Connecting 3 Monitors

[Somerled]

Hi folks

Next week I'm ordering the components to build my new rig.

I've dicided in getting a pair of MSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card's to run in crossfire.

Reading around these forums I've seen mentioned things like Mini DisplayPort to DVI-D Active Single-Link Adapter as being required for the third monitor.

My question is - the card above comes with 2 Dual-Link DVI-I, 1 HDMI & 2x Mini-DisplayPort - would I need the active adaptor or can I connect 1 monitor to each of the DVI connectors and the 3rd monitor to the HDMI connector using an HDMI to DVI adaptor (which I have a spare of)?

All 3 of my monitors only have DVI and VGA connectors.

Cheers in advance

 

[Freakbro]

I believe Eyefinity *has* to use a display port adapter for 1 of the monitors, you cant just use the DVI/HDMI ports, even in crossfire.

I'm not totally up with ATI setups though, went the Nvidia route myself.

 

[Surveyor]

No you can't use 2 DVI's and the HDMI.

The HDMI shares it's connection on the card with one of the DVI's.

So it's DVI + DVI + DisplayPort or DVI + HDMI + Displayport.

You need something like these to connect DisplayPort from the card to DVI on the monitor:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-150-OK

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CB-047-OK&groupid=1929&catid=1757&subcat=

Some use a DisplayPort to VGA cable but I can't see these for sale on OcUK.

 

[Cycrow]

im not sure, but i think u can plug in 2 monitors until each card without needing to use a displayport

usually u cant use both DVI and the HDMI on a single card thou.

 

[Freakbro]

im not sure, but i think u can plug in 2 monitors until each card without needing to use a displayport

usually u cant use both DVI and the HDMI on a single card thou.

I just read that you can only plug monitors into the top card, or else it will disable Crossfire & no Eyefinity...it will run as just 3 separate monitors

 

[Cycrow]

I just read that you can only plug monitors into the top card, or else it will disable Crossfire & no Eyefinity...it will run as just 3 separate monitors

i guess it works differently to SLI then, i dont really have any experiance with crossfire

 

[Surveyor]

I just read that you can only plug monitors into the top card, or else it will disable Crossfire & no Eyefinity...it will run as just 3 separate monitors

Correct.

With a Crossfire setup you can only use the outputs from 1 card.

i guess it works differently to SLI then, i dont really have any experiance with crossfire

Then leave the advice to those that do.

 

[Somerled]

Cheers for the info guys.

I'll order an adapter with the rest of the gear