State of Cross-finity

[Friendly0Fire]

So I've been reading up a lot about this lately since I don't really want to invest such a high amount of money into a buggy product.

I'm going to be setting up a new computer soon and I decided that rather than paying the big bucks for a latest-generation GPU I'd just CF my existing 5850 with a new one, which from the benches here seems like it'll give me upwards of a 50% boost in almost all situations.

However, at the same time, I do a lot of work on my computer and as such am looking into getting a triple monitor setup using HP's ZR24w. I don't really care about the extended color gamut of the competing Dell and the quality is bound to be insanely higher than my current Hanns-G HG281D, which will become a TV to hook into my digital cable box.

I'm setting up the computer with a P8P67 Deluxe so I'll be having twin x16 PCI-E, I'll snatch an i5-2500K and about 6GB of RAM, not really settled on the brand, all running off a Corsair AX750 PSU, which I think should be plenty.

My questions are then:
1) I've heard a lot about "microstuttering" that seems to affect CF setups. Is this problem still present? I've read somewhere that killing MOM.EXE and CCC.EXE would prevent pauses every 5 seconds - does this entirely eliminate the stuttering or merely reduce it?
2) I've also heard a lot of stuff about connectivity. All the HP monitors run off DVI or DisplayPort, so I should be safe there, correct? Just hook two of them on DVI and one on DP or vice-versa using the included cables? Is there any preference of say DP over DVI?
3) I'd like to have the choice between running all three screens in portrait or landscape mode, depending on the situation. I've read though that portrait mode support is a bit iffy. What's the situation now?
4) Since I'll be doing work on these things too, I'd like to be able to disable Eyefinity and use the monitors as three separate entities so that, for instance, I can have them in different orientations and also have the ability to use Aero Snap on all 3 (which should let me have 6 windows tiled). Is disabling Eyefinity a simple process, like just a switch on the control panel?
5) Are the HP ZR24w a good choice for this kind of setup? I've read conflicting reports on these, saying that the slower refresh rate on them might impact gaming, yet others say this isn't an issue. I've also read that the contrast and blacks aren't all that good, but how does this compare to other "mainstream" screens? For the price, I'd expect them to blow Acer, Samsung, LG and other cheaper screens out of the water, but do I have (better) alternatives in the same price range? Be aware that I'm in Canada.

An important point to mention is that since I'm getting this setup off grant money (yay!), I'll be building the computer on the first payment and getting the screens a month or more later, so I can't get a refund for the GPU setup if things screw up!

Thanks in advance

 

[digitaldurandal]

The problem does still, and always will exist. Microstuttering is not pausing.

ZR24w suffers from an issue called gamma shifting that I think will make it not worth using 3 of them. I have one as my center monitor and two TNs next to it. I would prefer to have 3 TNs instead. The far corners of my ZR24w have really high gamma when you focus on the center of the screen. It is noticable the most in dark situations obviously, but it is pretty annoying for a screen of this type.

 

[Mistwalker]

From what I've heard here and at HardOCP the ZR24w is a very solid monitor for gaming given that it's an IPS panel. It seems a fantastic compromise as the colors and viewing angle will not be affected by whatever configuration you have the panels set up in, and while you sacrifice 120Hz I'd expect you're generally aiming for 60 fps at Eyefinity resolutions anyway.

An extra benefit as noted is the ZR24w supports Displayport so yeah, hook each one up via DVI or Displayport and you're done, no adapters needed. Also as stated you lose extended color gamut, which sucks if you do graphics work but makes no difference at all for anything else...like gaming.

Microstuttering is apparently always present and inherent to how multi-GPU setups render output, but is supposedly far less noticeable at higher framerates. I've never experienced it myself with my 4870x2 and 6950 CF setups.

There is a portion of the CCC where you can manage any connected displays and enable/disable Eyefinity grouping to my knowledge, but I have no firsthand experience with it (yet).

I ordered a trio of ZR24ws just hours ago for my first multi-monitor setup after days of comparing and scrutinizing reviews. Most panels these days are all 16x9, if you want 16x10 the closest alternative to HP is the U2411 from Dell which trades blows in various areas but is edged out in gaming attributes, my primary area of concern.

I'm sure others with actual experience will chime in, but from everything I've read it sounds like a viable, potent setup.

