Matrox Triplehead vs Eyefinity

[Roscoe1724]

Ok, im planning on running dual GTX 460 1Gb's atm but this eyefinity thing has caught my eye.

However, eyefinity is too expensive for me at the moment, particularly due to the fact I would have to swap out my video cards and mostly due to the fact that the eyefinity monitors cost just slightly less than my whole system will cost to build.

Is the matrox triplehead2go a worthy investment until such times as I can afford to go for eyefinity?

Pros and Cons of both amtrox and eyefinity?

Will twin GTX460's be able to handle the matrox with triple 22 or 24 inch monitors? at high quality settings in game?

Should I just stick to a single monitor for gaming until eyefinity products drop in price a little or I can save for it?

I dunno what to do... HELP!

Roscoe

 

[Roscoe1724]

Do you realise that with dual GTX460 in SLI you can use nVidia Surround (not to be confused with 3D Vision surround) for multi display gaming?

http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vision-surround-technology.html (read at the bottom for details on non-stereo 3D multi display gaming).

Wow! No I didnt know this! This comes as standard with the GTX 460 in sli?

If this is the case.... AWESOME! All I need is 1 more monitor! Nice one! Thanks dude!

 

[Roscoe1724]

Op, your probably better off with a GTX480, generally speaking a Faster single GPU is better than 2 slower ones for various reasons, but the the main ones being Micro-stutter and more general driver issues.
Maybe hold off your purchase for a couple of weeks or so and maybe look into something like a Barts based 6870 or if you want the absolute best performance, wait a little longer into November and get a Cayman based 6970 because at least then you can drive 3 or more screens without the multi-GPU issues...

Agreed, I probably WOULD be better with the 480 and it is something im considering.
However for surround vision gaming I would still require Sli'd cards.

Generally speaking up until now, the only reason I required milti monitors was for complex programs that need screen real estate, like Flash, 3DSMAX, Photoshop etc etc, so I could have my stage on the centre screen un cluttered with my secondary monitor for my toolboxes.

But if I can essentially recreate the eyefinity concept for my games by only adding an extra monitor... im all for it!

I'll need to look into performance though... if 460's wont run 2d Surround gaming on 22 or 24" monitors at near max quality settings then 480's are a very real possibility.

anyone have any benchmarks using this nvidia 2d surround?

Thanks for all the replies, very helpfull!

 

[Roscoe1724]

Problem is you can't do nVidia Surround with 1x 480 - you'd need 2 as nVidia cards do have the disadvantage compared to eyefinity that you can only drive 2 displays per card (nVidia surround won't enable without a 2nd card which is required for 3 displays).

Yeah, I had a quick read at the requirements, thats why im factoring in the fact that I already have the budget for and intend to run Sli 460's... but 480's are about double the price of 480's... double that for sli and thats a stinger!

If 460's will do the job for now, then i'll stick with them, if not, I might just stick with them anyways and just not use surround vision for the time being until I can afford 2xbetter cards.

Must find some benchmarks... any ideas on the most reliable benchmark source for such a technology?

 

[Roscoe1724]

PS.

Ive come to the conclusion the upgrading to 480's is not an option at this time, its just too much money for the time being so benchmarks are not REALLY required, I'll just borrow a 3rd monitor, test it myself, if it works... great.... if not.. no real loss. I'll just have to wait for my next student finance year