First-hand review of AMD's Eyefinity

[Top-Tier-Tech]

First thought that comes to mind is how dumb of a name "eyefinity" is.

Anyway, on a wim today I decided to take a leap into the world of a tri-monitor 5760x1080 AMD Eyefinity. I went with 3, Viewsonic 23.6" full HD, LED backlit displays and a Sapphire Vapor-X 5770. No, this is not for use as a gaming computer per se. It will be installed on my internet/business computer so the majority of my review will be centered on general desktop applications, if I have the time I may even install Dragon Age 2. I'm awful short on free time these days so hopefully I'll have my impressions up by late this coming week assuming none of the parts arrive DOA.

[PoleCat]

So this is all run off a single card? Impressive. What hitches did you find? What's the RAM on the GPU and what resolution are you going for?

[Top-Tier-Tech]

OK, everything arrived today and after screwing around with it for several hours... still isn't working correctly. The displayport to DVI adaptor that I got is defective for any resolution higher than 1600x900 (video signal cuts in and out), apparently this is one of the most frequent issue with the active DP adapters. Newegg RMA turnaround is bad and I won't be able to ship it out till Tues. of next week etc. So my full review is going to be a long time coming it looks like

I'll post my full review in the OP here once the RMA is taken care of.

[mp0295]

How exactly does this work? I have a HD 5870 that has
2x DVI
1x HDMI
1x Display Port

I currently have 2 monitors running off of DVI, but I have a third partially broken one. I haven't been motivated to fix it as I'm not sure how it would work. Can you please explain what eye infinity is? I really don't get it, and websites are not helping me understand

[Doono]

Eye finity is a feature on AMD cards that in effect allows the card to emulate the presence of a much larger screen resolution without buying a single very expencive screen. do for example a 1650x1080 screen x3 could emulate the resolution of 4950x1080 or 3240x1650.

[Top-Tier-Tech]

Eye finity is a feature on AMD cards that in effect allows the card to emulate the presence of a much larger screen resolution without buying a single very expencive screen.

Keep in mind that noone makes screens with resolutions anywhere near as high as what you can achieve with eyefinity.

[Darkpriest667]

Keep in mind that noone makes screens with resolutions anywhere near as high as what you can achieve with eyefinity.

Do all the monitors have to be the same size?

[Top-Tier-Tech]

Do all the monitors have to be the same size?

They all have to have the same maximum resolution. Of course if you have 3 monitors with the same resolution and they're various sizes it looks bad when you have windows open across multiple monitors.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

the biggest issue with eyefinity is the bezels especially with any games you need to aim weapons.... so buying good quality monitors is a must but also you need thin bezels for anykind of gaming. to be worth while, ive played with eyefinity a bit its not bad, games like GRID, Dirt2 etc were much much more satisfying, but shooters tended to be a bit fish eyed to me, i liked the larger field of view to an extent but it wasnt really worth it. I only see eyefinity in gaming useful for racing games. and the odd RPGs like Oblivion etc.

[Freddie]

the biggest issue with eyefinity is the bezels especially with any games you need to aim weapons.... so buying good quality monitors is a must but also you need thin bezels for anykind of gaming. to be worth while, ive played with eyefinity a bit its not bad, games like GRID, Dirt2 etc were much much more satisfying, but shooters tended to be a bit fish eyed to me, i liked the larger field of view to an extent but it wasnt really worth it. I only see eyefinity in gaming useful for racing games. and the odd RPGs like Oblivion etc.

If I wanted an Eyefinity type setup the bezels on monitors do put me off and even on so called thin bezel monitors there still pretty thick. If I had the cash and the space my ideal Eyefinity setup would be to use 3x 1080p projectors but that's not really practical though is it?

[Top-Tier-Tech]

As I said above I did not go for eyefinity for gaming, all that screen space moving rapidly left and right just gives me a headache

For desktop use it's great IMO, although you do need a good CPU and ample RAM it seems as CPU intensive applications running at 5760x1080 slow up my normally chipper business PC to a half-crawl at times. Google earth is awesome with 3 screens So is winamp...

