Accessory monitor with eyefinity?

OFaceSIG

OFaceSIG

2[H]4U
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Aug 31, 2009
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I have two 670s in SLi and am thinking about buying tow 7970's to replace them. However my real question is I have an accessory monitor as Nvidia surround allows this. I cannot seem to find any concrete info if AMD allows an accessory monitor on eyefinity yet.

Has anyone does this for sure? If so can you share details?
 
No AMD doesn't have that exact function (i.e. gaming over 3 monitors and showing something else on the other one). You can display 4 monitors in Extended mode or as one big 4x1 or 2x2 Eyefinity group. Switching between profiles is very easy using hotkeys, last time I checked Nvidia doesn't have this feature which is pretty useful.

But there's no point switching from 670 SLI to 7970 CF, you're losing adaptive vsync and will probably get more microstutter with 7970 CF and raw performance will be pretty much the same. If you're thinking of switching to AMD then wait until the 8xxx series comes out.
 
I"m running into the memory barrier on my 670s. With 3 x 1680x1050 monitors I'm using right up to the limit of the 2GB. I need more v-memories :(
 
OFaceSIG said:
I"m running into the memory barrier on my 670s. With 3 x 1680x1050 monitors I'm using right up to the limit of the 2GB. I need more v-memories :(
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Are you actually seeing performance degredation because of the lack of VRAM (i.e. sharp drops to single digit framerates) or are you just worried because you're seeing VRAM usage close to 2GB during gameplay? Games like BF3 will fill up whatever VRAM you have, so even though you might hear about 7970 users using 2.5GB of VRAM during gameplay it doesn't necessarily mean a 2GB card will be inadequate. Unless you're getting very obvious performance issues I wouldn't worry about it too much.


Tsumi said:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1677952

Yes, it is possible. Brute force method used in the post, but AMD drivers may have changed since then. I think you should be able to add and remove monitors from the eyefinity group.
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Interesting... don't see this as an option anywhere in CCC though.
 
Yes, this is completely possible. I currently run Eyefinity using 2x DP, x1 DVI. I use HDMI to output to my A/V receiver at the same time. Some of the better programmed games I can even play a blu-ray movie on my home theater setup whilst playing a game in eyefinity all at once using the same computer. I have to say it works fairly well on the 7970...MUCH better than 6xxx or 5xxx series cards.
 
slh28 said:
Are you actually seeing performance degredation because of the lack of VRAM (i.e. sharp drops to single digit framerates) or are you just worried because you're seeing VRAM usage close to 2GB during gameplay? Games like BF3 will fill up whatever VRAM you have, so even though you might hear about 7970 users using 2.5GB of VRAM during gameplay it doesn't necessarily mean a 2GB card will be inadequate. Unless you're getting very obvious performance issues I wouldn't worry about it too much.




Interesting... don't see this as an option anywhere in CCC though.
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Yes I run the "perfoverlayvisible" console option and when you kick it up past medium vram usage goes to 1999 and the GPU graph goes crazy and starts stuttering. 2GB vram cannot hanlde 5040x1050. I need MOAR.

Ideally 680 4GB would be the next steep but nvidia is a raping whore and that extra 2GB vram is HELLA expensive.
 
Problem is 7970's aren't exactly cheap or good value, unless you find a good used deal. If you want to buy new then 7950's might be a better option as they are significantly cheaper and not that much slower when overclocked. Still, I'd wait for AMD's next generation cards which are due out early next year, in the meantime tone down your AA or something.
 
OFaceSIG said:
I really need some powerful video cards. :(
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Don't we all. And while we're on that subject, we also need some really nice Dell U3011s for 5-screen portrait eyefinity, a 3960x with the Rampage IV Extreme...
 
I'm not sold on 5x1 yet. two video cards has enough of a hard time driving three :(
 
Yes but that's done through PCI switches. In the end the processor only has 16x lanes. I'm not interesting in PCI switching. It's really just black magic.
 
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