 

[Friendly0Fire]

Thanks for the answers guys, but again you can see the dilemma with one person disliking and one liking the ZR24w :biggrin:

I didn't want to use TNs because IPSs are just so much nicer to look at. I'll also probably be doing some Photoshop and maybe even print work, so color accuracy is a plus (though not so much as to warrant the 100$ price increase of the Dell U2411).

As for microstuttering, I was referring to this blog post:
http://www.idle-handz.com/?p=1146
Specifically the update towards the bottom, where he says that there was a drop every 5 seconds which was fixed by killing those processes, but he did not say whether this entirely or partially fixes microstuttering or even if it's entirely unrelated.

I'm also not really caring about 120Hz, don't like 3D and I've never had a problem with past 60Hz screens.

 

[betasub]

Eyefinity works fine on my 6950 with Samsung MD230x3. CCC allows grouping of monitors to form an extended desktop (with a resulting higher resolution for games), and a group can be easy disabled to return to individual monitor desktop (allowing re-orientation).

Micro-stuttering is unrelated to the pauses you quote. All current multi-card solutions use Alternate Frame Rendering - read up on this to understand the source of microstuttering (and how it affects frame timing on the ms-scale).

 

[Friendly0Fire]

I have indeed read some more about AFR and microstuttering in general and now my question becomes simply: will two 5850 be sufficient to drive three 1920x1200 monitors with quality settings on most modern games so as to avoid microstuttering as much as possible (ie 60fps average at least)? I will probably be using some/most games with Eyefinity turned off because they plainly weren't designed for a 5760x1200 resolution (or a 3600x1920 one), but I'd really like to see, for instance, DiRT2 on three monitors.

 

[Elfear]

I have indeed read some more about AFR and microstuttering in general and now my question becomes simply: will two 5850 be sufficient to drive three 1920x1200 monitors with quality settings on most modern games so as to avoid microstuttering as much as possible (ie 60fps average at least)? I will probably be using some/most games with Eyefinity turned off because they plainly weren't designed for a 5760x1200 resolution (or a 3600x1920 one), but I'd really like to see, for instance, DiRT2 on three monitors.

Honestly I think you'll be vram limited with the 5850s at 5760x1200. You can always turn settings down to use less memory but that kind of defeats the purpose of Eyefinity which is more game immersion. I used one 5850@1000/1200 on my 1600p screen and it really wasn't adequate for the more demanding games, mostly because of the 1GB of memory. 5760x1200 would be even worse.

 

[Friendly0Fire]

I've looked back at my plans thanks to your post, Elfear. The one thing I want to avoid is to purchase something inadequate that'll end up being a waste of money, so I'm going to go ahead and pull the trigger on two 6950 2GB in Crossfire instead. 4GB should be plenty for triple-screen gaming and total overkill for single-screen, so I should be ready for anything. It'll also give me the flexibility of using a single-screen single-card configuration with great performance for those games that don't like CF.

Does that sound like something worthwhile? I've looked at things on the Nvidia side but the prices just don't seem to be there and last I tried the 570 SLI bench was broken on here.

 

[Elfear]

I've looked back at my plans thanks to your post, Elfear. The one thing I want to avoid is to purchase something inadequate that'll end up being a waste of money, so I'm going to go ahead and pull the trigger on two 6950 2GB in Crossfire instead. 4GB should be plenty for triple-screen gaming and total overkill for single-screen, so I should be ready for anything. It'll also give me the flexibility of using a single-screen single-card configuration with great performance for those games that don't like CF.

Does that sound like something worthwhile? I've looked at things on the Nvidia side but the prices just don't seem to be there and last I tried the 570 SLI bench was broken on here.

Good choice in cards. You know what they say about great minds. :biggrin:

IMO it is the best bang for your buck right now for hi-res gaming. The 570's cost more and lack sufficient memory. Nvidia has 3GB 580's but they cost over twice as much as a 2GB 6950 and only offer 5-10% more performance (if the 6950 is unlocked and used at higher resolutions). I love my setup and I'm sure you'll enjoy yours too.

 

[betasub]

I'm going to go ahead and pull the trigger on two 6950 2GB in Crossfire instead. 4GB should be plenty for triple-screen gaming and total overkill for single-screen, so I should be ready for anything.

Please note that because all current multi-GPU solutions use Alternate Frame Rendering, video memory is not additive. Each 6950 card will have its own 2GB vRAM, but that is not the same as having 4GB available.

 

[Friendly0Fire]

Too bad we don't have direct control over the rendering mode anymore... Or at least I can't find any info on that.