A friend was choosing between an i5 4690K + cheap dedicated GPU vs. i7 4790K and no dedicated GPU. I recommended the i7 4790K since it was faster and since he didn't play games at all, for basic work the GPU in the 4790K should have been more than sufficient.
My friend had only 1 requirement: run 3 identical 1920x1080 2014 model year Asus monitors on his i7 4790K setup without using a dedicated GPU. I told him to get the MSI Z97 Gaming 3 board since it had 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort, 1x DVI and 1x VGA. Goal - run all 3 monitors over the digital connections off Intel's GPU so we don't have to use the VGA.
Since his Asus monitor only has VGA, HDMI and DVI, we decided to connect them as follows:
1st monitor HDMI to HDMI cable = MSI Gaming 3 HDMI
2nd monitor DVI to DVI cable = MSI Gaming 3 DVI
3rd monitor HDMI to HDMI cable = MSI Gaming 3
DisplayPort to HDMI Female Adapter would be used because I couldn't find a DP to HDMI cable as my searches kept getting me to
miniDP to HDMI cable which wouldn't work.
End result, 3rd monitor wouldn't work. More research, calls with Intel's customer support and NCIX's tech, and we found out that you
cannot run Intel triple monitor setup over digital connection with any adapters in the chain. All connections must be native (i.e., HDMI to HDMI cable, DVI to DVI cable, DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable).
You cannot use any digital adapters with Intel's GPUs for triple monitor 2D or 3D work. The 3rd monitor will not work. Right now the temporary solution is running the 3rd monitor off VGA
Moral of the story: These rare cases are often not discussed on the internet since few people run such setups. For example, if you bought a monitor that had DP, HDMI and DVI and just used 3 different cables, you would have never known that Intel's 3 monitor surround fails with any adapters.
Do your research and pay attention to threads like HurleyBird's because if you run into a similar issue, you'll remember why!!!
Tens of millions of people have gotten their Nvidia cards to work on computers with Intel and AMD integrated graphics without blankscreening.
PEBCAK
Tens of millions of people had no issues with iOS8 while thousands had app crashes, degraded WiFi speeds, quickly deteriorating battery life, slow downs and freezes in the OS and Safari, and other general glitches. Just because millions do not have issues, doesn't mean a problem doesn't exist.
2. Regardless of anything else, anyone who wants to use this kind of configuration or even someone who wants or needs decent HDMI audio support will benefit from my experience. This kind of information is actually very hard to find on the web.
Just ignore those who always defend NV at all costs. I mean for years they didn't even know or acknowledge how Full RGB is completely broken out of the box on all NV cards over HDMI. But since most people cannot tell the difference without comparing 2 monitors side-by-side with Full RGB vs. Partial RGB, this problem "didn't exist" for 99.9% of NV users.
The real question is, what is the best solution for what you wish to do?
That's why OP sharing his experience with the forum is important. He even criticized his not so perfect experience with AMD drivers as well. He is not trying to claim that the competitor offers a perfect solution. He is simply sharing his experience.