Triple GTX 980 Ti - how many monitors?

[Daniel Johnson]

How many monitors in 1920x1080p can 3, 980 Ti video cards support?

This youtuber says he is using 4 gtx 980s with 10 monitors all connected by 10 display port cables via 4 different cards and could display up to 20 monitors total - https://youtu.be/DZaXAPbhOZs?t=20m46s

I've had other people tell me that cards in SLI can only display up to as many monitors as one card has ports for.

So what's the truth? I want to be able to display 9 monitors for a gaming rig using 3, gtx 980 Ti in SLI

 

[getochkn]

They might be able to run than many especially with displayport hubs and Daisy chaining.

Max surround cards though is 5 with 1 accessory. So you could game on 5 in sli and 1 accessory.

If you want 10 or 15 or whatever screens they will no be slied or in surround. Only game on 1 screen with power of 1 gpu

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/surround/system-requirements

Plug your card info in

 

[Daniel Johnson]

They might be able to run than many especially with displayport hubs and Daisy chaining.

Max surround cards though is 5 with 1 accessory. So you could game on 5 in sli and 1 accessory.

If you want 10 or 15 or whatever screens they will no be slied or in surround. Only game on 1 screen with power of 1 gpu

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/surround/system-requirements

Plug your card info in

What is daisy chaining really and how does it work?

Couldn't I SLI all 3 cards and then plug in 3 display port cables to the first 980 Ti and then run each cable to a separate display port 1-input-to-3-output hub and then connect 3 display port-to-HDMI cables from each separate hub to each individual monitor, effectively giving me 9 monitors? I know it sounds a bit complex, but theoretically it sounds plausible.

 

[k1114]

The video is incorrect. He says is supports 4 dp and 1 vga but which port doesn't matter, it only supports 4 monitors of any port used. http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-980-ti/specifications But there are splitters that will have multiple monitors seen as 1 so as far as that goes, you'll only be limited by the bandwidth of the port and res of the monitors.

 

[Daniel Johnson]

The video is incorrect. He says is supports 4 dp and 1 vga but which port doesn't matter, it only supports 4 monitors of any port used. http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-980-ti/specifications But there are splitters that will have multiple monitors seen as 1 so as far as that goes, you'll only be limited by the bandwidth of the port and res of the monitors.

I think i understand, but if I did what I said with using 3 display port hubs, I would be limited to the max digital resolution of 5120x3200?
And if I did that would it run all as 1 big monitor or would it be split into 3 separate medium-sized monitors?

 

[getochkn]

From the link I posted above

Max res.11520x2160

 

[Daniel Johnson]

both links give a different maximum resolution, so which one is right?

 

[k1114]

11520x2160 is for surround. 5k is with dual dp if you read the subnote but this might be because the largest monitor on the current market is 5k and requires 2 dp. No one has tried this so don't really know.

 

[Daniel Johnson]

11520x2160 is for surround. 5k is with dual dp if you read the subnote but this might be because the largest monitor on the current market is 5k and requires 2 dp. No one has tried this so don't really know.

So if I were to leave the cards not SLI'd, and then hooked up 3, 1920x1080p @ 60Hz monitors to each card, about how well would this perform for games like battlefield 4, is ultra settings even a possibility or would it be more like low to medium settings?

 

[k1114]

That wasn't clear if you were going to play in surround and how many monitors in the surround group. Also why not sli? You can do 3 cards on each and be in sli for better performance. If it's 3 monitors in surround, you can still do ultra and still be at 60fps.

 

[Daniel Johnson]

I would like to use 9 monitors in a 3x3, so i guess that's surround. I didn't think I could use SLI and still run 3 monitors on each, but I can?

 

[k1114]

Oh sorry some reason was thinking 3 monitors when you want 9. You'll have to go no sli. Will you be turning sli on to take advantage when gaming?

