it on the cheap as I only have 1 pci e 1x slot open my 16x is taken by the 5870 and the other 1x slot has my tv tuner. The reason I want so many displays is I work with CPLD's and FPGA's so having documentation + lots of windows running with various levels of hardware synthesis is important to me. I usually have quartus II, visual studio sometimes, 1-2 browsers, along with RTL and timing viewers open for the circuits im designing.
 
Just cut the back of the x1 slot off so that you can fit an x16 card in it - it works just fine. Then pick up some random $40 card (I'd get another ATI card just so they use the same drivers) and you're good to go.
 
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