Display Port Cable

Nope. While the Mac's DP port can also output digital and analog signals, the one on the 7970 can't. You will need an active adapter. Alternatively, use a DVI to HDMI adapter instead.
 
Well DP and HDMI are two completely different things, both physical and signal :p. On the Mac the DP on that can do HDMI signals, but the one on the 7970 can't, hence why you need an active adapter to convert the DP signals to HDMI. A passive adapter that only rearranges the pins hence won't work as it does nothing to the signals.

Does your card not have a HDMI or DVI port? And if this is for a third monitor, what connections does it have? You can get active mini DP to DVI for far cheaper.
 
Orcvader said:
Well DP and HDMI are two completely different things, both physical and signal :p. On the Mac the DP on that can do HDMI signals, but the one on the 7970 can't, hence why you need an active adapter to convert the DP signals to HDMI. A passive adapter that only rearranges the pins hence won't work as it does nothing to the signals.

Does your card not have a HDMI or DVI port? And if this is for a third monitor, what connections does it have? You can get active mini DP to DVI for far cheaper.
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I'd found some cheap ones on the bay as I was looking to spend as little as possible. The 7970 I have has got 3 mini DP ports, 1 HDMI & 1 DVI-D. The DVi-D will be used by the secondary monitor, as it doesn't support HDMI, and the primary will be the HDMI connection.

The enquiry It was purely to keep costs down, but if I was to use mini DP, that is obviously not going to happen. I'd not had time to read it up in all honesty, was all a little rushed.
 
Make sure it's active. I found a "StarTech 1920x1200 Mini Display Port Male to HDMI" for around ~£20 on the rainforest, which is pretty cheap compared to other active adapters. OcUK seems to be low on active adapters on the other hand...
 
Without hijacking or anything, but why have they put mini DP's on graphics card, the cables are expensive, and 90% of people use HDMI/DVI anyway? So why have they bothered including them over standard HDMI?
 
ThaReaperGuy said:
Without hijacking or anything, but why have they put mini DP's on graphics card, the cables are expensive, and 90% of people use HDMI/DVI anyway? So why have they bothered including them over standard HDMI?
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I think HDMI can't go much over 1080p, if you need to hook up a 1440p screen and all you had was HDMI, you'd be out of luck.

Dual link DVI is fine, handles high res, but is rather large in the scheme of things, so you would be limited on space, you could only have maybe two if the card has a fat heatsink. You could stick on regular display ports, but you may as well may the smaller ones if they do the same job.

Newer monitors have display port input anyway, so i only needed to spend like 3 quid on a MDP-DP cable since they don't need an active conversion.
 
ThaReaperGuy said:
Without hijacking or anything, but why have they put mini DP's on graphics card, the cables are expensive, and 90% of people use HDMI/DVI anyway? So why have they bothered including them over standard HDMI?
Click to expand...

This should help explain why: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ati-eyefinity,2567-3.html

But pretty much, each DVI/HDMI/VGA connection requires there own internal clock. Up to 6 DP ports on the other hand can share an external clock, meaning instead of AMD requiring to add 6 internal clocks, they can simplify it and just do 2 internal clocks + 1 external. It's pretty much just to try keep the card design simple, although can cause confusion and grief for those wanting to try 3 or more monitors.
 
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