Part 2: AMD's Eyefinity Technology Explained

[Guest]

In our last look at AMD's Eyefinity technology, we went inside the GPU to explain how the company enables up to six displays. Today, we're looking at the dongles, displays, and stands you'd likely consider in setting up a three- or six-display setup.

Part 2: AMD's Eyefinity Technology Explained : Read more

 

[akula2]

I use 3 LCDs with 5770 as well as 5850 cards to run many applications simultaneously. Eyefinity feature offers so much and one could easily avoid buying additional PCs by tapping the features from the processor and the graphics card.

 

[akula2]

Could someone tell me what happened to the "Print" feature on Tom?

 

[ckim2116]

It'd be nice if AMD had their own list of Eyefinity supported games. Some of the games on WGF don't work; in fact, the only games that have worked out perfectly for me have been TF2, Batman Arkham Asylum, Torchlight, and L4D2 (all you have to do is select your resolution in the options, in my case 5760x1080). In other games the menu screen just keeps blinking, and attempting to change the resolution just freezes the game.

Can't wait until all the kinks are worked out!

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]akula2[/nom]Could someone tell me what happened to the "Print" feature on Tom?[/citation]

It's right above the comments section, to the right of "Share," amongst a ton of tiny little icons

 

[jsowoc]

I don't see DisplayPort costing that much more. If I look at 22-24" LCDs, the cheapest they come is around $200 for a TN panel or $300 for a PVA monitor, and about $450-500 for an IPS monitor. It's personal preference whether the quality difference is worth the cost.

If you compare a $200 TN w/out DisplayPort to a $500 IPS w/ DisplayPort, you are comparing apples to oranges. The Amazon price of $220 for a TN w/ DisplayPort is more representative of pricing.

 

[xrodney]

I am using 30" dell but only way i can use its native resolution is over DVI, on either HDMI or Displayport maximum of 1920x1200 is possible.
I am not sure if this is limit on DELL only, but as far as I read neither ati 4xxx or 5xxx grapahic card and neither any widely available LCD supports more then that which is quite pitty.
Even more disapointing is that DHCP working only over single DVI link (1920x1200 max) on DELLs and probably others as well.

 

[1898]

Very interesting read, thanks.

ckim2116
From the article: http://support.amd.com/us/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity-software.aspx

 

[RazberyBandit]

Hmm. Landscape-landscape-landscape seems like it would just be sick for gaming. ASUS monitor bezels are actually angled at the top and bottom. When stacked tightly in such an arrangement, they actually wrap around the viewer nicely. Three 24" 16:9 ratio (1920x1080) monitors stacked sideways yields a HUGE 3:2 ratio (3240x1920 resolution) display. Three 16:10 (1920x1200) monitors end up at 3600x1920. I like this idea better than the far more panoramic view of 5760x1080 or 5760x1200 for most games.

Alas, I'll be waiting on the next-gen cards and monitors in hopes that prices drop and availability increases. I'd also like to see the proposed standards mentioned within this article actually go into effect, as well as see adoption of display port grow and the technology itself mature.

Lastly I hope stands adopt a standard that supports landscape-landscape-landscape, portrait-portrait-portrait, and any combination in-between. Having to go out and buy 3 cheap VESA mounts, some metal tubing and round-bar, then get to cutting, bending, and welding my own stand together sounds like a fun project, but I'd rather just buy a mass-produced one.

Edit: I meant portrait-portrait-portrait...

 

[gaborbarla]

Bought a 5870 HD the other day.
Two questions remain for me that I couldnt filter out from these articles by skimming through them:

1. Why do we need a display port again? I thought the whole point of HDMI was to introduce a digital standard that works with everything TVs Digital signal processors, PCs. Now that most monitors, graphics cards and even some motherboards are starting to support HDMI they come out with a new format... (dot dot dot)

2. Why does the 5800 series need a display port? why couldn't it have 3 DVI-Ds? So far I haven't even seen a single monitor that has displayport.

