eyefinity monitor question & suggestions

[Tattare]

currently I have 2 cheap Planar px2710MW 27in monitors and I was thinking of buying a 3rd monitor to use eyefinity.

Heres the scenarios im looking at and I cant decide which route to take.


1.) The current monitors have been discontinued but planer has a newer model with display port built in (PLANAR PXL2760MW) and the measurements match the size of my current two. All 3 would be TN panels but very similar in looks.

2.) Upgrade the center monitor to a 27in IPS panel 1920x1080 and use a Display port to VGA connector? for one of my two Planar monitors. Size and looks of the monitors wont really match.

3.) I guess the 3rd idea is to scrap the dual monitors and pickup a 2560x1440 IPS panel since the 1920x1080 resolution monitors I have wont really match in a dual monitor or 3 monitor setup. Iv really enjoyed having a 2nd monitor though for looking up things and surfing the net while playing games.


Im kinda unsure about the adapter route, display port to vga or hdmi?
will the colors on the IPS not blend well with the TN panels?
and I guess appearance when company comes over and sees my desk.

 

[mfenn]

Personally, I would probably forget Eyefinity and just get a 2560x1440 main display. Keep the existing two as secondary monitors for 2D tasks.

If you really want Eyefinity, then I think that option #1 is your best bet. Having non-matching monitors on a single image would drive me crazy.

 

[fffblackmage]

I'd choose #1 as well. I don't like the idea of non-matching monitors in an Eyefinity setup.

If I had to choose again, I'd probably would have went with the one larger 2560*1440 or 2560*1600 IPS display instead of three 1080p monitors. I imagine it's more useful in day to day tasks than three smaller monitors.

 

[Tattare]

Im just thinking about eyefinity so I can exploit the wider field of view in some video games like Guild Wars 2.

 

[BrightCandle]

Eyefinity works OK with somewhat mismatch monitors. I ran a Dell 2410 and 2x Samsung 2443's for quite a while. The key aspect is the frequency of the monitors needs to match, some monitors are truly 60hz and some are 59 hz and you need to match that along with resolution.

Just bare in mind if you ever moved to NVidia with surround then there are strict requirements about the monitors matching, mine did work but its not uncommon for mismatched monitors not to work.

Having done 120hz, 3x 60hz at 1920x1200, IPS and big monitors my preference today is 120Hz. 3 screens was kind of fun but todays GPUs can't deliver the frame rates I desire on 3 screens without a lot of eyecandy going down and there are a lot of games that just don't support it. Since I tend to play a lot of different games fiddling with resolution and reading through forum posts on how to get it working just distracts from playing the game.

So my advice for what it is worth (free as it is) would be to get the updated monitor that matches spec wise to your previous ones. I had the same thing with the Samsung monitors and the update ended up being identical.

 

[Skott]

To me the best gaming experience is either one monitor or three. Gaming on just two monitors doesnt look good IMO. So based on assumption three monitors is what you are truely wanting(I'm not going to debate 1 big vs 3 eyefinity/sli) I'd say choice number 1 as long as the monitors all match up in size and resolution. Put the best monitor in the middle as your main viewer though. That is probably going to be the new monitor you buy.