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Eyefinity Questions

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Kardonxt

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Ok I got a good deal on 3 monitors locally so i'm scooping them up. Which means it's time to toss the 4890s and upgrade. I had a few questions that i'm hoping some one could help me out with.

5870 2gb? Does the extra 1gb make a big difference at high res 1920x1200x3? How much of a difference like 10% 20% or more? Worth an extra $100? I will be running one 5870 till I can get some more cash. I know it's downgrade in performance but what cha gunna do?

How do I know if I need an active display port converter or just an adapter cable? All 3 monitors have hdmi and dvi but not display port.

Any chance we will see a 5xxx series refresh in the next 1 or 2 months? 5890 or S. Islands etc? I have not been able to find much of anything on this. Seems like we knew about the 4890s way before they launched.

thanks for any feed back :)
 
I've been asking some of the same qeustions on my thread.

From what i have been reading and learning, if you have 3 monitors, an active display adapter is a must. Unfortunately the cheapest one I've found is $107.

Also this thread is worth checking out.

What monitors did you get? :)
 
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Kardonxt said:
Ok I got a good deal on 3 monitors locally so i'm scooping them up. Which means it's time to toss the 4890s and upgrade. I had a few questions that i'm hoping some one could help me out with.

5870 2gb? Does the extra 1gb make a big difference at high res 1920x1200x3? How much of a difference like 10% 20% or more? Worth an extra $100? I will be running one 5870 till I can get some more cash. I know it's downgrade in performance but what cha gunna do?

How do I know if I need an active display port converter or just an adapter cable? All 3 monitors have hdmi and dvi but not display port.

Any chance we will see a 5xxx series refresh in the next 1 or 2 months? 5890 or S. Islands etc? I have not been able to find much of anything on this. Seems like we knew about the 4890s way before they launched.

thanks for any feed back :)
Click to expand...

1) You will need an active displayport adapter for DVI Eyefinity.
2) The 2GB vs 1GB only matters at 4xAA or greater, which is moot since there is not enough shader power available regardless. I think reviewers have been disingenous in a couple of areas:

1) Not reviewing 5760x1200 with 2x5870 vs 1x5970 overclocked to 5870 speeds
2) Not reviewing 5760x1200 at 0xAA
 
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you will no doubt need one active adapter. i don't know why people are bitching about a $100 adapter. obviously ati is pushing displayport and using converters is a workaround since dp is not widely supported by monitor manufacturers. whatever gets the job done.

there is no such thing as hi res 1920x1200 x3 with eyefinity. it'll be 5760x1200, or if using bezel compensation 6048x1200.

if you have the option to get the 2gb card, get it. it will do nothing but help, especially with the high resolutions with eyefinity and games that are more gpu dependent (which is the way it should be. games being cpu bound is just stupid).
 
thanks for all the info guys. It looks liek all the 2gb cards are all 6 display port cards. It comes with a bunch of adapters but no converters. Can I use the adapters and still just need to run 1 of them with the converter or would I need to buy a $100 converter for each monitor?
 
Kardonxt said:
thanks for all the info guys. It looks liek all the 2gb cards are all 6 display port cards. It comes with a bunch of adapters but no converters. Can I use the adapters and still just need to run 1 of them with the converter or would I need to buy a $100 converter for each monitor?
Click to expand...

If you bought the 2gb card it does come with 2 passive adapters. The card can support 2 monitors through passive adapters but anything beyond 2 requires active adapters for the rest.

From what I've read, at playable settings there's no difference between the 1gb and 2gb version unless you have 6 monitors or AA too high for the GPU to handle anyway. There is a 5870 E6 2gb review over at http://www.widescreengamingforum.com along with a lot of useful info about adapters and what not. I believe Asus is suppose to have a 5870 2gb standard edition at some point too.

Many people are able to get by with a $30 DP->VGA adapter (it does have a conversion chip in it) instead of the $100 DP->DVI adapter but it's a risk. A lot of people end up on the $100 adapter in the end after messing around with cheap option though.
 
wow that is a ton of info, great article. Thanks!

I would most likely avoid the risk and just pick up the dp to DVI adapter. Prolly would not make a big difference on one of the side monitors but I know when using just one monitor I can't stand VGA anymore.
 
Im running 3 Acer P244W I bought from Costco for 169.00 a piece with no tax in Oregon while I was at PDXLAN. I'm using the Apple active DVI to mini displayport adapter and a female mini displayport to Male displayport cable from this company http://estore.circuitassembly.com/p...Female-to-Displayport-Male-Adapter-Cable.html.

Its been running great for the most part. A couple bugs here and there but gaming on Eyefinity is just awesome. I love the extra FOV in games and the immersion factor. I mainly play MW2 and BFBC2 and I'm having a great time.
 
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