Widescreen Gaming Forum

Well so is $500+ video cards, but that hasn't stopped them from making them.
They are well aware of how most folks want best bang for buck, but they are still able to sell high end stuff too.
I believe it's coming. Sure, I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.

EDIT:
Some of the reason I feel like it is coming.
LCD monitors are quite cheap now compared to a year or two ago.
Popularity is growing for multi-monitor gaming.
More and more games offer the resolutions for surround gaming.
Multi core gpu's are advancing (offering the power to run at extreme res).
ATI has a model out now that supports 4 monitors, (though not surround gaming).

Well so is $500+ video cards, but that hasn't stopped them from making them.

...$500 video cards aren't a niche market. Three screens used to play video games is a niche market.

Once one of the companies comes out with multi-screen SLI, I'll start to believe...

Well I would consider them a niche market, because not that many people buy them, upon release. Most wait until the price drops, normally after the next niche market 500+ card comes out.
They are for the elite, so to speak that want the latest and greatest, not the normal buyer than wants good performance at a fair price.
But whatever, I'm sure it is coming, someday. I remember people saying 1GB of memory on a video card would never happen.

meh, display port could be the next video card plug. plus they have adapters to go to lower, hdmi, dvi, and vga. so build cards that have 4 display ports, include the adapters for lets say 2 of them, display port to dvi and include 2 dvi to vga adapters(which is standard now) could even include a dp to hdmi...

its not a big problem, the video card manufatures could do it if they wanted to. zotac gtx 260 was mentioned in this news post in april: http://www.vizworld.com/2009/04/zotac-develops-geforce-gtx-260-with-displayport-support/ which means some of the manufactures are looking into it. display port is stronger then the other connections and supports adapters to the other connections so why not do it, plus it would cater to a bigger range of customers.

Here are DisplayPort to DVI single adapters

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10428&cs_id=1042801&p_id=4827&seq=1&format=2

Looks like this is what you'd need to go from the TH2Go DP to the DVI monitors. Wikipedia article says that DP will pass through a DVI signal. If a high-end DP GFX card comes out, we may be in business.

Edit: Matrox also offers an adapter - http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/th2go/?productTabs=2

Well I would consider them a niche market, because not that many people buy them, upon release. Most wait until the price drops, normally after the next niche market 500+ card comes out.
They are for the elite, so to speak that want the latest and greatest, not the normal buyer than wants good performance at a fair price.

The difference is that "few" who buy the cards, when talking about $500 video cards, is several million.

The "few" who buy the TH2Go's number in the thousands to tens of thousands.

But whatever, I'm sure it is coming, someday. I remember people saying 1GB of memory on a video card would never happen.

And I know people who believe the United States never landed on the moon ;). Those who thought 1gb would never appear on a GPU were simply ignoring Moore's law.

The GPU manufacturers have very little to gain by making cards that can output to multiple screens as if they were one (ala TH2Go or "span" mode). As it is current cards with three outputs can't even span three monitors together.

To each his own. Everything's bound to happen someday, I guess I'll concede defeat from my retina-based iEverything (firmware hacked, of course).

This discussion is past off topic. Please bring it back or start a new thread.

FYI, the press release on the Matrox site has been edited to say that availability is planned for Q3/2009. That makes more sense, considering there are only 7 days left in Q2.

1) No 3x1920x1200 still? I did the math and guess the ~9.5gbps for that isn't enough since DisplayPort goes up only to 8.64gbps (not even accounting for protocol overhead).

2) What's the point of a DisplayPort->DVI adapter, won't the DVI still be limited to 3x1680x1050 @57Hz since the DVI in the first place doesn't have the bandwidth? In which case why bother buying a DP version of TH2Go, instead of just the DVI version?

3) So.. we actually need to buy video cards with DisplayPort I guess, but where do we even get such a thing? Do they exist for high end cards we'd actually need to get decent FPS such as GTX 280 or 4870 X2?

Hi everyone,

To clarify a few items:

- The GXM DP Editions will need to be connected to a GPU with a DisplayPort output (or Mini-DisplayPort output in the case of Apple products). Using a DVI-to-DP adapter on the input side of the GXM DP will not work.

- On the GXM DPs output side, a DP-to-DVI, DP-to-VGA, or DP-to-HDMI adaptor will function just like using DVI->VGA or DVI->HDMI dongles with the current Th2Go Digital. Matrox will offer the DP->DVI and DP->VGA adapter cables for purchase directly. For DP->HDMI, you can either buy an aftermarket adapter, or use the DP->DVI cable and then put a DVI->HDMI dongle at the end.

- Since this product will not be available until Q3 2009, I would not worry too much about the state of availability of DisplayPort capable GPUs. The industry will slowly adopt this connection standard since it is license-free and more futureproof and capable than DVI or HDMI.

- Concerning the 60Hz timing statement, this is still preliminary and this information may change as we continue testing/optimization. It may end up being slightly lower than a full 60Hz if the bandwidth is not possible. We will have more information on this shortly, so I will not say anything that I cannot confirm just yet.

- With regards to upgrading from GXM Digital to GXM DP in the short term, the main benefits are as follows:

- True DisplayPort –to – Displayport connectivity possible
- First true digital connection for DualHead2Go product line (previously the input was VGA only and using an analog to digital converter to obtain dvi digital output)
- First true digital connection for TripleHead2Go users with DP-enabled laptops. (Previously there were no laptops with Dual-Link DVI outputs, so if a Th2Go user wanted to run with a laptop, they needed to connect via the VGA output).
- Futureproof technology for cutting-edge customers who have DisplayPort GPUs and are ready to migrate to the new connection standard.
- Proper connectivity for Mac users with mini-DP outputs on their systems (a mini-DP to DP adapter will be available as an optional upgrade).

You can also consult our GXM DP connectivity diagram here for more information: http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/guide.html

Hopefully these details help sort out some of the questions. I'll keep an eye on this thread and try to field other inquiries when I have bandwidth to do so.

Cheers,
Mark