Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hi all,

I'm quiet new to this topic and just want to verify, that my plan will work.

Iwould like to setup a 6 display solution.
Currently I own 1 XFX 5870 850M and would like to buy and addition 5870 and setup a Crossfire connection between both cards.
Is it possible with 2 of this cards to run a 6x display setup? 3x 1920x1080 and 3x1650x1280?
Must I connect Crossfire? will i have performance issues?
Or will i need an dedicated Eyefinity card with 6 display ports for that?

Goal of this setup is to run Games on the 3 fullHd displays and using the other 3 displays for browsing and so on or running a second instance of the game on these displays.
Hopefully ou can help me with my setup ^^

Best regards

why???

Okay let me break this down.

Running 2 cards in crossfire basically disables the second cards' ports (or puts them in duplicate mode to mimic the first card).

Not having them in crossfire would allow for browsing on the second set of screens while gaming on the main set.

Getting an Eyefinity 6 Card would allow you to both play games in 3x1 and have an extended 3x1 but also would allow you to play in 3x2.

If you want to play in 3x2 with 2 cards it would require them not be in crossfire mode and either play in windowed mode or use SoftTH 2.0 or 2.1 to stitch both sets of monitors together.

My goal is not to play in 3x2 just 2*3x1

So from my understand i need an Eyefinity card with 6 ports now.
If I'll connect both cards via crossfire, i could run game instance1 (gi1) in 3x1 windowed with the "power" of both cards.
And i got the option to run an additional game instance (gi2) on the other 3 displays correct windowed?

ok i'll try to "paint" it

--------- --------- ---------
| 2 | | 2 | | 2 |
| | | | | |
--------- --------- ---------
------------- ------------- --------------
| 1 | | 1 | | 1 |
| | | | | |
------------- ------------- --------------

1 is my 1920x1080
2 is my set of 1650x1280

gi1 on "1"
g2 on "2"


Are my assumptions correct?

Actually I'm not aware if crossfire works with windowed mode.

Okay, If you just want to used 2 sets of 3x1 you can get any other 5000 series card and be fine. When you have two cards, you don't "HAVE" to crossfire. It's optional. If you want a set of monitors just for 2D desktop work, I'd say just go and pick up 5450 or something cheap like that and run the second set of monitors.

If you want to run corssfire, I'm uncertain if you can use the second set of monitors anyway. I'm betting against it unless you introduce a 3rd card that isn't being crossfired.