• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

advice on gpu for three monitors

R

Rich108

n00b
Joined
Jan 6, 2014
Messages
1
I would be greatly appreciative if the community could help me out with advice regarding getting a new graphics card to support three monitors. I would be interested in purchasing it as soon as possible ideallly not spending more than £150 uk money more if necessary but hopefully not.

At the moment my set up pc wise is as follows

COOLERMASTER ELITE 310 BLUE CASE
ASUS® P8P67 (NEW REV 3.0): USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, CrossFireX™
Intel® Core™i5-2500 Quad Core
1GB ATI RADEON™ HD5670 - DVI,HDMI,VGA
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan


my three monitor setup is a bit of a mixture my main monitor is an 20" asus monitor which is at least five years old and only has a vga port, then i have two LG tvs that are of different sizes(19" and 42") that both have vga and hdmi ports on them.

I am not a gamer so gaming isnt a concern. I want to keep my asus monitor as the main screen for computer tasks,browsing etc. then maybe be able to have two different streams running on the lg tvs at the same time
 
The best card for you to get in your budget is the ASUS DCUII HD 7870 in your budget range.

AMD has the best driver support for multiple monitor setups with Eyefinity so go that route.
 
Last edited:
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
yea I'll be honest...my xfx 7970 (which at the time costed around 121.94 British Pounds) card really works just fine...but i still wish i would had grabbed the Asus instead before it sold out and the prices sky rocketed
 
Notice he is not asking for gaming reasons requiring Eyefinity or Surround but just regular extended desktop I believe. He also is also using 3 different displays without native displayport.

The AMD solutions listed will not work without requiring active adapters and therefore adding to the cost. Volcanic Island's GPUs have the hardware to drive 3 displays without requiring native DP but they require the displays to be timing identical.

Kepler based GPUs can drive 3 independent displays without requiring native DP (4 with DP).

Otherwise the only cards from either company will either require active adapters, a specialty custom version, or a professional card to do 3 displays without native displayport.
 
limitedaccess said:
Notice he is not asking for gaming reasons requiring Eyefinity or Surround but just regular extended desktop I believe. He also is also using 3 different displays without native displayport.

The AMD solutions listed will not work without requiring active adapters and therefore adding to the cost. Volcanic Island's GPUs have the hardware to drive 3 displays without requiring native DP but they require the displays to be timing identical.

Kepler based GPUs can drive 3 independent displays without requiring native DP (4 with DP).

Otherwise the only cards from either company will either require active adapters, a specialty custom version, or a professional card to do 3 displays without native displayport.
Click to expand...

I never heard of that...i use to use my dvi and hdmi at the same time no problem......never figured adding a 3rd device would cause an issue.....why do they have all those hookups if they cant be used at the same time? your saying the most he could view is 2 devices on the amd card i posted? Im not saying your totally wrong but do you have a link we can actually read up about it......for goodness sake they put 4 connectors on the back of the card but your saying all that can be used at one time is 2?

But you are saying the nvidia card i posted would do the trick? hell i figured an amd card with 4 hookups could at least run 3 at the same time....and yes i know he made it clear it wasn't really for surround
 
Last edited:
primetime said:
I never heard of that...i use to use my dvi and hdmi at the same time no problem......never figured adding a 3rd device would cause an issue.....why do they have all those hookups if they cant be used at the same time? your saying the most he could view is 2 devices on the amd card i posted? Im not saying your totally wrong but do you have a link we can actually read up about it......for goodness sake they put 4 connectors on the back of the card but your saying all that can be used at one time is 2?

But you are saying the nvidia card i posted would do the trick? hell i figured an amd card with 4 hookups could at least run 3 at the same time....and yes i know he made it clear it wasn't really for surround
Click to expand...

Basically DVI/HDMI connections require a signal clock generator to control timing and sync between the output and input source. So these outputs share the available signal generators. Displayport is a bit more complicated. The DP outputs are DP++ outputs which means they simply act as a DVI/HDMI output when you use a passive adapter. Native DP to DP does not require a clock signal generator.

This means ultimately how many DVI/HDMI outputs you can support is still limited by how many clock signal generators are available.

AMD with the 200 series (I made a mistake here by referring to only Volcanic Islands, this extends to the rebrands as well) to get around this limitation (only 2 generators) but has some caveats - http://www.anandtech.com/show/7400/the-radeon-r9-280x-review-feat-asus-xfx/3
This was done to address the issue of needing native DP or an active adapter for Eyefinity (if you followed questions regarding Eyefinity especially earlier in its life you'll see quite a few questions regarding this issue).

