AMD's Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 31, 2010 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Setting Up Six Displays
Getting three displays lined up and perfect is enough trouble, setting up six is beyond frustrating. Ahead of its visit to me in NC, AMD shipped down six Dell P2210H 1080p displays and a pair of stands from Atdec. One stand supports four monitors, while the other supports two.
AMD had been flying around the country setting these Eyefinity 6 systems up for reviewers and thus had a bit of experience in doing this. I yielded to their expertise, which recommended putting double sided foam mounting tape along the edges of the monitors. We did so on the first four displays:
Meanwhile, we assembled the mount for the four displays. While this might sound simple, it's not. You have to figure out the right distance each display will be from one another as well as the right height. Adjusting these variables is easier said than done. Each display mount has two opposite facing hex screws that must be loosened and tightened by the same amount. There's one adjustable mount per arm that holds two displays, and then one mount per display. Oh and each of the four display mounts is on a ball that can be loosened and adjusted to make sure the displays are all square with the user.
Each one of these variables must be adjusted independently. Incorrectly positioning even one of these mounts will prevent your Eyefinity 6 setup from looking flawless (and at this point, you should just conceded that it is going to be flawed).
At this point AMD recommended sticking the four panels together before mounting them to the arms:
By sticking them together first, it would make the mounting process a bit easier...at least that was the hope. Next we mounted these four displays to the first stand and assembled it:
And we have 2/3 of our Eyefinity 6 setup complete:
Er...so maybe it's sort of slanted, and has a handful of gaps in between the panels. The sticky tape did help, but it's not magical sticky tape. According to AMD, this was one of their better achievements on the trip and believe me when I say that this wasn't rushed. Setting up a cohesive group of six displays takes a great deal of patience and precision. If you get frustrated easily, you may want to just buy a projector instead to fulfill your large gaming needs.
With four setup, it was on to the next two.
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cactusdog - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Ok it might not be ideal for gaming right now but i could see ATI selling heaps of these cards for commercial purposes. Should be good for security people , finance sector, research and education, advertising dispalys etc the list goes on.OMG i just had a thought of connecting 6 HD TV's, you could make your own billboard lol.
eduardoandradeiturribarria - Monday, May 3, 2010 - link
I have 4 hdtv's to watch football games. Of course Monday nights or the Super Bowl would be may main objective. Do you think it can be done through eyefinity?nuudles - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Hi Anand,I suppose it is not possible, but would it be possible to crossfire a normal 5870 and a 5870 E6?
If AMD can enable that then I think they will sell quite a lot more: people who bought a single 5870 + use eyefinity might want an even more immersive experience, and if they could add a 5870 E6 + x-fire it with their normal 5870 they might be a lot more tempted to buy one, even if they lose 1 or 2 frames (due to 1GB+2GB vs 2x2GB, the driver would probably need to treat both cards as 1GB models) in comparison with 2 5870 E6's x-fired (still a lot more performance than a single 5870 E6)?
Thanks!
Kind regards,
Morne
GiantPandaMan - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Just wondering if you guys have tried putting 3 projectors in portrait mode and seeing how that worked. Figured 3 1280x720 projectors would make a pretty sweet wall of gaming...then use the other 3 display ports for your actual desktop monitors. Anything in the works for that? Would be a fun little project to put in Anand's theater room. :)Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
This is unbelievably tempting however I foresee two hurdles:1) Wall space. My theater has a 2.35:1 screen, I'd need something much wider (or end up with a really skinny display) for a 3x1 projector setup. I don't think I even have a room that has enough uninterrupted wall space for this to work well at a good size. Perhaps I'm thinking too big though. I could just stitch together three 80" screens or something like that.
2) Inputs. Most 16x9 projectors don't use DisplayPort, although a quick Google search reveals a few options.
I'll give it some more thought :)
Take care,
Anand
GiantPandaMan - Monday, April 5, 2010 - link
How about 3 projectors, 3 screens stitched together, and just hang them from the ceiling so you can create a curved screen? That's the beauty of using 3 projectors anyway. Figure a 5970 could drive a 2160x1280 curved screen perfectly.Patrick Wolf - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
This is just craziness. Dunno how someone couldn't just be happy with a single big 1080p TV. Ok, you can see the pixels, so what?; You can also the entire image. I'd like to see a video showing a nice (60"?) set up right next to this E6 display showing the same game or video and do a poll: "Which would you choose?"DanNeely - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
To show the difference between 1080p and 5760x2160 in a video you'd need a greater than 1080p video and display to keep it from just being down sampled away.Calin - Thursday, April 1, 2010 - link
This isn't for video - it's for things like - let's say - playing a war plane simulator and seeing actual planes in the distance, not a black dot, or for seeing at decent quality text from several large sources (like seeing several of the very large Excel spreadsheets some of the financial people use). FPS gaming still has issues, I'd say using 3 old, 1600x1200 displays in portrait mode would be best for FPS (a 2.25 aspect ratio). Even with 5 very wide monitors in portrait, you'd end up with almost 3:1 view ratio (which might be good or bad)Roland00 - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Does the extra memory make a difference in crossfire benches? I am curious for each frame buffer has to keep track of what the other frame buffer is doing, thus having a larger frame buffer would make sense. Is there any chance we can see these results?