Between a triple monitor setup like Eyefinity or 3D Surround, or buying a single 30" 2560x1600 monitor, which would you choose?
Both require a big investment; beefy PSU, dual GPU's, roomy case and big desk. I'm sure the triple monitor setup is uber sweet, but how's driver support? Are most games supported out of the box?
Anyone here have a triple monitor setup? If so, are you satisfied with the investment? Anything you don't like about it?
This question has been asked a TON of times and I see the answer is the same: "it depends."
If ALL you do is game, and most of your game hours are spent on games that don't support Eyefinity, a single big monitor is probably better for obvious reasons. If the games you actually spend most of your time on DO support Eyefinity, though, then in that case, I'd say 3x1 Eyefinity is as good or better than a big 30" panel. A 30" panel doesn't change the aspect ratio or field of view that you get, whereas 3 monitors DOES. (What's the aspect ratio of a 30"? 16:10? Compare that to 48:9 if you place three 16:9 panels next to each other in landscape mode.) Eyefinity FOV even gives you an advantage in some games, like racing games or FPSes; you can see people coming behind you more easily (fewer backstabs). Blizzard knows this which is why they intentionally ban landscape Eyefinity FOVs in StarCraft II... it would give the Eyefinity player an advantage compared to the 30" player. You are allowed to have 3 portrait-orientation monitors in Eyefinity for StarCraft II, though, as this does not give you the same magnitude of FOV advantage.
Some games don't need a ton of GPU power to do Eyefinity, believe it or not. Half Life 2 derivatives like TF2 and L4D2 can run fine on a single higher-end GPU.
Bezels are a minor issue; you can stack bezels behind each other to minimize the space, plus you will not really notice them when you're in a game, just like you don't notice the bars around your car's windshield when you're driving.
You don't need patches for Eyefinity for most games, since it's just extending your field of view and requires no additional programming, but you may need to update config files. E.g., for TF2, if you don't modify your HUD, then your information is scattered all over the place... off in the corners. Not a big deal on 1 screen, but too far from your central vision on 3 screens in landscape orientation. Some new games try to centralize your info though, so hopefully going forward, programmers will code with Eyefinity in mind and put the critical info in the central screen rather than in corners.
I know you specifically talked about gaming, but let me add this: If you multitask, such as watching a movie on one screen while web-browsing in another and typing a response to someone on AT forums in the third screen, then 3 monitors is more flexible than one big monitor. The 30" can't split-screen as well, e.g., if you do the Windows 7 splitting, a movie will be off to one side with a ton of black space above and below--a lot of wasted space. I can split 3 monitors up into 3 pieces very fast, something the 30" can't do in Win7 as well or as symmetrically. Heck, with the Windows + Left Arrow/Right Arrow method, I could have 6 windows open at the same time in portrait mode next to each other. Try that stunt with a single 30". Also, the 30" isn't going to natively display 1080p pixel for pixel whereas 1080p monitors do natively display at 1080p, pixel for pixel, for a sharper image. You can also switch down to one screen to save power/heat when you want to do so, something the 30" can't do. And if you don't game much and just want multitasking, then even a dirt cheap single Radeon card can handle 3 monitors just fine. Modern OSes support multimonitor multitasking pretty well, it's just splicing them all together into one giant screen that is not supported as well.
Edited to add: I forgot the timeless smartass response: Get three 30" in Eyefinity mode so you won't have to choose one or the other.
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