Amd Eyefinity Help

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spazmanpanic

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I currently work at a business which trades on the jse, so i would like to know what is the cheapest eyefinity-supported card and what ill have to get to actually use it(dongles and port converters), i currently use 2 23inch lcds on the blue vga cables, and i have a 3rd moniter currently lying around as my usb display extender is giving me problems, so just hoping that there is someone out there that actually knows about this
 
I take it you arent going to be doing much gaming on this computer? According to this article, all AMD 5 series cards will have eyefinity.

That being said... as far as I understand EyeFinity, what it does is provides a virtual screen to your graphics card, whose resolution is equal to the sum of your screens. However, for business use, depending on the application, this may make things harder because your apps will span all of your screens unless you manually adjust them.
 
Ancalagon said:
I take it you arent going to be doing much gaming on this computer? According to this article, all AMD 5 series cards will have eyefinity.

That being said... as far as I understand EyeFinity, what it does is provides a virtual screen to your graphics card, whose resolution is equal to the sum of your screens. However, for business use, depending on the application, this may make things harder because your apps will span all of your screens unless you manually adjust them.
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Thats not how it works, you can set up your screen whichever way you want. ATI provides you with a control panel to set things up the way you want them. It does NOT just output one big screen at the sum of the screens resolutions (although this is one of the many options available).

The 5450 is the cheapest out right now, @ around R750. It has one DVI, one HDMI and one display port output, so you'd have to convert those 3 to whatever you need.
 
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well the 3rd monitor is a 23inch, if that helps with setting up the resolution, seems like ill have to find a hdmi to vga converter, do they even exist?? do u need a semi-decent 5xxx series card to run 3 screens thou? or is it a bit cpu dependant, or not at all?
 
It depends on what you do on the screens. Do you use any 3D business software, or games? then you need something more capable. If not, then a 5450 should be fine.

Find out what inputs your screens support. They may support VGA and DVI, if you are lucky. Not likely to support DisplayPort, but its not too hard to find an adaptor for that I think. If one of them supports only VGA, you should be able to find a converter for that.

Your CPU and RAM will definitely affect this, but only because to use up all of that screen real estate, you will need to have a lot of programs running at once. Thats kinda independent from the screen issue though.
 
Any GFX card will be able to handle the 2D load of 3 screens. I am assuming its 2D since you're only doing stock trading etc. As for converting HDMI to VGA, thats likely to be an expensive converter (digital -> analogue), but I do not know of a converter myself, so I could be wrong.
 
HDMI to DVI converters are cheap (~R50), however for the displayport output you will need an active displayport converter for the ATI cards. This costs about R1250 so I suggest just getting a new monitor that has displayport support, and selling one of the other, or using it for something else...
 
P924 said:
HDMI to DVI converters are cheap (~R50)
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possible to train a vga-dvi converter on that? got quite a few of them, so hdmi-dvi-dvi-vga ???

all screens are about a month or so old, not interested in replacing them....
 
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Its probably worth spending a little extra money and getting a card that has 2 DVI and one HDMI output rather than buying a whole new monitor with displayport support. The 5770, for example, has 2 DVI and 1 HDMI port. The 5670 might also have the same. One word of caution with the more powerful graphics cards is that they tend to start requiring beefier power suppliers and more room in your case. Make sure with your IT support before you buy any graphics card that your PC will support it. Any small card, such as the 5450 or 5570, will likely be fine.

All of them only VGA? Try to find a DVI to VGA converter then, not sure how much they are. Probably not too cheap.
 
spazmanpanic said:
possible to train a vga-dvi converter on that? got quite a few of them, so hdmi-dvi=dvi-vga ???

all screens are about a month or so old, not interested in replacing them....
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No. HDMI does not have the analog pins that VGA needs.
 
5570 looks promising, it looks like i might need to get a screen with dvi or go for a higher priced card...
 
Ancalagon said:
Its probably worth spending a little extra money and getting a card that has 2 DVI and one HDMI output rather than buying a whole new monitor with displayport support. The 5770, for example, has 2 DVI and 1 HDMI port. The 5670 might also have the same. One word of caution with the more powerful graphics cards is that they tend to start requiring beefier power suppliers and more room in your case. Make sure with your IT support before you buy any graphics card that your PC will support it. Any small card, such as the 5450 or 5570, will likely be fine.

All of them only VGA? Try to find a DVI to VGA converter then, not sure how much they are. Probably not too cheap.
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I believe eyefinity requires the 3rd monitor to be connected to the displayport output. But then, I could be wrong...
 
There are lgs with hdmi. You just skimped where you should not have. If you always buy the cheapest you're bound to get burnt sometime or other.
 
Yeah i know, but they were at a good price, some time back i got a 23.6" lcd for home and paid 1,899 for it, a steal for a samsung, and it as all the connections, looks like ill either get a new screen or take one from home, thanks for your help, but pondering on the options i have noticed that dual dvi is not really required, so i can get a low end 5xxx series with eyefinity, which has vga, dvi, and hdmi, all i need is the hdmi to dvi converter and a screen, might probably do an office swap for a screen, thanks for your help everyone
 
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I dont think any 5 series card has a VGA connector though. They are pretty old these days.
 
Ancalagon said:
I dont think any 5 series card has a VGA connector though. They are pretty old these days.
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However you should be able to use a DVI to VGA converter on a DVI port if it has 2xDVI and one HDMI. Just double check that the card does in fact support EYEFINITY, support seems to be very limited.
 
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