4870x2 and multiple monitors

[unknownsock]

Right long story short, im getting 3 monitors and hoping to use the SoftTH software rather than the triplehead 2 go adapter.

i was about to get 2x asus 4890's, but obviously the second card wont work whilst in crossfire, so ive come up with abit of a problem.

I could just get one 4890 and get a cheap £30 one just for my third monitor.
Or is it possible to use my onboard DVI adapter?

Or is it possible to still use 2 4890's and use 1 to drive my 22" and the secondary card to drive my 2 side 19"? not in crossfire that is.

cheers in advance..tis a little specific but thats life

 

[unknownsock]

Bump, someone must know about multi monitor setups more than mwah.

 

[Typhoon]

For SoftTH you need any 2 DX9 compatible graphics card. 1 card will be doing the work for all 3 monitors. The second card, which can be any basic affair, is only contributing its DVI port. I am not sure if you will be able to use you onboard graphics card.

 

[unknownsock]

Yer thought so, although a few people claim to be using there onboard port.
I'd love the triplehead but i just cant afford it -_-

 

[kylew]

I think the reason they say no crossfire for SoftTH is because you need 3 outputs and you can only have 2 outputs enabled with crossfire on.

I'm pretty sure that a 4870X2 with a secondary card for the other monitors would see the performance benefit of the 2 GPUs on the X2.

I've been itching to get a triple head set up going for a while now but there's no way I'm spending £300 or so on a triple head to go, and I need a third monitor first .

Though as I said, I don't think it's crossfire that doesn't work, it's just a case of crossfire only doing 2 video outputs at a time.

I'll give it a try tomorrow with my 2 4850s, I'll run some games over 2 screens with crossfire on and off and see if there's any difference.

 

[The-Plethora]

I am back down to 2 monitors now but i always find the best (and cheapest) way is to buy 2 cards, one which is the best in the range and one which is the cheapest in the range. I use a 4870 now but I used to have an ATI 2900XT and I bought a cheap PCI express 2400 pro for the third display. Essentially they have the same features just one is clocked slower so no compatibility issues.

 

[kerrgreg]

I can confirm that 3 screens wont work when running xfire

 

[andrewdodd13]

You may be able to use your on board VGA port, it depends whether or not your motherboard allows it to remain active with a graphics card in the PCIe slots.

An alternative would be to get a third monitor with a composite or HDMI input and use the third port on the graphics card (at least, this works for my 8600GT, YMMV)

 

[kylew]

I can confirm that 3 screens wont work when running xfire

That's not strictly true though, if you've got an X2 for example, and then a second cheap graphics card, crossfire can remain on while you have up to 4 screens plugged in.

Crossfire can do 2 screens and the secondry card can do another 2.

What is needed to be confirmed is SoftTH running over 3 screens with crossfire enabled.