Out of Pod Experience

With just 1 graphics card?

My mobo dont got no 2nd vid card slot...

I heard rumors about some sapphire ATI card being able to do said trick?

Anyone with brains able to assist with more details?

ty :)

If they had an XFX card avaliable i'd go for it no questions asked, had a nvidia XFX9800 card in the past, it burnt out about the 1.5 year mark , sent it off under warranty and they sent me back an X285


but 5/6 burning out with sapphire is a hell bad record, im going to assume you have more than the stock-standard case fans and have tied down the tangly mess of wire doom so it's got good airflow too - which makes it even more bad.


I just want to be 100% sure on which model card to get which will support the 3 monitors. My current nvidia card runs just fine (still under 6mths old) but my younger sister's vid card is dying so i thought i'd turn the situation into a win by giving myself an early Xmas present of a new card and a 3rd monitor and giving her my "old" card.

Nothing wrong with Sapphire, man....they make solid cards. XFX on the other hand has gotten a reputation recently for making custom PCB's that are more cheaply made than the reference boards...notably the 5770's with cheapo filters and only one crossfire bridge.


The only ATI manufacturer I'd ever really be wary of is Biostar, and even they have some nice cards. Powercolor did have some crappy stuff for a while but they're typically pretty good quality now.

Reference boards are pretty much the same no matter what brand you buy from.

Thankyou kind sir!


I tried with my current Nvidia card with the two DVI ports and the extra port and it goes "wahhhhhhhh only 2 at once i cant handle 3 go away" hense the new card search!


To the other guy that suggested multiple cards - i would, but the motherboard i have is a midget and only has the 1 slot open. Not a technological marvel but runs 5 eve clients on high quality perfectly, just i need the 3rd screen to save my sanity as digging thru eve windows when your'e in a hurry is hell

they were not 6 of mine. mine burnt out about a month after I got it then I replaced it with an 8800GTS. the other 5 were friends and family that I was helping with computer problems. the one that was replaced was my dads and he was the one that got me the one that burnt because he had a good experience with it.
I was not aware of the recent changes of XFX, I just knew they had great support for gamers/modders.
one note if you are moving to ATI is that you should be warned of their terrible drivers. they still work, but they cause a lot more issues than NVIDEA drivers do.

I have a hd5850 and run eve full quality no problems on 3 monitors, one 22" widescreen and two older 17" TFTs, it is brilliant, especially with eve as all the windows are at the sides leaving the main free.

Eyefinity is great, was very buggy but got a lot better and most games, even old ones work great. it cannot cope with different resolutions so I have a slightly streched centre screen giving 3x 1280x1024.

My monitors are older and only have DVI or VGA, the card I have has one Displayport and 2xDVI, & 1 HDMI, you have to use the displayport for the primary monitor, so if you don't have a new monitor you will need an adapter, funny thing I found was that a DP-DVI adapter has to be active and costs around £80, DP-VGA adapter can be passive and is £5-10. I got the cheaper one and it works fine.

for extra lulz and computer torture, you can get 3d graphics mods, get a pair of crappy blue and red glasses and enjoy 3d eyefinity, albeit with crap colours.

I was always NVidia all the way but they didnt have anything remotely comparable when I bought my system 18 months or so ago . Don't know anything about NVidis's 3d stuff. ATI drivers have been good, sometimes (very) painful when the card was new but fine now.

The 3rd party rebranding of ATI cards is just superficial, they are all exactly the same card underneath. There are a few exceptions like sapphire vapor x and things, but they look very different.

Any eyefinity-capable sapphire ATI card has 3 to 4 plugs in the rear afaik. 2 DVI, 1 HDMI and 1 DP. I think that you need to put the 3rd screen on the DP port or on the HDMI port to make use of it. you can't plug in all 4 at the same time tho.


the system requirements to make 3 screens work at the same time do require a heavier weight. 6850 and up. 6770 might be a damn fine card for the price but it isn't strong enough to handle games over a 3-screen config, for example.

ok, got the 3rd moitor and the only card i could get was the Sapphire 6970

Now im faced with wanting to bash my head against a wall every time i boot up, as it seems i must jump thru hoops, do backflips, balance plates on my nose all while praying to the video game gods that they'll actualy favor me and get it working.


Every startup i seem to "loose" a monitor. It see's it thru detecting it, but wont enable it. many reboots with cord unplugged cord plugged in fiddle with settings reboot before i can get the 3rd screen going again.


This happens regardless if i use an eyefinity profile or just plane window's extend desktop to this monitor feature


help plz?


100mil isk reward to person whom solves my woes? Can get Chribba/darkness to hold onto it for assurance or the such.

I do shift work, so when i get home i wanna play, not **** around for an hour before i can sit down and relax :(

Have tried all this allready :(

Have tried both only using Windows setup to extend the monitors - works ok till reboots - 1 monitor wont come on again
Tried using only the Catalyst Eyefinity setup for extended monitors - Works ok till reboots - 1monitor wont come on again
Tried setting up both in windows extended monitors then in Catalyst eyefinity - same thing - 1 monitor wont come up again apon reboot

Windows 7 64bit

boo :(

i have run tripple monitors for a while

first card was a CLUB 3D 5770 radeon OC .. monitors was hooked up to HDMI - DVI - DISPLAYPORT -VGA active converter .. works fine

now after new pc i am running tripple monitor on a CLUB 3D 6950 RADEON .. 2 x DVI and one MINIDP-DVI converter .. runs awesomely ..

a must have in my world ..