Should I buy a 970?

[4745454b]

I have a co worker recently buy a 1070TI because he wants to start gaming on his 4K Samsung TV. I know and trust this coworker, I've bought non PC things before. He brought it into work today for those of us interested in it to see it. It's a clean, GTX 970 FE, so it has the vapor chamber blower style fan on it. I know him, it works, hasn't been mined on, nor has it been OC'd. He wants $160 for it which after looking online looks to be a good price.

I'm asking because I'm not very familiar with how Nvidia handles "eyefinity" setups. My current card is the R9 280/7950 1GHz edition and I have four monitors hooked up to it just fine. Three monitors are on my desk, the fourth is my 50" Samsung TV. I didn't actually make an Eyefinity display with it however. I just extended the monitors in the driver. Does Nvidia force surround mode when it sees all the monitors? I know when they brought out Surround they set it up to run three together, with a 4th on top. I assume you can run four all in a row now? My center monitor is hooked up with DL-DVI, with the side monitors using active mDP to DVI adapters. If I use his card I'll have to buy some DP to DVI adapters or cables. Do they need to be active?

I'm thinking about buying his card and then selling mine for $50 or $60 bucks. Making this a $100 upgrade for me. ($120ish once you add in the cost of the new cables.) My current card is a 200-225W card, while his is closer to 150-175W. So I'm hoping that not only is it faster, it might save me some money over time. Not sure I'll ever recoup $120, but it's nice to know that I'm getting more performance for less money.

 

[photonboy]

1x DVI-DL
3x DP v1.2
1x HDMI v2.0

Pretty sure you can support all four screens.

Should always default to be treated as single, separate monitors. You can do Eyefinity in the software. Probably no issue with triple-monitor should you desire.

(Not sure what you mean by "all four in a row"... do you mean separate or as a single virtual resolution since that doesn't seem likely as one is a TV... unless you want to game and have that entire resolution be split across your screens you don't want Surround... Extended monitors are separate so you can use each independantly but again Surround acts like a single monitor so 3x(1920x1080) for example would be 5760x1080 and that resolution would show up in a game).

Do they have to be active?
You already have the adapters so you should know this though I believe the answer is YES. All you need is a DP to mDP cable as that's probably cheaper than buying new adapters.

Something like THIS?
https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-DisplayPort-Mini-Adapter/dp/B014DV2RGG

GTX970 is roughly 70% faster than an HD7950.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_970_Gaming/27.html

 

[4745454b]

You are correct on the ports. And I know it supports at least 4 monitors. When Nvidia came our with Surround to compete with Eyefinity, it was my understanding the drivers wanted the fourth monitor above the center one. I haven't followed surround in a long time because I'm running the 7950.

I know the difference between Eyefinity/surround and extended. I want extended because my 7950 doesn't have the power to drive three 1080 monitors. I'm not sure the 970 does either, nor does my favorite game support it well either. I'm a rabid TF2 player and when I looked up videos of TF2 in Eyefinity it has the horrible "walleye" effect. What I'm not sure of is if Surround is "forced" when an NVidia card sees more than one monitor. I'm assuming I can turn it off and just run the four separate screens like I'm doing now. But I'd like to not spend ~$200 out the door on an assumption.

I know AMD needs active adapters, I'm not sure about Nvidia. I think the 970 doesn't need the adapters, and I can get some DP to DVI cables. I've seen some on Amazon for $7.99 prime. Those work? Or do I need some active something or others? I'm thinking of just getting this. No adapters needed unless I do need the active part.

https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-2-Pack-DisplayPort-Feet/dp/B00K2E4RGC

Anyone with first hand knowledge? Or an article?