Active Display port vs Display Port

[MrGuvernment]

Now with owning a 5850 and considering eyefinity i have had to learn about eyefinity.

with reading, i realized there are 2 kinds of adapters, active and passive.

Now nothing seems clear, you read about a passive adapter and it can handle X resolution and so forth, but in order to get higher res you need an active display port adapter, which jacks the price up about $90 or more.

I wanted to know if someone can please clarify this for me before i drop money on an adapter i may not need, or would rather put towards a 2nd 5850 or something...

 

[limitedaccess]

First for displayport to DVI adapters.

The difference between active and passive is, and active adapter has its own signal clock generator, a passive one does not. ATIs 5000 series only has 2 signal clock generators for dvi/hdmi/vga connections. That means if you want to connect 3 displays to one card, one monitor must be connected via an active adapter or be native DP to DP.

For active adapters there are two kinds, one is dual link dvi and other cheaper on is is single link dvi. Single link dvi goes up to 1920x1200@60hz. If you wish to use higher resolution and/or refresh rate you need to use the more expensive dual link adapter.

You can also use DP/VGA adapter. All dp/vga adapters are active by nature. You however will likely get less image quality (especially sharpness) since you are mixing analog and digital.

 

[MrGuvernment]

some good info there, much appreciated, looks like i may go the route of an LCD with DP built in.

 

[limitedaccess]

Single link is not the issue, I might not have been clear, see my post here for more -
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1551797

The adapter has to be active for eyefinity. Whether or not it is single or dual depends on the resolution of the monitors you will be using for eyefinity.

 

[MrGuvernment]

checking your thread, this is all new to me so any info i will suck right up.

This is also useful as at work most of our support systems are triple monitors and i am looking to ditch the dual cards for a single card, but it seems most all triple port cards are

HDMI x 1
DVI-D x 1
|VGA x1

but like my card, you cant use DVI and HDMI at the same time, only one or the other.

 

[limitedaccess]

The reason is most current GPUs only have on board hardware support to communicate 2 different signals from the actual GPU to a display. (Not sure if any specialty cards are being sold that support more)

Display port allows the GPU to directly communicate with the display, without the need for any intermediary signaling hardware. (VGA/DVI/HDMI require this)

Your other option can be to run a display via USB.