 

[ArgleBargle]

$749 for a dual 5970? I thought a single 5970 cost that much!

 

[rhelme]

[citation][nom]Arglebargle[/nom]$749 for a dual 5970? I thought a single 5970 cost that much![/citation]

the TDMS streams that the card can currently push is 2... That is for what I have heard some timing reason between 3 cards and that each TDMS stream supports 2560x1600p. If there was a way to trick the card and go over 1920x1200 then in the future, if you could plug in an adapter that said I will only output in 1920x1200 and lower, then the extra bandwidth of not supporting 3 displays at the 2560x1600 goes away and if you do the math, that leaves enough timing open to allow you to plug in a displayport to single output DVI and run three cards without an active dongle..

 

[Tomtompiper]

[citation][nom]gaborbarla[/nom]Bought a 5870 HD the other day.Two questions remain for me that I couldnt filter out from these articles by skimming through them:1. Why do we need a display port again? I thought the whole point of HDMI was to introduce a digital standard that works with everything TVs Digital signal processors, PCs. Now that most monitors, graphics cards and even some motherboards are starting to support HDMI they come out with a new format... (dot dot dot)2. Why does the 5800 series need a display port? why couldn't it have 3 DVI-Ds? So far I haven't even seen a single monitor that has displayport.[/citation]

As it says in the article display port can support touchscreen signals, usb, 7.1 audio and rapid changes in resolution,refresh rate and colour depth and a higher resolution than HDMI due to higher bandwidth. Think of HDMI as 4inch Goodyears on an Aston Martin, and Display port as 12inch Pirellis.

 

[Guest]

the advertisements on this website are getting ridiculous...

 

[Tomtompiper]

[citation][nom]bogoman[/nom]the advertisements on this website are getting ridiculous...[/citation]


You aren't using FF + ADblock Plus?

 

[meat81]

As it says in the article display port can support touchscreen signals, usb, 7.1 audio and rapid changes in resolution,refresh rate and colour depth and a higher resolution than HDMI due to higher bandwidth. Think of HDMI as 4inch Goodyears on an Aston Martin, and Display port as 12inch Pirellis.

Careful on using car analogies, last time i did that the nerds got angry.

 

[Tomtompiper]

Screw the Nerds. Should I explain the first word for them?

 

[Turas]

Any word on when the Samsung multimonitor setup will actually ship? Getting really tired of always seeing pictures of it with no new information.

 

[adaman2576]

Great read. Exactly what I wanted to know about eyefinity and all of the different dongles that one needs to be able to do this.

 

[baddad]

Displays made to size is a better solution.

 

[cadder]

You compare $680 vs. $300 panels- the difference is partly in volume because the cheapest part will sell a lot more than the expensive one, but the big difference in functionality is IPS panel technology vs. TN panel technology. TN is a lot cheaper but only puts out 6-bit color so it is undesireable for photographers. Gamers don't care about colors so they can benefit from the cheaper monitors.

 

[rhino13]

So, I'm still waiting on someone to do this with projectors.

 

[soulbro]

I thought "portrait" was "taller than it is wide," like, well, a portrait, and "landscape" was "wider than it is tall," like, well, a landscape. Did the definitions get swapped somewhere along the line?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_orientation

 

[megamanx00]

Me wants. It's too bad that the price of an active display port adapter is the same as an entry level monitor :O. Even so, I'm definitely gonna set up eyefinity when a move in a few months.

 

[Franklin Hennersdorfer]

Personally this seems pretty wasted, I'd be happier with one huge solid screen than 6 monitors cobbled together, with bezels in the way of what I wanna see.

This might be real handy for Wall Street types, or those who heavily multitask, but for gamers and 95% of other users, this is just uglyness, expensive, and likely to be obselete within a year or so anyway when someone else figures out people would rather have one large screen purpose made for the job than to cobble up to 6 together to get a jigsaw puzzle view of games/movies/etc.