Gaming Across Three Screens: GTX 460, GTX 480, And Quad-SLI

[warezme]

Nvidia surround is also compatible with the 200 series, 260, 275, 280 and 295 quad sli. Everyone pretty much knows it works and should be reasonbly fast with 480's let alone 4 480's. Test the whole range so folks know what to expect with existing cards, or does Nvidia not allow you to do this?

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]warezme[/nom]Nvidia surround is also compatible with the 200 series, 260, 275, 280 and 295 quad sli. Everyone pretty much knows it works and should be reasonbly fast with 480's let alone 4 480's. Test the whole range so folks know what to expect with existing cards, or does Nvidia not allow you to do this?[/citation]Tests are normally limited to parts on-hand.

 

[warezme]

[citation][nom]Crashman[/nom]Tests are normally limited to parts on-hand.[/citation]
seems to convenient

 

[cnox]

I started my gaming rig with the oldie but goodie 1280x1024 and then expanded 2 more dell 1280x1024 monitors for $170 bucks (85 bucks each). Other than that lazy game devs don't account for that resolution ratio for 16:9 in game movies (it should be letterbanded to fit the center square of video area, not expand to fill the vertical height and then bleed into the adjacent monitors), the width-to-height ratio i think is superb. Also, less pixels overall to process so you get more performance out of a 5850. The thought of going to 1600x900 monitors and losing over 10% vertical pixels doesn't sit right with me.

So, in summary, 5:4 monitor eyefinity rules because:
1) Cheap (in monitor cost and you can use vga DP adapter)
2) Better aspect ratio so you don't feel like you are playing through a slit.
3) Better performance because of a lower overall screen resolution.

 

[dgingeri]

How about triple and quad sli on three of these:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Displays/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=224-8284

That's 7680X1440 resolution. I doubt dual GTX 480s could drive that res properly in any game.

Ah, WoW in triple 27" goodness. I'm liking that idea. $3300 in monitors, $2000 system, that would require a lot of money to get going.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]warezme[/nom]seems to convenient[/citation] Actually had to wait for three months to put this article together since the parts were not on hand when it was first thought up. Looking forward to applying a little pressure on ATI for a similar article in the future, but hard to say how long it will take to get all the right parts in all the right places.

If you're interested in legacy configuration tests, please supply the legacy parts

 

[georgekn3mp]

I have that Asus 25.6" monitor listed in the "recommended" comment for 3x 1920x1200. It is so big I would have to wall-mount 3 of them for Eyefinity setup...as it is it barely fits on a full-sized workstation kiosk!
But I really do not like the 1080p 16:9 monitor "bottom-line" resolutions and that specific monitor was ordered to match well with a HD5850.
What I find peculiar though, is that after so many LCD improvements in contrast and brightness we can't get a 26" monitor that supports something higher in resolution than even 1920x1200, maybe not quite 2560x1600 but since a 23" inch can do 1920x1080 don't you think a bigger panel can have a smaller-pixel pitch higher resolution since you are paying +150 dollars more for the additional 3 inches of display size at 16:9 or 16:10 ratios anyway? Make smaller pixels...

 

[georgekn3mp]

I have that Asus 25.6" monitor listed in the "recommended" comment for 3x 1920x1200. It is so big I would have to wall-mount 3 of them for Eyefinity setup...as it is it barely fits on a full-sized workstation kiosk!
But I really do not like the 1080p 16:9 monitor "bottom-line" resolutions and that specific monitor was ordered to match well with a HD5850.
What I find peculiar though, is that after so many LCD improvements in contrast and brightness we can't get a 26" monitor that supports something higher in resolution than even 1920x1200, maybe not quite 2560x1600 but since a 23" inch can do 1920x1080 don't you think a bigger panel can have a smaller-pixel pitch higher resolution since you are paying +150 dollars more for the additional 3 inches of display size at 16:9 or 16:10 ratios anyway? Make smaller pixels...

Of course without upgrading to a dual-CrossfireX or triple HD5850 even just two 1920x1200 displays may have really low framerates...so maybe I should wait for the 6850, buy two of those and one more Asus 26's and that would be usable...

 

[wolfram23]

SO were the GTX 460s hurting because of VRAM?

 

[t0r012]

Display spanning is quickly becoming the high-mark for serious gaming machines of all budgets, with more powerful cards allowing higher resolutions

ummm...yeah...sure
can I should I picture in my head a snicker , or were you really able o pull that off with a straight face?

 

[coleam45]

[citation][nom]wolfram23[/nom]SO were the GTX 460s hurting because of VRAM?[/citation]
The lower VRAM probably was a factor, but I think having fewer stream processors (336 vs 480 on the GTX 480) made a bigger difference.

 

[Onus]

The following remark does NOT apply to the Professional Gamer, who can certainly justify the most powerful "tools of the trade" possible; but for anyone else, this kind of extravagance and expense (including the power used) just to play games crosses the line into waste, or rather takes a two-footed leap. Add in the three monitors, desk light, possibly other powered peripherals, and you've likely exceeded your circuit capacity.

