crossfire / eyeinfinity and 5 monitor setup help.

[heyitzjesse]

Hello

I am trying to get a set up done here but had a few questions regarding the monitor as that's the last piece I need to pick up. I do not hardcore game this is just mainly for multi tasking and may be 5-10 hours of light gaming ( team fortress 2 mainly and possibly some other games such as assassins creed and dragon age ).

System Specs
i5 3570k oced at 4.7 ghz
asrock z77 extreme 4
gskill 1600 ddr3 4 x 2gb
antec 850w bronze modular psu
2 x msi twin frozr 6970 ( only one installed and other ready to go waiting on a modular cable for pcie).


so my questions are as follows.

I am trying to use 24" monitors in portrait mode. my graphics card each has following connectors.
2 x DVI (1 Single Link, 1 Dual Link) 1 x HDMI 2 x Mini DisplayPort

As I understand you can't do crossfire and eye infinity at the same time due to interface limitations.

1) which would be better option? do crossfire or no crossfire

2) will these monitors work? they only each have 1 dvi and one VGA connector. I am getting these monitors for 75$ each so its a pretty good deal and like I said I am not hardcore gamer so I don't need 1ms response or anything fancy like ips screen or anything.

I did some research for a week and the more I read the more I get confused.
any ideas with my setup, hookup or anything? please help me make sure I get the right setup!

Graphics card 1
dvi - > dvi to monitor 1
display port -> active display port to dvi adapter -> monitor 2
display port -> active display port to dvi adapter -> monitor 3

Graphics card 2
dvi - > dvi to monitor 4
display port -> active display port to dvi adapter -> monitor 5

OR
GPU 1 + GPU 2 in xfire -> Gpu 1 - > dvi to mon1 , dvi #2 to mon2, hdmi to mon 3 , and 2x display ports to mon 4 + 5?

I am so confused , this is my first time dealing with multi gpus and more than 2 monitors. I have built many systems from scratch for years so I am not a complete noob but this is a new area for me.

Thanks in advance
Jesse=

 

[Sinistercr0c]

One of the more complex issues I've seen posted up here, so props for that.

Knowing little about the topic, the only thing I've found worth reading is here:

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMDEyefinityFAQs.aspx

There are a number of posts from 2013 regarding eyefinity/crossfire and frame pacing issues on 4k or high resolution setups but I'd expect those issue to have been resolved by AMD long ago in their driver updates.

You could always buy an MST hub and connect all your monitors via displayport (but again that's only from the little reading I've done), but looking at your own potential solutions I'd be tempted to say option 2 should work:

GPU 1 + GPU 2 in xfire -> Gpu 1 - > dvi to mon1 , dvi #2 to mon2, hdmi to mon 3 , and 2x display ports to mon 4 + 5?

It may simply be a question of 'suck it and see'...

 

[heyitzjesse]

I really like the mst hub idea because I can leverage the power of both cards, I can always suck it and see haha but I do not want to spend $100 on a hub and it not work then I will be stuck with another paperweight.

I was reading and fault with 2nd idea is that you can only use 3 outputs at a given time so I think I will only be able to use dvi, and 2x display ports leaving me with a 2 port deficiency.