AMD/ATI Triple monitor support = BS

that link doesnt say wether is passive or active, in my experiece, if they dont say its usually passive.

 

That is what I thought too, for some reason it doesn't thou
Could be something with the driver then, going to try trough a few to see if there is a release that makes it work, if not I'm going to need an Active DP 2 single DVI Adapter anyway.

 

actually, looking at the pic, it wouldnt work.

Because you are using 2x DPS, you will need active adapters.

Clearly the ones you have are not.

The pic itself would work, as its only one DP, and a DVI. So passive is fine in that case.

As soon as you use that 2nd DP, no more passive. Must be active.

im not sure who the bozo was who designed that card, but there should be 2 legacy, and one dp on there, and youd be good to go...Looks like some one tried to cheap out and not build in the 2nd dedicated RAMDAC. They are a significant cost...

unless one of those DPs is actually an HDMI and i cant tell, then it should work fine for 3 monitors...

 

With a 6990, triple monitors worked straight out of the box and it came with all of the appropriate adapters

 

unfortuntealy the cheaper cards dont usually include a dp adapter. If they do, its usually a passive one. Which is fine, as long as you have 2 legacy ports.

his card pictured above only seems to have one legacy port, the accessories pictured are fine for 2 monitors.

But hed need 2 active adapters to get 3 monitors going...

 

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but does that mean I cannot have 3 monitors that do not show the same picture?

Would like to get a 3rd monitor to use for movies and TV shows at the other side of the room, the 2 I have use DP-DVI that came with the HD6990 and I also have the DP-HDMI that came with it that I'd want to use for the 3rd monitor.

 

Two active adapters instead of one??
The ports are 1xDVI and 2xDP, nothing HDMI
So I thought a regular DVI-DVI, on passive and one active would do.

Other brands deliver them with 2xDVI and 1xHDMI, which is kinda even more crap I suppose.

I find it rather annoying that these cards aren't made so that you run with 3 what ever monitors at the same time without the need of "special" converters.

 

unfortuneatly that is exactly what is going on here..

They are made with two monitors in mind...most people who buy cheaper cards aren't the demographic for eyefinity...

Yeah, once the port sharing begins, they all have to be active afaik. you can try with one active, and one passive but i doubt it will work. Maybe you got lucky and actually the one you already have is active..who knows..

whats at the other end; HDMI or DVI or VGA; is irrelevant. They have to be active if you use more than one DP because you are sharing the ramdac.

Also, the DVI port is always passive, but it doesnt matter as it has a dedicated ramdac.

someone made a design decision not to include the 2nd dedicated ramdac which is why you only have one legacy port.

this is from the AMD FAQ:

"Passive dongles use the DisplayPort connection to receive non-DP signaling from the connector and they 'passively' adjust the signals to be compliant with the connected monitor. Passive dongles are considered legacy connections, not DisplayPort connections, therefore they do not fulfill the DisplayPort connection requirement mentioned previously and cannot be used to enable 3 or more displays. They do, however, offer an affordable solution to adapt legacy displays to DisplayPort connections.

Active dongles use true DisplayPort signaling to 'actively' translate and re-transmit the signals as the required outputs. Because they use the true DisplayPort signaling, they are considered a DisplayPort connection and meet the requirements to enable 3 or more display"

edit: After re-reading the above blurb, maybe the 2nd legacy ramdac is still there and they didnt wire a port for it, in which case one active and one passive would work as the passive would steal the 2nd legacy ramdac.

Since you can use 2 monitors no problem, ive got to assume this is the case. I would find it highly suspect if they dropped the second legacy ramdac.

 

you should be fine, sounds like they included active adapters, as you are already using 2 DPs, and that requires active adapters.

It sounds like you have that nutty Eyefinity Edition with the 6 DPs. yes?

edit: ive spoken a unruth here, only the 3rd and above need be active, so perhaps hes not ok..lol

 

Correct.

So the thing is you cannot have more than two actual DP monitors connected for extended desktop?

 

sure you can, you can have up tp 6 total as long as each of the 3rd and above monitors either contain an active DP port, or you use Active DP-DP/DVI/HDMI adapters.

Basically, the passive adapters steal the legacy dedicated ramdacs. you only have 2 of them. So the 3rd one will require an active adapter to use the 3rd ramdac, which is a true DP ramdac which is a requirement for 3+ monitors (in eyefinity or extended mode) .

In your case, as long as at least one of your adapters is Active when you add the 3rd monitor, you should be good to go. Try to google the part numbers on those and see if any of them are active.

Dont forget, Eyefinity is really just AMD branding for what is effectively "Syncronized Extended Desktop"

 

if you have 2 dvi screens and a dp it works out of the box. Otherwise if you have 3 dvi screens it requires 1 dp->dvi adapter.
You should have done some research, some Sapphire cards support 3xDVI screens without any adapter.

 

not in extended mode they wont, which is what we are talking about.

You can do 2x and a clone for the 3rd, but thats not 3 monitor extended desktop.

There are absolutely no AMD eyefinity, sapphire or otherwise, cards that can do 3x extended without at least one active DP conection. It is a set-in-stone requirement by both AMD and the tech itself. And by connections i mean at the card, not how the monitor is connected, thats irrevelvent with a converter.

in order for this to be true, sapphire would have had to re-engineer the card to add an additional ramdac. A very expensive proposiiton in both R&D and manufacturing.

You also must have missed the pic of his card a few posts back It has 1xdvi and 2xDP. Research is irrelvent, hes got the card hes got, and he wants it to work.

 

Only dual GPU cards, that goes even for Nvidia, and would be waste of money since it isn't for gaming at all.
Look at the picture of the card I posted, if you look hard you notice that the PCB is mirrored, it needs to be like that to avoid bumping into the CPU cooler.

 

I doubt that the ramdac is wired to any of the ports, since I can use both DP's for 2 monitors or either of them together with the DVI.
I have 2 of them adapters, so since it doesn't work with all 3 monitors these must be passive.
Thanks btw.