[Crazyeyesreaper]

yea for desktop use eyefinity is pretty awesome makes a huge difference in my productivity in Autodesk Maya and Photoshop as well.

[Top-Tier-Tech]

So what monitor's do you run? And how can an 850watt PSU possibly power 2 6970's

[Crazyeyesreaper]

its an 850hx thats rated at continous power not peak like most PSU, an 850hx can push about 950-1000w reliably at peak loads, example PCP&C silencer series are 750w units but there peak load is 830w. and since the 850HX is actually GOLD rated, but labeled silver it gives a larger room for over draw. basically up to 1000w the HX line is still with ATX spec in ripple noise and power output and the components themselves are of higher quality then mid range 1000w+ units.

also not that hard overclocked cpu hits 220w, gpus hit 275w but power dosent scale linear so really im only pushing 750-800w at peak load and no game actually puts my cpu at 100% usage nor do my gpus peg 100% usage either. so when gaming im only averaging 600w usage . even so when i do peak with WCG and F@H, i still only hit about 800w about 200w less then my upper limit.

hell if i remember right the 1000HX can push nearly 1100-1200w

even so

980x 6 core 12 thread Intel rig at 4.2ghz which uses far more power then my Phenom II still only hitting 550w when gaming and in reality the 2 6970s only push another 50w over overclocked single cards, and if i really need to i can set % limits on power usage i can lower the 6970s to as low as 170w max power draw and as high as 300w


As for eyefinity.

running right now T 260HD from samsung 1920x1200, Acer AL2016w 1680x1050, some dell pos at 1280x1024, for desk space reasons, that said when i ran eyefinity i went with 3x T260HDs, just... have no reason for the matched monitors nor do i have the room on my desk for 3x 25.5 inch screens lol so i gave up true eyefinity awhile back, and just use a simple shortcut key to disable crossfire which then enables the dell monitor the other 2 run off the first card. so i get the desktop space i need and can fit it on this old desk.

[Top-Tier-Tech]

Well, here's my first screenshot with a mess of windows open just to show off the screen real estate. This is on my AMD 3.0GHz tri-core, 5770, tri-24" @ 4800x900 PC. I also built another computer with an i5-2500, 6870, tri-27" @ 5870x1080 which I am awaiting a copy of windows and a HDD before utilizing.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

drool makes me wish i had the cash to upgrade my monitors

[Kanaric]

To me eyefinity is a waste. Its good for productivity, not for games.

All the game genres that would hugely benefit from it are dead. Sims. Simulation games are mostly dead aside from the outliers of classic niche like the Egosoft X series. Really for Shooters and RPGs like Dragon Age there is no point for it. For shooters you may think it is useful but it really is not, if you need the extra voodoo of the supposid more viewing angle to be competative you are not good enough to truely take advantage of it anyways.

Also unless you have a multi sectional gapless monitor it is also incredibly annoying to look at. I have a 6970 and 3 monitors and tried eye finity for and giggles and was not impressed. Then I loaded up IL-2 Sturmovik with it. Only game I have ever found eyefinity to be useful in.

I have since used my 3 monitors as separate. Center for game, right for server/web/vent/mp3 management, left for feeds/work. If you want more view space for 1 game buy a 1080P tv, crank up FSAA if pixels bother you that much, and you will have an uninterrupted single screen and be happier for it.

[Top-Tier-Tech]

To me eyefinity is a waste. Its good for productivity, not for games.

I have since used my 3 monitors as separate. Center for game, right for server/web/vent/mp3 management, left for feeds/work. If you want more view space for 1 game buy a 1080P tv, crank up FSAA if pixels bother you that much, and you will have an uninterrupted single screen and be happier for it.

Like I said in my OP I bought these eyefinity setups for desktop productivity not gaming, I can't stand the fast movement side to side with all that extra screen space personally. I use my sig rig for gaming.

[Doono]

Works brilliantly in some games however you almost always need an odd number of monitors to ensure the primary point of view is the centre and I do agree it's useless for most first person shooters.
Eve Online is an example where the extra space really helps, you often need many chat windows open which rapidly clutter a small area of space. This isn't my set up by the way lol, no something far more humble a single 22inch screen.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Also epic lolz

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: