Main monitor for Eyefinity

kration

kration

kration

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I've currently got a 2 monitor system consisting of 2 x Acer X223W. I use the two monitor system for work stuff (mainly GIS mapping), but only use one for gaming.

I'm thinking of dabbling in Eyefinity - mainly because I've seen it used in 'Elite Dangerous' and it's spiked my interest (though I appreciate that there are still glitches in that game).

I was also thinking of getting a new higher res monitor as my main one in any case.

So, if I was going to get another 22" monitor to complement the two X223W's for Eyefinity what would people recommend?

I envisage using the new monitor as the central one, with the two older monitors on either side.

Main questions:

  • It needs to be 22" as my stand (a Duronic DM353) says that's the maximum size it can deal with.
  • The X223W's have resolutions of 1680 x 1050, which is different from most modern monitors. Does that raise any issues?
  • If I get 3 monitors, what do I need to get to connect them all to my graphics Card (a Gigabyte Windforce 7870) i.e. dongles etc?
  • Similar to the third point, what's the way of connecting 3 monitors to my graphics card? Does the main (central) monitor need to be connected to a particular interface?

My system is pretty ancient (AMD Phenom II x4 9.5 3.2 gh; Gigabyte Windforce 7870; 16Gb RAM). I may be upgrading to a non-overclocked i5 setup in a couple of months though.

I intend to experiment with Eyefinity for Elite:Dangerous, Metro 2033 and possibly Skyrim. Due to the age of my system are any/all of those unrealistic?

Budget for a new monitor is £100, but ideally less.

So, any recommendations for a monitor and any advice gratefully received.
 
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What ports does your 7870 have? And how much memory?
Assuming it's 1 DVI, 1 HDMI and 2 x mini Displayport - you'll need to run 1 monitor via the minidisplay port - either using the DP connection, or using an Active Adapter to connect to DVI or HDMI on your monitor

running 3 x 1680x1050 might be a struggle - particularly if you only have 1GB on the GFX, though hopefully someone else can give you better info on that.

Eyefinity generally requires all 3 monitors to run the same resolution, however the newest version of it can run different monitors at different resolutions, however I'm not 100% clear on whether this will only work with the R200 line of cards, or if it will also work with the 7000 series as well.
That would also depend on your OS as well, I think you need to have Windows 8.1 to take advantage of that (though may also support Win7, but I can't remember - does not work with Win8 though)
Assuming your card can do this, then it would mean a 1080p panel would be fine, which should work out better on value for money since it's a more popular resolution and would allow for reasonable use of the mixed resolution Eyefinity options.

However, before making a recommendation, best to know what whether you'd be able to run mixed resolution Eyefinity or not
 
Thanks for the reply and apologies for the delay responding but I've been away.

The connector set-up is as you described, so I'll need an active VGA display adapter for the Min Display Port - any recommendations?

The memory on the graphics card is 2GB.

You can have mixed resolution Eyefinity in Win7, as explained on this link (it's only Win 8.0 that is no longer supported):

http://www.techpowerup.com/201239/amd-eyefinity-3-0-to-introduce-mixed-resolution-support.html


I'm now thinking of going for a 24" monitor as the central one. Probably one of these two:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-023-AO&groupid=17&catid=510

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-080-BQ&groupid=17&catid=510

Any comments/advice?
 
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