New Eyefinity Setup questions

[Taipan]

Hi Guys,

I have a couple of questions I hope you can help me with, never had Eyefinity before. I’m going to an Eyefinity 2.0 setup soon (once the overclocked 7970s are released). I have these in PLP:
• Dell 3008WFP 2560x1600 (center monitor)
• 2x Dell 2007FP 1200x1600 (side monitors – portrait mode)

The default 7970 has 1 Mini-DP, 1 HDMI, 1 DVI port.
Or I could buy the 6GB version that has 6xMini-DP.. kind of overkill since I’ll only need 3GB VRAM and it’s probably going to be expensive.

So my questions are:
1. Apparently the Non-DisplayPort monitors will experience screen “tearing”, so the HDMI & DVI should be the side monitors. How bad is this screen tearing and do you guys notice it very much?
2. My center monitor has DisplayPort. Should I get a Mini-DP to DP adapter, or go for a Mini-DP to Dual-link DVI adapter? Why – is there any advantage in one or the other?
3. Do ATI cards come with the necessary cables? Do the Active display port dongles come with cables? Or should I also be ordering cables?
4. I don’t want to try and set things up and find I’m missing things… anything else I need?

Thanks in advance

[Moose]

I've got a similar dilemma, I'm still unsure which 7-series I should buy. The 6GB will be very pricey, so I'm hoping for a 3GB Flex with at least three mini-DP's. That'd be awesome.

I've got three exactly similar DVI/HDMI monitors, so getting an 6950 Flex would be perfect for me. However, I'm looking for something a bit stronger (such as the 7970). However, I do not want any screentearing problems what so ever. I guess you're looking for the same solution here.

Sorry I can't answer any of your questions (yet).

[Taipan]

Yes it would be good to get 3 mini-DPs so they all output on same type (apparently less chance of flicker then).

I've done a little more research and found out that since my main 3008WFP has a DP port, then I don't need a Mini-DP to Dual-link DVI active adapter at all - I just need a $11 Mini-DP to DP cable. With no adapter running on it there should no flicker on the main 30" whatsoever.

Then I can use the DP adapter that comes with the 7970 for one of the side monitors, and the other can plug into either HDMI or DVI.

So for the price of 7970 plus an $11 cable I can set this up, and maybe an extra iphone charger to plug my active DP adapter for the right monitor so it gets enough USB power.

But, I'm still interested in hearing from anyone who has or hasn't experienced screen tearing using several different connections for eyefinity

[Haldi]

But, I'm still interested in hearing from anyone who has or hasn't experienced screen tearing using several different connections for eyefinity

AFAIK Screen Tearing only happens when you use Adapters!

I'm using 2x DVI +DP on my HD6970 and never ever had any issue of Taring or such.

[bmwmaster]

Hi Guys,

I have a couple of questions I hope you can help me with, never had Eyefinity before. I’m going to an Eyefinity 2.0 setup soon (once the overclocked 7970s are released). I have these in PLP:
• Dell 3008WFP 2560x1600 (center monitor)
• 2x Dell 2007FP 1200x1600 (side monitors – portrait mode)

The default 7970 has 1 Mini-DP, 1 HDMI, 1 DVI port.
Or I could buy the 6GB version that has 6xMini-DP.. kind of overkill since I’ll only need 3GB VRAM and it’s probably going to be expensive.

So my questions are:
1. Apparently the Non-DisplayPort monitors will experience screen “tearing”, so the HDMI & DVI should be the side monitors. How bad is this screen tearing and do you guys notice it very much?
2. My center monitor has DisplayPort. Should I get a Mini-DP to DP adapter, or go for a Mini-DP to Dual-link DVI adapter? Why – is there any advantage in one or the other?
3. Do ATI cards come with the necessary cables? Do the Active display port dongles come with cables? Or should I also be ordering cables?
4. I don’t want to try and set things up and find I’m missing things… anything else I need?

Thanks in advance

Hi,

i have got the same setup like you, just with other screens.

Until now i can't run eyefinity because all screens in one eyefinity setup must have the same resolution !
Instead i use Softth but it supports only dx9 and has not so good performance.

I heard that this will change with 7970 and eyefinity 2.0 but i can't believe that you can use any different resolutions.
For our setup we would need 4960x1200, i really hope it will work.

Like you im still waiting for OC versions of the 7970 maybe H20 cooled with about 1300 Mhz on Core.

[Taipan]

[quote]But, I'm still interested in hearing from anyone who has or hasn't experienced screen tearing using several different connections for eyefinity

AFAIK Screen Tearing only happens when you use Adapters!

I'm using 2x DVI +DP on my HD6970 and never ever had any issue of Taring or such.

Thanks! Good to know.

So I'll put Mini-DP to the DP port in my 30"
DVI to my left monitor
HDMI to my right monitor.

Perfect, need no adapters ;)

Cheers


bmwmaster - why is SoftTH giving bad performance?
Is it just because you need a more powerful card for that resolution?

I'm hopeful that Eyefinity 2 can support our resolution... I mean how hard can it be they are the same vertical resolution, and SoftTH has been doing it for ages.
3x 30" Landscape monitors is just ridiculous! The eye can't see that far out, I don't know why AMD/Nvidia make exact same monitor layout as the standard... stupid

[bmwmaster]

bmwmaster - why is SoftTH giving bad performance?
Is it just because you need a more powerful card for that resolution?

I'm hopeful that Eyefinity 2 can support our resolution... I mean how hard can it be they are the same vertical resolution, and SoftTH has been doing it for ages.
3x 30" Landscape monitors is just ridiculous! The eye can't see that far out, I don't know why AMD/Nvidia make exact same monitor layout as the standard... stupid

Im still angry about this situation since the begining of eyefinity. But they even can't manage it to set the side screens in portrait mode !
So all screens in an eyefinity setup have the same direction !

Thats another reason why i don't belive that it will work :-(

[Taipan]

So what about SoftTH? What were the performance issues?

The performance must be fairly good on a 7970?

excepting only directx 9... I could still use it for my flight sims which ALL run on directx 9. Battlefield is the only dx11 game I own, generally I don't buy the current generation of console ports