Whats the deal with passive and active adapters on AMD cards?

[TheMorningStar]

Okay, I have my spanking new MSI 7950. It has 1xDVI/1xHDMI/2xMiniDP

Can I run all 4 ports at once?

Say I wanted to run 3 monitors and 1 TV, what would be the best way of doing this?

Monitors have the following ports 1xDVI/1xHDMI/1xVGA (model is listed in sig).

TV has HDMI/VGA.

Currently running My present 2 monitors using the DVI and HDMI outs.

I'm going to need adapters for the MiniDP ports and I'm thinking just go HDMI on both of them. I'm a bit rusty on things though, I remember something about "active" (power injected?) adapters being needed.

Another possible consideration is the TV will be on a 5 or 10 meter span from my base unit, I wouldn't be concerned about signal strength usually but I'm not sure with it being passed through MiniDP.

Anyone have experience with a similar setup?

 

[eddyr]

Unless the card specifally is designed/advertised to output more than 2 dvi/hdmi/vga signals then yes you're going to need an active dp to dvi/or hdmi adapter (I assume you wouldn't want to go for a vga one). You'l need 2 of them for all 4 monitors.

If you mean the aditional power (though usb that you see on some active adapters) that is only required above a certain resolution I believe.

 

[MeMeMeMe]

You need active displayport adapters or active mini-displayport adapters, which cost typically around £15-20. Passive ones wont do the job.

 

[Tonester0011]

I've got 4 screens coming out my 7970 (same outputs as yours)
I had a huge selection of miniDP adapters though, ones that come bundled with cards.

 

[TheMorningStar]

Cheers guys, thought as much.

I've got 4 screens coming out my 7970 (same outputs as yours)
I had a huge selection of miniDP adapters though, ones that come bundled with cards.

Cheers man, did you need to go for the powered ones? I'll be using a 1920x1200 3rd monitor maybe and a 32" TV.

 

[Orcvader]

You need to go for the active ones. For 1920x1080 and below, a self powered one will be fine. I don't think there's any active mini DP to HDMI last time I checked. There are these though:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-058-HS&groupid=1929&catid=1757&subcat=

 

[Hybridtheory]

You need to go for the active ones. For 1920x1080 and below, a self powered one will be fine. I don't think there's any active mini DP to HDMI last time I checked. There are these though:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-058-HS&groupid=1929&catid=1757&subcat=

Same one as i bought, plugged in it works job done I'm running 3x1920-1080 in Eyefinity

 

[Diagro]

You need to go for the active ones. For 1920x1080 and below, a self powered one will be fine. I don't think there's any active mini DP to HDMI last time I checked. There are these though:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-058-HS&groupid=1929&catid=1757&subcat=

The advert for that adapter is misleading, It says its active, when it doesn't give a max res.... its not useable for anything over hd...

 

[MeMeMeMe]

Actually that's exactly what the OP needs.

It tells you it's a single link adapter, which is fine for up to 1920x1080/1200.

OP: what you need to search for is
Active Mini DisplayPort to Single-Link DVI Adapter
or Active DisplayPort to Single-Link DVI Adapter

Dual Link ones cost £50-80+, and are needed for 1440p+ resolutions, but for 1920x1200, the £15-20 single link, active adapters are perfect.