As for why put the connectors there technically AMD reference designs for the 7000 series only had 1 DVI out and not 2 DVI out. Some custom boards added an additional DVI out. Likely a marketing and convenience related reasons due to the prevalence of DVI. Pre-Kepler Nvidia cards also had this issue as as well, this is why you could not do Surround without SLI prior to Kepler since Fermi cards did not have DP out.

Kepler cards are advertised as being able to drive 4 independent displays using a 3 DVI/HDMI and 1 DP configuration. As far as I know they are documented to work as such properly. The only limitation may be related to driving more than 2 monitors requiring Dual Link DVI.
 
Too bad you have a P8P67 motherboard. Otherwise you could run the third monitor off the iGPU on the processor but that particular motherboard doesn't support the video on the CPU. However that motherboard does have a second x16 slot, though I am not sure it if runs at least x4 for a second cheap GPU.
 
Skillz said:
Too bad you have a P8P67 motherboard. Otherwise you could run the third monitor off the iGPU on the processor but that particular motherboard doesn't support the video on the CPU. However that motherboard does have a second x16 slot, though I am not sure it if runs at least x4 for a second cheap GPU.
Click to expand...

I don't understand why that would be needed...plenty of nvidia cards (including the one i posted) would drive 3 devices like he needs (according to what limitedaccess posted)
Besides the op wanted it to be just one card
 
Last edited:
I actually have a similar problem that the on board IGP could solve but I also have p67 chipset card. I need to drive 2 displays but I have 0 videocards :p The funny thing is I haven't overclocked at all either as of yet. :p
 
I was just pointing out to the OP so he knows he has other options besides getting a new GPU.

He can get a motherboard that supports the iGPU on the 2500k.
He can just get a second low power GPU to power a third monitor.
He can get a new GPU that can power all three monitors at once.
 
Just for sake of knowledge...can you post a link to this active adapter in case i would want to do surround for some reason or just wanting to do 3 displays for any reason. 3 hdmi's would have worked best for me lol
f393.jpg
 
Last edited:
The adapters are just generic items with various brands. Just make sure it is an active adapter (may say convertor). Passive adapters just passthrough the signal essentially and won't work.

However I believe most people report the best success with Accell branded ones which are also one of the one's on AMDs actual official list.

The one thing to watch out for also is if you need a single or dual link one active adapter. Dual link DVI is required for greater than 1920x1200 and/or 120hz 1080p monitors, they are also much more expensive.
 
ok not to derail this thread i hope....lets say i want to use 2 more displays for a total of 3....wtf im i supposed to be buying now? i posted a picture of the back of my card in an earlier post....i guess im retarded....i still don't get why i would need an adapter? i cant just hook up the dvi's to 2 displays and the hdmi to the third display?
im not understanding the purpose/need of the adapter especially in my case:(
 
Because one of the DVI ports and the HDMI port are essentially the same. You can only use one at a time. Therefore you'll need to use either

DVI, DVI, DP
DVI, HDMI, DP
DVI, DP, DP
HDMI, DP, DP

Otherwise you'll need to convert the DP to whatever your monitor can accept.
 
Basically -

Display #1: HDMI Out -> HDMI In
Display #2: DVI Out -> DVI to HDMI adapter -> HDMI In

Display #3:
This part is a bit stupid due to limitations of whats available (With sample product in link. I don't know what the actual best one to use or price is at the moment)-
MiniDP -> Active MiniDP to DVI -> DVI to HDMI adapter -> HDMI In

http://www.amazon.ca/Accell-B087B-0...e-Link-Certified/dp/B004071ZXA/ref=pd_cp_ce_0
and frequently bought together -
http://www.amazon.ca/DVI-D-Male-HDMI-Female-Adapter/dp/B001VOD6Q4/ref=pd_bxgy_ce_text_b

or

MiniDP -> MiniDP to DP adapter (many cards come with one) -> Active DP to HDMI -> HDMI In

http://www.amazon.ca/Accell-B086B-001B-Ultraav-Display-Adapter/dp/B001CXV92W

Although the problem is I've heard some people reporting issues with doing such chains (loss of power through so many adapters). You might be easier trying to go with connecting to DVI instead. Otherwise you may need a powered adapter (uses a USB port and expensive).
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Skillz said:
Because one of the DVI ports and the HDMI port are essentially the same. You can only use one at a time. Therefore you'll need to use either

DVI, DVI, DP
DVI, HDMI, DP
DVI, DP, DP
HDMI, DP, DP

Otherwise you'll need to convert the DP to whatever your monitor can accept.
Click to expand...

ok now i get it...so if your display had all 3 inputs then no adapter would be needed;) or if it had dp and dvi:)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top