 

[Daniel Johnson]

Do you think no SLI would work for gaming in 1920x1080p or 2560x1440p for 9 monitors? I'll do no SLI as long as games will run at least 60 fps and great quality. I don't think I could turn SLI on for gaming because then only 4 or 5 monitors would display, right?

 

[k1114]

Yes and yes. I just bring that up since why spend so much on 2x 980ti when you won't even use them. You can buy lower cards just to run the monitors.

 

[getochkn]

With a couple of FuryX's you could do 6 monitors in surround.

Comes down to why you want so many screens? 3 or 4 big screens could give the same space as so many small ones. Every extra screen add's bezels, etc.

What is your ultimate purpose?

 

[Daniel Johnson]

I just want 9 monitors in a 3x3 running at least 1920x1080 @ 60Hz with pretty good quality for an extremely immersive gaming experience, so whatever I have to do to do that is what I want.

 

[getochkn]

I don't think you can. NVidia max is 5, AMD is 6. 9 isn't going to happen afaik for gaming. game on 6 of the 9, sure. More than that, no.

 

[Daniel Johnson]

I don't think you can. NVidia max is 5, AMD is 6. 9 isn't going to happen afaik for gaming. game on 6 of the 9, sure. More than that, no.

even with 2 or 3 gtx 980 Ti that are not in SLI, i cant?

 

[getochkn]

I don't think you can. NVidia max is 5, AMD is 6. 9 isn't going to happen afaik for gaming. game on 6 of the 9, sure. More than that, no.

even with 2 or 3 gtx 980 Ti that are not in SLI, i cant?

No. If they are not in SLI, they are not going to work in Surround mode, and then won't join together to form one big screen.

AMD-Eyefinity and NVidia-Surround combine the screens into one super resolution that the game, app, etc, sees say 3x1080p screens at 5760x1080. Any cards added to this have to be SLI/Crossfired.

9 screens or 10 or 15 are seen as 15x1080p screens, so gaming can only happen on one of them. You cannot crossfire/sli the cards to get 9 or 10 or 15 screens as you need the outputs of each card separately.

So you can either game on 5(Nvidia) or 6(AMD) with 2 or 3 or 4 cards in SLI/Crossfire OR hook 9 or 10 or 15 monitors to 2 or 3 or 4 cards in single mode.

That is an OR, not AND. Those are limits.

A lot of people do 6 screens this way in portrait.

You can also use 1440p screens or 3x4K screens, but for gaming 5/6 is your limit. Period. The number of cards isn't going to matter.

 

[Daniel Johnson]

Ahhhh portrait, I never thought about doing that, very good idea. I think I'll do that, thank you

 

[k1114]

Yes less but bigger screens for less bezel would be better.

 

[Evoaaron411]

I don't think you can. NVidia max is 5, AMD is 6. 9 isn't going to happen afaik for gaming. game on 6 of the 9, sure. More than that, no.

even with 2 or 3 gtx 980 Ti that are not in SLI, i cant?

No. If they are not in SLI, they are not going to work in Surround mode, and then won't join together to form one big screen.

AMD-Eyefinity and NVidia-Surround combine the screens into one super resolution that the game, app, etc, sees say 3x1080p screens at 5760x1080. Any cards added to this have to be SLI/Crossfired.

9 screens or 10 or 15 are seen as 15x1080p screens, so gaming can only happen on one of them. You cannot crossfire/sli the cards to get 9 or 10 or 15 screens as you need the outputs of each card separately.

So you can either game on 5(Nvidia) or 6(AMD) with 2 or 3 or 4 cards in SLI/Crossfire OR hook 9 or 10 or 15 monitors to 2 or 3 or 4 cards in single mode.

That is an OR, not AND. Those are limits.

A lot of people do 6 screens this way in portrait.

You can also use 1440p screens or 3x4K screens, but for gaming 5/6 is your limit. Period. The number of cards isn't going to matter.

Thats a sick setup, what monitor are those?