is it actually possible to have ATis eyefinity (9 monitors) still? with 4k monitors?

[ViRGE]

It is hardware limited, but AMD needs to believe that more than 6 screens is a large enough market to warrant the cost of supporting it. There's no way that they could make money off of the consumer market. Too niche.



It's just the way Crossfire works. All of the displays are connected to one card. Even if you could use multiple cards it doesn't mean you'd be able to go go more than 6 screens. SLI uses outputs from multiple cards but is still limited to 3 monitor surround + 1 more monitor as a separate desktop. So, 4 monitors in total whether you hook them all to one card or four.

AMD has shown off 24 monitor Crossfire before using 4 video cards.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2352789,00.asp

However I'm not sure under what circumstances that can be done. It's entirely possible they software stitched together 4 setups, or it may be a FirePro feature, etc.

 

[3DVagabond]

AMD has shown off 24 monitor Crossfire before using 4 video cards.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2352789,00.asp

However I'm not sure under what circumstances that can be done. It's entirely possible they software stitched together 4 setups, or it may be a FirePro feature, etc.

The Eyefinity that we all know and love doesn't allow monitors to be attached to multiple cards. That may have been a capability that they shelved. Nice to know that Eyefinity can use multiple card's outputs electrically though.

 

[BrightCandle]

According to the W9100 press release it can do 3x4K @ 60Hz, 6x4K @ 30Hz. The reason for that is every other DP is actually running through an MST "in parallel" (I'm not sure if that is technically the correct term, but it explains for visualization purposes.) with another DP.

And for the 7970s they claimed it was 6x 1600p @60Hz which turned out to be true in the sense the monitors were connected and working, but in reality the hardware couldn't actually support that fully and ended up with the dreaded tearing monitors as vsync didn't work (in Windows). I was just wondering if anyone knew the new limit for the 290's, its one of those things that AMD doesn't specify and a lot of us eyefinity users found out about only once we got the cards and monitors.

 

[3DVagabond]

And for the 7970s they claimed it was 6x 1600p @60Hz which turned out to be true in the sense the monitors were connected and working, but in reality the hardware couldn't actually support that fully and ended up with the dreaded tearing monitors as vsync didn't work (in Windows). I was just wondering if anyone knew the new limit for the 290's, its one of those things that AMD doesn't specify and a lot of us eyefinity users found out about only once we got the cards and monitors.

It can run up to 6 monitors with a MST hub. No way it would handle 6x1600 though. Are you sure AMD claimed 6x1600 for Tahiti? I've never been under the impression that Eyefinity could handle that res. I always understood it to be SL-DVI res for more than 3 monitors.

 

[BrightCandle]

It can run up to 6 monitors with a MST hub. No way it would handle 6x1600 though. Are you sure AMD claimed 6x1600 for Tahiti? I've never been under the impression that Eyefinity could handle that res. I always understood it to be SL-DVI res for more than 3 monitors.

But it couldn't even do that fully. The actual limit was 2x 1080p monitors, and the third 1080p monitor would be out of sync and be forced vsync off. There is a mismatch in those cards at least that was "what can be connected" which was often 6x DP on the later cards or 2x DVI (one double, one single) and displayport so 3 1080p monitors for the earlier models. But in all cases eyefinity was using software synchronisation and couldn't vsync the monitors properly.

Nobody has yet talked about the limit for the 290's (in reviews I haven't noticed anyone talk about it and I think pcper.com was one of the people to expose it on the previous cards with their FCAT method although I noticed it as did thousands a year before) so I am not sure if it actually meets the monitors it can have (finally) or whether its still lower than that limit. Its worth knowing this if you intend to run a big eyefinity grouping of monitors or something other than 1080p because its really annoying to have all your Windows torn on the desktop on some of the monitors and to have games showing weird tear lines on those same monitors. Its not a show stopping problem but its one of those things I think AMD should be upfront about.