Radeon HD 5970 compatible with BenQ XL2420T?

[Whitestar127]

So basically I have a Radeon HD 5970 and I'm considering getting the BenQ XL2420T.

On my 5970 there is a mini-displayport and two dual link DVI-I ports.

How should I connect the 5970 to the XL2420T to get 120Hz? Should I use a mini-displayport-to-displayport adapter and then connect that to a displayport-to-DVI adapter which goes into the monitor? Will that give me 120Hz?

Can I use the DVI-I ports to get 120Hz? Or would they have to be DVI-D?

 

[PrincessFrosty]

I have this monitor and used to have that card actually, the DVI ports will allow 120Hz natively, just use DVI out on the 5970 to DVI in on the monitor...

There is absolutely no reason to be using adapters to change connection type unless you have some specific requirement you're not telling us like a long cable run or something?

*edit*

Er...you might need it to be a DL-DVI cable (Dual-Link DVI), I don't think regular DVI-D has the bandwidth for 120hz @ 1080p

However the XL2420T ships with a DL-DVI cable and the 5970 supports DL-DVI out so you'll be fine using that.

 

[Whitestar127]

Hi, and thanks for helping out.

No, no specific requirements. I just thought the DVI-D was the only DVI format that supported 120Hz. So I thought I had to use the mini-displayport.

So, even if the XL2420T comes with a DVI-D cable I can easily connect that to one of my DVI-I ports on the 5970 and get 120Hz?

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Just to clarify, the ports on the 5970 are capable of doing DVI-D, DVI-I, and DL-DVI out.

I edited my post above, you might actually need a Dual-link DVI (DL-DVI) cable specifically, as I think standard DVI-D doesn't have enough bandwidth for 1920x1080 @ 120hz, however the monitor ships with a DL-DVI cable.

You're getting a bit confused with DVI-I, the 5970 does support DVI-I out, it's for backwards compatibility with monitors that only accept analogue signals, but the ports will output DVI-D and support DL-DVI as well.

 

[Whitestar127]

Aha, ok thanks for de-confusing me.
Very informative. :thumbsup:

 

[PrincessFrosty]

You're welcome, it's a really good monitor I've had it for a few months now and gaming at 120Hz is so much better than 60Hz.

It also works really well with 3D Vision 2 if you're ever tempted to switch to Nvidia, I did when my 5970 died :s