Upgrade Question: EF, Quad Display and More

r00k

r00k

2[H]4U
Joined
Aug 24, 2004
Messages
2,696
Hey everyone, I've been a long time fan of multiple displays, but lately I'm becoming obsessed with the productivity gains too. Currently my personal rig sits at my office, powering 4 displays, but I am hoping to add display #5. This could be a fairly long story, but i'd rather get down to business.

My current setup is an Intel Core 2 Quad @ 2.4Ghz, 8GB of Ram, and an ASUS P5E VM-HDMI motherboard (1pcie x1, 2pci, 1pcie x16). It has an 8800GTS 512 and a Radeon HD2400. This totals 3xDVI and 1VGA. I have 2x22" monitors @ 1680x1050, 1x46" @1920x1080 and a projector @ 1280x1024 for presentations / movies.

I was looking at upgrading my 8800 to something with 4 display ports and adding a 3rd 22" monitor. I don't game too much at all anymore but I'd like to at least keep current performance.

I watched Kyle's review again, and he says that the HDMI port is shared with one DVI port. Is this still the case? Can you really only use 3 of the 4 ports at one time, or is that only while gaming with EF?

I am currently looking at the ATI 5770 as card of choice. Would this perform as well or better than an 8800GTS 512?
 
The 5770 sounds like a good choice for your purposes. They may vary with video outputs, most will have 2 DVI and 1 HDMI I think.

It will perform better than the 8800 GTS 512. Roughly 50% better, I've read the benchmarks (mostly gaming) and that prob will apply here too.
 
Yes, the Radeon 5770 would only support 3 monitors at a time. The 4th port also won't work in desktop mode or gaming mode as its 'shared' between the HDMI/DVI. You could crossfire them for more screens if you wanted though.

There is suppose to be cards coming out later this year, maybe as early as a month or two and a lot of people are suspecting it will be when ATI 'refreshes' the 58xx series that'll be a 6 display port output card. It'll be a bit of a higher end card but you'd be able to run 6 monitors which should be more than enough from your descrption.
 
Thanks for the help. Hmmm, i wonder how two mid level crossfire cards would work overall. And is EyeFinity supported with Crossfire enabled?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top