Personal computing discussed
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TR wrote:Most members of the Evergreen family (with the exception of the smallest chip) will be able to support up to three different displays simultaneously, as the 5870 can with its four outputs. One may connect either two DVI displays and one DisplayPort or one DVI, one HDMI 1.3a, and one DisplayPort.
All of those adapters are of the passive variety, which means they're simple plug converters. That's fine for most uses, but the DVI and HDMI connectors are limited to a peak resolution of 1920x1200. If you want to drive a higher resolution display off this card via HDMI or dual-link DVI, you'll need an active converter, which is a more expensive proposition. AMD keeps a list of Mini DisplayPort adapters it has validated for use with Eyefinity,
Connectivity Requirements: AMD Eyefinity technology is supported by graphics cards in the ATI Radeon™ HD 5400 series and higher. These cards can support up to six monitors (depending on the model), subject to the following restrictions:
• A maximum of 2 legacy monitors (VGA, DVI or HDMI) can be enabled simultaneously, provided that each monitor is connected either directly or via a “passive” DisplayPort™ adapter/dongle. “Passive” adapters/dongles will NOT support more than 2 legacy monitors.
• To enable support for more than 2 monitors, “active” DisplayPort™ adapters/dongles are required (or monitors with direct DisplayPort™ connectivity must be used).
• Approved “active” adapters have no general connectivity restrictions with AMD Eyefinity technology.
AMD wrote:Why do you need DisplayPort?
AMD Eyefinity technology leverages DisplayPort and its ability to easily scale to drive multiple displays from a single clock source.
What's the difference between active DisplayPort dongles and passive DisplayPort dongles?
Passive dongles use the DisplayPort connection to receive non-DP signaling from the connector and they 'passively' adjust the signals to be compliant with the connected monitor. Passive dongles are considered legacy connections, not DisplayPort connections, therefore they do not fulfill the DisplayPort connection requirement mentioned previously and cannot be used to enable 3 or more displays. They do, however, offer an affordable solution to adapt legacy displays to DisplayPort connections.
Active dongles use true DisplayPort signaling to 'actively' translate and re-transmit the signals as the required outputs. Because they use the true DisplayPort signaling, they are considered a DisplayPort connection and meet the requirements to enable 3 or more displays.
DisplayPort to DL-DVI dongles require an external power supply which is usually through a separate USB connection (the USB connection must meet the USB 'high power' specification).
How many non-DisplayPort monitors can I use with an AMD Eyefinity technology-enabled graphics card?
You can connect up to two non-DisplayPort monitors at one time to an AMD Eyefinity technology-enabled graphics card using non-DisplayPort connections or passive DisplayPort dongles. To enable and drive 3 or more non-DisplayPort monitors at one time, the additional non-DisplayPort monitors must be connected with an active DisplayPort dongle.
The trouble with that solution is that the dongles themselves haven't been great. The best ones can cost over 100 bucks a pop, and the less expensive passive-type adapters have apparently been troublesome, with compatibility issues and the like. I say "apparently" because our experience with Eyefinity has been limited to monitors with DisplayPort inputs, so we haven't had the particular joy of dealing with the flickering screens or HDCP problems potentially caused by cheap dongles.
Bensam123 wrote:It's hard to imagine a majority of users not running into the same problems I just have. Most people aren't going to run out and buy three brand new monitors with displayports on them.
just brew it! wrote:Most people don't even have two monitors, let alone three.
insulin_junkie72 wrote:just brew it! wrote:Most people don't even have two monitors, let alone three.
Indeed, their prior mainstream IGPs (Llano may have fixed this; I'm not sure) couldn't even drive two digital displays at once - one had to be VGA.
just brew it! wrote:Yes, this is actually *my* pet peeve. I'd love to be able to drive two DVI monitors without having to buy a discrete GPU, especially given that the choices for passively cooled discrete GPUs with dual DVI are slim to non-existent.
LaChupacabra wrote:just brew it! wrote:Yes, this is actually *my* pet peeve. I'd love to be able to drive two DVI monitors without having to buy a discrete GPU, especially given that the choices for passively cooled discrete GPUs with dual DVI are slim to non-existent.
Check out OEM's. Dell sells a lot that are geared for business. Here are two right here
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/prod ... e_irrank=0
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/prod ... e_irrank=0
and that was after 2 pages donig a quick search for "ATI"
JustAnEngineer wrote:One of the A75 motherboards that I checked supports either HDMI + D-sub (analog) or HDMI + DVI-D, so you can drive two digital monitors at once, but one of them must be HDMI or use an HDMI-to-DVI cable (very cheap and easy to find).
Airmantharp wrote:My Z68 board is currently driving two monitors, one off DVI and one off HDMI, no issues. A Crossfire pair is driving three more; also, I have not installed Lucid's software*.