AMD Eyefinity Testing
Using multiple monitors on a PC has been a standard features for years now and would wager that many of our readers have and are right now enjoying the benefits of using two displays from a single graphics card.  Those benefits have largely focused on productivity and processional users since multi-monitor gaming has enjoyed only very limited success and neither AMD or NVIDIA had an option to support it.  AMD’s new Eyefinity technology addresses this and thanks to the migration of DisplayPort technology, will very soon be able to support as many as 6 monitors on a single graphics card.

Modern graphics cards are currently limited to two displays (with only a very few notable exceptions) and are basically standardized on a pair of dual-link DVI outputs that support resolutions as high as 2560×1600.  There are limitations to that technology though in that DVI requires a lot of pint outputs from the GPU and dedicated clocking hardware for each display.  That takes up unnecessary die space and board area and has made the move to more than two displays per card a difficult one.  The new DisplayPort standard greatly helps in this regard as it uses the same number of IO pins that single-link DVI port uses to run at full 2560×1600 resolution panel without the need for dedicated clock signals for each display. 

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AMD’s new output crossbar for the Evergreen GPUs

This technology shift allowed AMD to create a new class of GPU that will support at three displays per graphics card and will eventually add a 6-display option to its ranks.  Not only does this add to the already well documented benefits of multiple displays from a productivity perspective, but AMD has added in something unique for the gamers out there: super-high resolution multi-monitor gaming.  Imagine the option of being able to combine 6 30″ displays in a 3×2 configuration to create a 7680×3200 “screen” (24.6 MPixels!!) for gaming purposes!  That is the equivalent of about a 70″ diagonal display! 

The AMD Eyefinity technology is not only powerful but flexible as well.  The completely driver-based implementation can utilize both landscape and portrait modes on monitors that support it as well as unique matrix configurations.

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Some people initially balked at the idea of having to buy three to six LCD monitors for gaming until they actually looked at pricing.  To get a 30″ monitor today that supports 2560×1600 resolutions, the current Mecca of PC gaming, you should expect to shell out $1200-1400.  However, you can today buy 24″ 1920×1200 displays for about $250 or LESS and thus you can get a set of three for $700-750; well under the price of a single 30″ monitor.  That would give you a 5760×1200 resolution for gaming and improved productivity all while SAVING you money on the display.  I would wager that even taking into account a separate stand or mounting system you would be under the price of the single 30″ monitor.  That makes Eyefinity and multi-monitor gaming a very attractive offer to enthusiast PC gamers. 

AMD is attempting to make gaming implementations of Eyefinity incredibly easy to use.  Once you have the display group setup in the Catalyst software, you then need only to start you game up and set it to the new super high resolution.

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That is how it is supposed to work and in our testing it did the majority of the time.  We still had some instances of what appears to be broken driver support – things that we are hoping AMD will be addressing in future driver updates.  The best part about this is that even with some growing pains, the technology can be completely transparent to the game developer and the gamer can still benefit from the use of multiple-monitors.  In fact that is how ALL of the games we tested were done.  In the future though developers will have the option to code specifically for Eyefinity to create things like displays dedicated to HUDs, etc. 

I have done some basic evaluations of Eyefinity in some video segments starting with this one here that gives our overall view of the technology.


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After going through some general pros and cons, let’s look at a couple of implementations of the technology on games like Left 4 Dead and Portal:




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Keep in mind that we have more videos of Eyefinity technology at work on the benchmark pages for Batman, Far Cry 2, HAWX and Resident Evil 5 – be sure you see those in action as well.

I am a bit disappointed that today we cannot utilize more than one HD 5870 GPU when running Eyefinity technology for gaming purposes.  When running at these incredibly high resolutions it would be great to be able to improve gaming power with a second graphics card – running Far Cry 2 at 7680×1600 required us to scale back IQ settings quite significantly, for example.  Setting up a pair of HD 5870s in CrossFire might have avoided that.  Not only that, but AMD will obviously be holding back any HD 5870 X2 card for as long as it takes for AMD’s driver team to get multi-GPU multi-monitor gaming working as it would be PR suicide to release a high-end card now that will not run Eyefinity.  I don’t really have an ETA for CrossFire support but AMD still has the Hemlock multi-GPU card listed as coming out in 2009 so we are hopefully for a holiday schedule. 

There a couple of logistics issues involved with multiple monitors including space on your desk and/or mounting as many as six displays…somewhere.  Stands for that many displays are going to be expensive and hard to find right now but that should improve especially with companies like Samsung specifically making configurations for Eyefinity.

The last though I’ll leave you with now is this: will NVIDIA’s GT300 GPU support this same type of technology?  If not, how much of a breakthrough will that be for AMD in the coming months of sales?  Even with the performance improvements that the HD 5870 offers over the HD 4870/4890 cards it is really this new feature that sets the two generations apart and NVIDIA would look like the stodgy old man of the GPU industry without it. 

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