 

[tom thumb]

I have 1920x1200, and I thought I could buy another two and do surround.

... that's not gonna happen.

It would have been helpful if you threw in a 5850/70 crossfire in there just to see how it stacks up.

I do not envy he who has to pay for and listen to 1360 watts. Eyefinity/surround is the future, sure, but for the time being it looks horribly impractical. ... that is what they said about SSDs as well, but whatever.

 

[hixbot]

I'll be interested in multi displays when we can have distinct seperate camera angles on each monitor. like one monitor in front, two at each side. (vastly different than having 3 up front).

so far these multidisplay drivers only allow spreading one giant resolution across multiple displays. wake me up when games can control each display seperately for multiple perspectives.

 

[CptTripps]

[citation][nom]taso11[/nom]I'm trying to locate a threat and avoid being shot. Are threats easier to locate high detail and smaller size or low detail and bigger size on the same size monitor?[/citation]

In BC2 I find that at 1920x1200 I am much more able to spot those snipers in the distance, or any movement in the distance period. My buddy also just replaced his 1440x900 screen with a 1080p screen, I can honestly say that his score + K/D ration has gone up.

If not smooth at high resolution I am sure it will not benefit a player but; if your card can handle it I firmly believe higher detail helps.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]t0r012[/nom]ummm...yeah...sure can I should I picture in my head a snicker , or were you really able o pull that off with a straight face?[/citation]If you think it's a joke, you probably don't understand the meaning of "high mark".

 

[sirroc]

Why not try 2x Xeon 5677's? That should be more than enough to throw out the CPU limitations. Obviously they are probably cost prohibitive, but if you are gonna do an article about 4way SLI or even Quadfire. The sky is the limit here.

 

[corranthrn]

Yeah, frankly, with the QuadSLI, I'd say you hit a bunch of limitations. Its very hard to say that QuadSLI is a waste because it seems as though you were pinging the power output of the power supply. If you were able to max out the power supply, then your CPU and your busses must've been hard pressed as well.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]sirroc[/nom]Why not try 2x Xeon 5677's? That should be more than enough to throw out the CPU limitations. Obviously they are probably cost prohibitive, but if you are gonna do an article about 4way SLI or even Quadfire. The sky is the limit here.[/citation]

No, a Core i3 at 8 GHz would probably do the job but even two six-core Xeons at 4 GHz will not. Most of these games don't benefit from a third core, let alone a fourth, sixth, eighth, or twelfth. Sometimes the system benefits slightly from a third core by offloading tasks from the OS, but the game is still only using one or two in most instances.

 

[flyinfinni]

I don't understand why you guys feel like its playing through a slit- you have the SAME view on the center monitor as you would if you were playing on a single 1920x1080 display- you are just adding extra FOV on the sides. From where I'm sitting, thats all positive.

 

[taso11]

In BC2 I find that at 1920x1200 I am much more able to spot those snipers in the distance, or any movement in the distance period. My buddy also just replaced his 1440x900 screen with a 1080p screen, I can honestly say that his score + K/D ration has gone up.

If not smooth at high resolution I am sure it will not benefit a player but; if your card can handle it I firmly believe higher detail helps.

Thanks for your input!

 

[taso11]

I don't understand why you guys feel like its playing through a slit- you have the SAME view on the center monitor as you would if you were playing on a single 1920x1080 display- you are just adding extra FOV on the sides. From where I'm sitting, thats all positive.

I've read that part of the article over and over, " Playing at 1080p across three monitors is akin to sighting your enemy through a gun slit." and I don't understand what they were trying to say. Could the author please clarify?

 

[bkm23]

so 750watt is enough for a normal gtx480 SLI system !!

 

[diablob]

[citation][nom]taso11[/nom]I've read that part of the article over and over, " Playing at 1080p across three monitors is akin to sighting your enemy through a gun slit." and I don't understand what they were trying to say. Could the author please clarify?[/citation]

I strongly disagree with the author on this. I have an eyefinity setup, just one 5870 powering three 22" monitors. I'm playing a lot of BC2 and MW2 (with widescreen fix) right now. There's no "gun slit" issue. What's added is the peripheral details, and an immersive feeling.

If the FOV is correct, the middle monitor should look the same between primary monitor and eyefinity/surround modes. And my monitors are actually 2048x1152 (6144x1152 eyefinity), just a smidge higher than 1080p.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]flyinfinni[/nom]I don't understand why you guys feel like its playing through a slit- you have the SAME view on the center monitor as you would if you were playing on a single 1920x1080 display- you are just adding extra FOV on the sides. From where I'm sitting, thats all positive.[/citation]Author doesn't like the fact that you can't look up and down on a 16:9 monitor and would prefer at least 16:10 to begin with. Having monitors that make it easy to see a little to the side makes the fact that you can't look up and down even more noticeable. Chris is probably right in that this would be great if we had some HUGE 4x3 monitors.