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I am thinking about installing 2 PowerColor 6870 Eyefinity 6 Graphic Cards on my brand new motherboard but not in Crossfire. You might be thinking that without crossfire how will I gonna use. Actually I want to stream display different/seamless content on 12 different displays? Do you think that it is possible for me to extend display on all 12 monitors? I am currently using Windows 7 64Bit and ATI Drivers
PowerColor has once again indicated a recent graphics card project. Shown is a Radeon HD 6870 with six mini-DisplayPort connectors, so you can directly connect up to six monitors. This model is still under development and we still do not know exactly how many monitors without DisplayPort can operate in parallel, how many and which adapters will be included and when this card appears. I hope that it should not be long to wait.
Eyefinity technology has proven very versatile and usable in both the video game and in that professional. In the first case, the high final resolution may require the use of two video cards in CrossFireX, but the result will certainly satisfactory, both in terms of frame rate of experience of use. The number of games with native support for Eyefinity is constantly growing and AMD is committed to working with game companies to develop a certification program. Even NVIDIA 3D Vision technology with its surround, is present in this market and, by partnering with many game developers, is introducing multi-monitor support: optimizations of which also benefit AMD buyers.
The graphics card is a HD6770 with 5! DP outputs from XFX and it works great in my case. Thus, it's not true, the only one capable of driving 3 screens. 2 can be operated with passive adapters and for 3-5 you need active DP adapter. I know not only the technical details and also about the software to run on the computer but it is not Matrox. Matrox can display up to 16 HD. However my friend is using HD 6950 at only 4 monitors connected. They are connected from the group (plus HDMI 2xDVI) only 2 monitor going at once but if you need to more than 2, you will need active DP adapter. If you still want more, then you will need a card with 6 Display Port.
I have exactly the same card and using it with 5 screens (2x passive adapter, 3x active adapter to DVI). A DisplayPort to DVI-D adapter is only digital. For a VGA screen you need a DP to VGA adapter (which are always active). Information from the manufacturer:
- DVI Output: Yes x 1 (DVI-I) Yes x 1 (DVI-D)
- HDMI Output: Yes x 1 (via DVI to HDMI adapter x 1)
- DisplayPort: Yes x 4 (Regular DP)
- HDCP Support: Yes
Thus, it should be connected to a VGA to DVI-I, but I have not got all 5 TFTs connected via DVI. Before, I had the HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 with 6x mini DisplayPort.
Eyefinity reveals all its qualities, making possible advanced configurations and easily customizable to suit your needs by reducing further the number of video cards installed in the workstation. Under the terms of consumption, AMD has always been careful to make video cards with low absorption in 2D mode, unfortunately, with the activation of more than one screen, the power saving features have not yet been optimized and the consumption of each single card is significantly higher than the standard. The AMD Radeon HD 6900 and HD 6800 have reached the market before the producers of monitors and accessories had completed the transition to DisplayPort 1.2 connections. So only in future we could make full use of technology Eyefinity with these cards.
We've all seen over a multi setup where black magic via resolutions up immense. ATI has developed a technology that puts that black magic to everyone so we can play at resolutions of 7680 x 3200 no problem with a single card. Although long since we can connect multiple monitors to one graphics card the way Windows works makes every monitor is a different workspace, so that we can only perform full screen on one of the two monitors. THROUGH ATI software could make all monitors are identified as one great mass graph, so if you connect 6 monitors to 2560 x 1600 (the maximum that can support a card) ended with a resolution of 7680 x 3200 pixels. Also you can connect another card and adds 6 more monitors, up to a maximum of 24 different monitors. Games like WOW ran decently with 6 monitors and a single card, while Dirt 2 ran smoothly using 3 monitors, again more than excellent. But it is possible only if the driver controls the image is created from 12 screens. So you will need such a PowerColor driver for the two cards, so that Eyefinity 6 can hold 12 monitors with two GPUs.
The reserves some surprises: for example, today there appeared to be a prototype Radeon HD 5970 based on a nonstandard PCB, which is connected to a second card for a total of 12 connections for displays Display Port. The basis of this prototype the possibility, for each ATI RV870, manages up to 6 monitors simultaneously, thanks to technology Eyefinity which on several occasions we have spoken. Powercolor has done nothing but to maximize this flexibility, connecting to each GPU 6 display connectors. The result is a card that promises on paper a flexible connection to display very high, using a single PCI Express 16x slot. The image is not very clear but it seems that the second tab extends a length of limited extent and integrates a PCI Express link, probably only 1x type so as to ensure proper nutrition.
You need 12 separate displays on 12 monitors and I say that it is possible with the use of pair of Eyefinity 6 cards. However if you want to get one single big display on 12 monitors, then it could not be possible with the use of current ATI drivers alone. For this I think that you will need some kind of third party software like SoftTH. A single DisplayPort v1.2 is capable to drive 4x 1920x1080. For that you will need a MST HUB to separate the 4 video channels. So with this hub you can easily get 12 displays using the zotec device by only a single Eyefinity 6 card.
By just looking at the specs and power of Eyefinity 6, I can say that 2x PowerColor HD 6870 Eyefinity 6 = 12 displays is a possible thing. But the main thing is about that driver and we yet don’t know whether Catalyst drivers are currently available or not. If available, we don’t know if it can simultaneously handle more than 6 screens in total, or whether it requires an optimization work drivers, ATI has made public demonstrations of systems Eyefinity with 24 screens using 4 cards Eyefinity 6 connected to the same system, but to achieve this have been definitely used driver specially developed for the purpose. The information given on this card from Powercolor are almost non-existent, at least for now.