• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Why do some 7970 gpus not have dual dvi?

Narada

Narada

Narada

Associate
Joined
23 Apr 2010
Posts
144
Location
London, UK
I'm thinking of getting two of the following gpu for crossfire use.

MSI HD 7970 Lightning BOOSTED Edition 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** with FREE FARCRY3, Hitman Absolution, Sleeping Dogs & 20% off MOH Warfighter PC Games [912-V278-018]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=gx-181-ms&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=938

http://uk.msi.com/product/vga/r7970-lightning-be.html

(both of which I assume are the same card as no code is specified on latter)

I quite like this card because:

-- once installed it's black on top (I don't want blue)
-- it's only 40mm (dual slot) in height so if I have two then there will be space in between for adequate cooling (hopefully)

However, I'm very surprised to see that there is no dual dvi. I have a 27" monitor with 2560x1440 res and as far as I understand it only dual dvi will give me access to the bios screen on boot and display port only becomes active once windows starts to boot.

Why do some gpu manufacturers omit dual dvi from cards? I could use display port but every time I need to get into the bios or boot from CD I don't want to have to switch cable to single dvi and then back to display port to get the max res. There's not even any HDMI though I'm not sure if that would give me access to the bios and the full res I'm looking for either.

Would appreciate some input as to how other Lightning owners with 2560x1440 res or higher are coping with this problem. Or whether there is a better way I'm missing. Thanks.
 
First I've heard of any problems getting into BIOS with DisplayPort.

Alternatively you can just look at a different 7970 model. The Lightning's really come into their own in the hands of extreme overclockers and advanced users so unless you're looking at this angle I would just get a 'normal' custom cooled 7970 and overclock it to the levels at which the lightning comes out the box.
 
One of my monitors is connected via displayport, and it shows up on boot and shows the BIOS.

Before windows loads, you are limited two 2 monitors (with the display mirrored across both monitors): In my case, it's the monitors connected to the DP and the HDMI ports that show the BIOS.
 
Thanks guys. So I just tested with my current card (asus matrix hd platinum) and to my great surprise it works - I was able to get into the bios. The card has four display ports and although the first one provides no signal all the rest work fine. It's the same story with the second card. I don't know why the first display port on both cards do not give any signal. That could explain why when I first built this pc and was booting off the first display port I didn't get any output. Though I do others for whom display port does not show the bios and does not allow them to boot an OS image to install it. So I think the question is now - will it continue to work in the same way i.e. allow me to get into the bios when I replace these two cards with two msi lightning 7970 cards which don't have dual dvi fallback. I really hope so.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom