Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hi everyone,

I have been using 3 x 24" LCDs (1920x1080 native res each) on a triplehead2go digital at 5040x1050 for about a year now. It's time for a graphics upgrade and I am pretty set on 6970s in crossfire.

I already have 3 monitors with DVI inputs and want to buy 3 more identical monitors for 3x2 (landscape) but at present I cannot see there being any way to actually do this with the 6970 as although the cards can support 6 monitors the displayport 1.2 mst hubs aren't out yet.

For those who don't already know about them, the displayport 1.2 standard allows either daisy chaining 2 monitors off one port (no monitors that can do this are available yet though, and in any case I already have 3 monitors and want 3 more to match), or using a displayport 1.2 MST (multi stream transport) hub which will have enough bandwidth to allow 3 monitors of 1920x1080 resolution to run off one displayport output on the graphics card, the hub will present the monitors to the system as separate devices so I can then eyefinity them together into one SLS display for big resolutions. I am also expecting to need some displayport to DVI active adapters to connect the hub to the DVI monitors.

I have seen the Dell MMH11 multi-monitor hub which is displayport 1.1 which allows up to 380x1024. It has DVI outputs and would be fine if it was 1.2 which has the extra bandwidth needed for 3 1920x1080 panels, but it doesn't.

If it's going to be a long time until the 1.2 MST hubs are available it has occured to me that it may be possible to use 2 of the dell hubs on the 2 displayport outputs of the 6970 to connect 4 of the monitors (as I believe if only 2 monitors are used it can do 1920x1080 x2 since the limitation is bandwidth) then use the 2 DVI outputs on the 6970 itself to connect the other 2 monitors. This relies on the dell mmh11 presenting the connected monitors to the system as separate screens so that eyefinity can combine them, not as one big display like my current triplehead2go does. Does anyone know for certain how the dell device works in this regard and whether I could do what I describe above? It also relies on displayport backward compatibility so this 1.1 device could be plugged into the 1.2 compatible 6970 which I am not certain about.

I presume I can run the cards non-crossfire, plug 3 monitors in to each and eyefinity them separately to get 2 displays each 5760x1080, then use softth to combine them together for 5760x2160??? I am also fairly sure that performance will be very poor doing this, but for now it may have to suffice, and in FSX I could use one display of 5760x1080 for the outside view and the other panels for undocked instruments in 2D which will perform OK I expect and should fulfill my requirements to at least some approximation for the time being.

What I really want to do though is have all 6 connected to one card, so that I can reconfigure at will through the software for 5760x2160, 2 x 5760 x 1080 or whatever as necessary.

Any input from people who are/have dealt with this before is welcome, and especially information from anyone who knows anything solid about when the displayport 1.2 mst hubs will become available.

Thanks

Well I remember hearing that the hubs would be coming early 2011. I also heard that Eyefinity 6 editions of the 6970 are also in the works.

You can use 2 cards with two desktops, it wouldn't be the greatest, but I guess it would work until the hubs comes out.

There's also buying two eyefinity 6 edition 5870's and putting them in crossfire, but I don't think that that's really what you want to do.

_________________
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Display: | 3 x Dell Ultrasharp 3007WFP-HC @ 7680x1600 | Dell u3011 |

Thanks,

I did think about 5870s but I don't want to buy in to something non-current. I've done that before and I'm wary of the loss of resale value (even over and above new stuff like the 6xxx series). I'm also wary about the lack of single-card performance as I know FSX multi card scaling can be quite difficult to predict and I use FSX a lot, so I'll be wanting the fastest single card solution I can get so that if that is limiting it still performs for FSX - I'd even be thinking about 580GTXs if their surround thing would do 6 screens but it doesn't and I understand there aren't even any plans for it. I want to future proof as much as possible since this is such an expensive build.

I had no idea eyefinity 6 versions of the 6000 series were planned - I do wonder if that will really turn out to be the case since the displayport 1.2 standard allows for it to happen via the hubs and monitors, but you never know if a non-reference eyefinity 6 will come out. I do want to buy soon(ish) though, so I expect I'll end up with reference cards.

It looks like I might have another month or two to wait anyway as I have been thinking about what I need to fit in the case and by the time I have a RAID card, sound card, two 6970s for the main display and another one for some auxiliary displays which won't be in the eyefinity SLS group I figure I'm going to have to wait for either the MSI big band marshall P67 board which is XL-ATX (8 pci-e x16 slots) or maybe if that doesn't look good when it arrives hope that eVGA come out with something XL-ATX so I can fit all the cards in. I believe that's what they call a quality problem.

Hi everyone,

I have been using 3 x 24" LCDs (1920x1080 native res each) on a triplehead2go digital at 5040x1050 for about a year now. It's time for a graphics upgrade and I am pretty set on 6970s in crossfire.

I already have 3 monitors with DVI inputs and want to buy 3 more identical monitors for 3x2 (landscape) but at present I cannot see there being any way to actually do this with the 6970 as although the cards can support 6 monitors the displayport 1.2 mst hubs aren't out yet.

For those who don't already know about them, the displayport 1.2 standard allows either daisy chaining 2 monitors off one port (no monitors that can do this are available yet though, and in any case I already have 3 monitors and want 3 more to match), or using a displayport 1.2 MST (multi stream transport) hub which will have enough bandwidth to allow 3 monitors of 1920x1080 resolution to run off one displayport output on the graphics card, the hub will present the monitors to the system as separate devices so I can then eyefinity them together into one SLS display for big resolutions. I am also expecting to need some displayport to DVI active adapters to connect the hub to the DVI monitors.

I have seen the Dell MMH11 multi-monitor hub which is displayport 1.1 which allows up to 380x1024. It has DVI outputs and would be fine if it was 1.2 which has the extra bandwidth needed for 3 1920x1080 panels, but it doesn't.

If it's going to be a long time until the 1.2 MST hubs are available it has occured to me that it may be possible to use 2 of the dell hubs on the 2 displayport outputs of the 6970 to connect 4 of the monitors (as I believe if only 2 monitors are used it can do 1920x1080 x2 since the limitation is bandwidth) then use the 2 DVI outputs on the 6970 itself to connect the other 2 monitors. This relies on the dell mmh11 presenting the connected monitors to the system as separate screens so that eyefinity can combine them, not as one big display like my current triplehead2go does. Does anyone know for certain how the dell device works in this regard and whether I could do what I describe above? It also relies on displayport backward compatibility so this 1.1 device could be plugged into the 1.2 compatible 6970 which I am not certain about.

I presume I can run the cards non-crossfire, plug 3 monitors in to each and eyefinity them separately to get 2 displays each 5760x1080, then use softth to combine them together for 5760x2160??? I am also fairly sure that performance will be very poor doing this, but for now it may have to suffice, and in FSX I could use one display of 5760x1080 for the outside view and the other panels for undocked instruments in 2D which will perform OK I expect and should fulfill my requirements to at least some approximation for the time being.

What I really want to do though is have all 6 connected to one card, so that I can reconfigure at will through the software for 5760x2160, 2 x 5760 x 1080 or whatever as necessary.

Any input from people who are/have dealt with this before is welcome, and especially information from anyone who knows anything solid about when the displayport 1.2 mst hubs will become available.

Thanks

whoa thank god someone coming up this idea, i'm having 6950 crossfire can;t get it group as 1 desktop anyhow to make it run 5x1p?
seeking any master available here for advise.