3 Monitor setup, have a question or so.

Hey guys.
I have wanted to do a Eyefinity setup for a while now.
Christmas is coming soon and I think I will be able to get my hands on two more monitors to do this.

I currently have a Radeon HD 6970 card installed in my system.
My card can support ONE more monitor, but I want 3 total, right?

I had purchased 2 of these little cards, not sure if this is the exact one but it was the same company and they were close together price-wise.

I have 2 installed in my computer. Space isn't an issue no worries.
But I read up on them AFTER purchasing them and I don't think I can use them. I think I remember trying to use them and seeing them not work out for me.

Is there anything I can do to have 3 monitors total without buying another big card altogether? That would require me buying a new PSU, as I have a 700W right now.

Please help, I appreciate it guys, thanks!


EDIT: Would something like this work? http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6594328&CatId=467
Would it be smooth and normal like all the other monitors if I did this?

2nd EDIT: Have I stumbled upon the right trail? http://support.amd.com/us/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity-dongles.aspx


Sorry if this is a stupid question and whatnot

 

I'm not exactly sure, but I feel like a USB display adapter wouldn't work. Mainly because it's bypassing the GPU altogether. I have been looking for a similar solution as well, since my laptop only has 2 display ports on the side.

 

You can put 2 monitors on 1 gfx card and the third one on your second card.

Get a splitter so you can have 2 monitors connect to 1 VGA / HDMI slot.

 

As I said above, I've been looking for a similar solution.

With the splitter, do you know if it the computer will be able to recognize both monitors, or will both monitors on the splitter have to show the same thing?

 

The splitter will have 2 ports, which has # 1 and 2 on them.
Number 1 is the left one and number 2 is the one u will put on the right.

When u go to the end of the right side of screen 1, it will go on to screen 2.
You can basically drag programs or such to the second screen if you want to.

You can set this in windows xp 'extend my desktop to this monitor'.
It's real easy, but it's also possible to have same screen on both monitors I think.

You can configure all that in windows itself and it's easy.

 

I know how it works and how to do it. I didn't know if the splitter would allow me to extend the desktop or if it just turned the one signal into two identical, like a head phone splitter would. You cleared it up though, thanks.

 

I believe one of those just makes the same display, that's what I've been told. I found out there's a DisplayPort thing on my GPU that will let me add another monitor I think.

 

I *believe* that splitters like that generally let you extend the desktop, but are detected as a single large monitor, so you can't configure much and there are some annoyances (you can't have one set as the main display and the other an extension, they'd both be the "main display" with things like the bottom bar extending across both). I'm not 100% sure though.

 

That's what I was thinking. This wouldn't work for me because all my monitors are different sizes and resolutions. I would need the gpu to recognize each of them individually, and then extend the desktop properly so everything looks good.

 

Wrong, all you have to do in windows is click on secondary monitor and click on 'extend desktop to this monitor'.

 

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the 6970 supports eyefinity with 1 display port, 1 DVI, and 1 whatever else?

Get a Active Display port cable to DVI/HDMI which ever you need, then connect your other 2 monitors to dvi/hdmi. :s

 

GFX Card with 3 out ports? Doubtful.

Perhaps 2, then you'll still need a splitter.

 

Very common actually. There's not very many with 3 of the same, but even the some of the old ones have vga dvi and svideo.

 

I think often 2 are from the real gfx card and the other one is built-in.

But some of the better cards have 3 slots yeah.

 

Yeah I believe the HD 6970 supports Eyefinity with 3 displays natively. Depending on the card, you should be able to connect something like 2x DVI displays + 1x DisplayPort or 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort. It varies depending on whether or not you have a reference design card, but I am pretty sure the setup should be something like that. You can always find a DisplayPort to HDMI/DVI if you can't find a monitor in your price range with DisplayPort.

NVIDIA cards are what you need to worry about when it comes to tri-screen setups. They only support two screens on one card, whereas most Radeon cards support 3+.

 

If the Radeon card has a display port on it with 2 other ports, it'll support eyefinity.

That's one plus with going AMD cards, you get multiple displays straight off the bat.

Just Un Dude, you must be out of the loop, cos 90% of cards have 3ports nowadays. $30 5570 has 3 ports.