Widescreen Gaming Forum

So I am in the process of either getting a gtx 780 or a sapphire 7970 both of which seem to have two DVI ports, 1 HDMI and a mini Display port.

Are there any drawbacks at all to hooking up one monitor with a display port, one with hdmi, and one with dvi? Provided that the monitor chosen has all three connections?

Hi Angel, im not sure if nvidia suffers from the same problem as amd but if u use different outputs then "tearing" can occur. I never had it too bad with a 3 monitor setup but here are some wsgf links which discuss this issue:

http://www.wsgf.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=26291

http://www.wsgf.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=25569

The cause is that display port (mini dp) and dvi work at different frequencies as does hdmi i believe.
If you do go the 7970 route (reference design in this case) use BOTH mini dp ports (There is 1 passive included in box) and purchase an active adapter (max 2 passive adapters per vid card, and the dvi or hdmi counts as a passive adapter)
The bottom line is try to use the same type of connection if possible. If you want to go the amd path (I think the cards are great) then for triple monitor get the asus 7970 dc2 top card with 4 mini dp and 2 dvi ports. This option should be considerably cheaper (And is very overclockable) than a GTX 780 (But that is a very good card too).

http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/HD7970DC2T3GD5/

Or something with 3 dp or mini dp. (And remember 2x passive adapters max per card!)

Nvidia doesn't have this problem, i've been using my Titan on 2x dvi and 1x displayport for a little while now and i've yet to see this problem.
When i still used a 7970 (msi lightning) i did until i connected all three screens through Displayport.

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Thanks for all the insight and links! What does passive mean? Could you have an adapter to somehow make one hdmi(or DVI) into three hdmi's for example and use all the same outputs? It seems that you recommend to use all three with mini dp (or use one with two passive hdmi/dvi), is that a better connection type than hdmi?

Also I'm having a very hard time even finding a 1080p monitor between 19-22 inches with all these ports, and I really can't go any bigger than 24" and even 24 inches is pushing it. It saddens me that all the smaller monitors are vga only.

Well that makes a case to spend the extra money on the nvidia card, thanks!

I've been on AMD for three generations and, even so, I'd still recommend NVidia right now. They've got adaptive v-sync to eliminate screen tearing on multiple monitors and they've already got microstutter pretty well addressed, should you ever decide to go SLI. If you're at all interested in NVidia Shield's local streaming capabilities, that'll require a NVidia card too.

Really, the only reasons I'm still on AMD are because I'm quite familiar with them and I don't use identical monitors. That's the only real drawback to NVidia's multimonitor solution: it requires that all three monitors have matching sync polarity and mine don't.

*Edit: On the subject of which outputs to use, I'm under the impression that it doesn't matter at all which ones you go for on NVidia cards. On AMD cards, the only way to prevent screen tearing is to use 3 of the same outputs, which can be difficult or impossible depending on which model you purchase. Also, on AMD cards you have to use at least one displayport connection or Eyefinity will not be available. If you don't have a native displayport or mini-displayport on one of your monitors, that means you'll need an active displayport adapter.

Display port is a newer connection than hdmi which will support 4096 x 2160 resoultion. Hdmi will support this too but only hdmi 1.4 so you will need to check the vid card specs. This is only important if you are going to buy a UHD TV with 4096 x 2160 resolution (This is where the 3Gb VRAM will help too).

To clarify about the dp adapters, passive just converts the signal to DVI or HDMI (I have not seen any active dp > hdmi adapters myself) without changing timings/frequency of the output, an active adapter is actually powered by the display port (Or have a usb connection for power) and adjusts the timings of the output (Not controlled by video card). Active adapter can look exactly the same as passive so u would need to check what u are getting. Some have active printed on the adapter. Eyefinity is better if you want to do more than just 3x1 landscape, ie: portrait mode, dissimilar monitors, 2x2, 1x3, 5x1, 6x2.

Sapphire FLEX edition (Look for VAPOR-X, there is a 6Gb version) cards can do 3x1 eyefinity without using a dp connection.


If the monitors u buy are EXACTLY the same (As was stated sync polarity is important) then nvidia surround will be no problem, BUT make sure to use the supplied VGA/HDMI cables. I had a situation with a nvidia sli setup (2xGTX560's) and i purchased a VGA cable for extra length and it changed the way my monitor was detected by windows (went from generic PnP to non-PnP) and this would not allow surround to be setup (Was sayin WTF for an hour before i figured it out).

Nvidia GTX 780 is the best card out atm, so if you need more power down the track sli is a viable option. (Might need to upgrade power supply or get 800w+ now....)

Thank you Bifurk8 and Simroz for the info. I decided to go with the Nvidia 780 card instead. Mainly because I do plan on buying all three of the exact same monitors in one go (as soon as find what I’m looking for), and I couldn't find a reasonably sized and priced monitor with a display port (and wanted to avoid adapters and use different outputs), so I thought I’d go for one that just has both dvi and hdmi instead.

Simroz- I didn't realize Display port/mini displayport was newer technology but now that you mention it, it make perfect sense why it seems so rare. I can only seem to find it on expensive higher end monitors. And 4096x2160! Wow aren’t 4k TV’s 3840x2160.. that’s amazing but I think I will be just fine with 1080p monitor(s) for now.

Also does anyone have any suggestions for monitors I should look at? I would like to find a 1080p monitor between 19-22 inches with DVI and HDMI outputs.

Thanks again!

Hey angel, this is just opinion but the most important things to look for in monitors is refresh rate (HZ), response time (ms) and contrast ratio (10xxx:1).

The higher refresh rate the more frames per second the display can show, which is important if you got a high end video card like yours, but honestly with 1x GTX780 and 3x 1080p lcds I think 60-75Hz will do fine (I dont think you will be getting 100+ fps with max settings, AA, tesselation, etc...@5760x1080). Maybe when you have 2 GTX780's...

Lower response time is better (2 milliseconds or lower...) as this measures grey to grey that a pixel can produce, or going to color to no color/another color. here is an example:



And contrast ratio:



I wont go into it but read this page as this guy is obviously knows more than i do.....lol

http://www.slrlounge.com/what-is-an-ips ... s-displays

Basically comparing IPS displays to LCD but honestly im not sure they are as good as ppl say unless u need wide viewing angle, but they have poorer response times (according to the article)

Good read! Thanks for the link!
I did end up settling for an IPS monitor... or an eIPS since it was cheap! 60hz is fine for me (maybe one day I can look forward to 120hz) I did take a hit on the response time which is 5ms GtG, but it had the outputs I wanted, the screen size I was looking for and was 1080p... and did I mention it was cheap? Haha got it on sale over labor day weekend Acer H226HQL bid

Thanks for all your help! It is appreciated!