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Upgrading Video Card for 6 monitors: need help and suggestions

M

mikester2

Junior Member
Good afternoon all:

I am in the process of shopping for upgrades for my son's PC. It has a GT430 right now and I am trying to get it to six monitors. I am a little out of my league though; I have never run more than a 3-monitor setup myself, and that was pretty easy.

So far I have been looking at Eyefinity 6 cards with six outputs, such as the following:

VisionTek 900614 Radeon HD 7750 2GB GDDR5 PCIe 6x mini DP Video Card (Eyefinity 6):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814129274

VisionTek 900548 Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Eyefinity 6 Video Card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814129262


As far as I can tell I will not be able to install those cards in this machine though, because they are both PCI-E 3.0 and the PC is running a Sandy Bridge CPU. The motherboard manual says it requires an Ivy Bridge CPU for PCI-E 3.0.

The computer is running an i7-2600k and an ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157271

Complete stats on it can be found here:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1JFz8

The big question is: How best to get up to a reliable 6-monitor setup for basic/moderate gaming (i.e. mainly Minecraft, TF2, etc.) One of the above cards? Two separate cards? Anyone? Bueller?


I am not against moving up to an Ivy Bridge CPU for this upgrade. I am also not against upgrading the mobo if it is possible to get PCI-E 3.0 with the Sandy Bridge, but I suspect it is not. But I would rather not throw the baby out with the bathwater and dump the mobo & CPU. That would put me into Haswell territory and more than I am ready to spend right now.

Right now I am considering the following:

One of the above graphics cards and one of the below-listed CPUs, probably in this order:

Xeon E3-1240 V2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819117285

Core i7-3770
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116502

Core i7-3770K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116501

Any ideas or suggestions? I am shooting for a Christmas timeframe. Please help make my son's Christmas an awesome one.

Thanks in advance,

Mike
 
you can still put a PCIe 3.0 card in a PCIe 2.0 slot... it'll just run at the slower 2.0 speed (and depending on the GPU, it might not hit the 2.0 limits or throttle)

for minecraft/TF2, they aren't GPU heavy... you might get away with using 2x (cheaper) GPU + Crossfire


also, what monitors are you using? If those monitors are > 1080p, you need a higher-end GPU

if they don't have displayport, then you'll need to buy $30-$70 active displayport->DVI/HDMI adapters
 
Last edited:
Thank you very much for the quick reply. It sounds like a new CPU is not necessary. That is almost a shame, as I was thinking a Xeon would look really cool in that setup.

I am looking to drive 6 x normal 23" 1080p monitors, nothing fancy there. I was aware of the active adapter issue for more than two displays, thanks for bringing it up though.

I think it will take him a while to get to 6 displays, but he has had his heart set on doing it for a year or so. I tell him he should start day trading with a setup like that instead of playing Minecraft. 🙂

That VT Eyefinity card is ~$330 or so, which seems reasonable for six ports out of the box. And the 7870 looks fairly capable. Is there a better way to get to 6 displays, though, and get similar or better performance out of two cards for the price of that one?
 
A single 7870 won't be able to drive anything more than very basic games over all 6 monitors. Minecraft and maybe TF2 qualify.

You definitely won't need a new CPU, the new Haswell parts are honestly not that much faster than your 2600K. And yes, definitely pick up active adapters if you are using DVI/HDMI monitors.
 
Newer versions (1.7 snapshots) of minecraft are taking more gpu power. If he over wants to play with a graphical mod (shaders 😀) he will need a multi thousand dollar setup. But for unmodded, I'd say a 7870/7950. Also, remember that with a wider setup you usually use a higher fov, and mc hates that. A 7770 runs 2x 1080p, but maxes there for smooth 75 fps on newer (beta) snapshots. Also, use optifine, much much better. But can destroy fps. It enables AA and AF, along with longer render distances. 2600k should be fine though.

Take what you can from the blob of info above, I am not good at categorizing. 😉

i870 and hd 7770 here.
 
For most games, especially first person, you might want to consider 5 monitors instead of 6. With 6 any crosshairs/things in the center will get cut either horizontally or vertically, depending on your placement. If you do 5 monitors wide then you can have hte middle be your "main" screen which should help.
 
The problem with gaming on a six monitor setup is the physical frame of the monitors, themselves. Picture yourself playing a game, but you have a big, black horizontal GAP directly in front of your eyes - right where the center crosshairs are likely to be!

I'd go tri-monitor at most... or maybe 5 monitors in portrait (tall) mode side by side? 😀
 
I agree with Chapbass and Blue Max. The physical frames of the display will get in the way and may impact the gaming experience; especially if he ever wants to play a racing game or a flight sim.

By the way, what a great X-mas present! :thumbsup:
 
5x1_Landscape_Eyefinity_DA2_650W.jpg
 
Blue_Max said:
The problem with gaming on a six monitor setup is the physical frame of the monitors, themselves. Picture yourself playing a game, but you have a big, black horizontal GAP directly in front of your eyes - right where the center crosshairs are likely to be!

I'd go tri-monitor at most... or maybe 5 monitors in portrait (tall) mode side by side? 😀
Click to expand...

Or cock the head to one side all the time and use monitor 3 or 4 as the center monitor j/k.
 
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