I'm in the process of building a new rig,would like to go for a eyefinity setup. Basicly I want to hook up 3 22" monitors.I know eyefinity uses very widesscreen resolutions. I'm thinking of getting a i7,8g RAM,HD5850 in crossfire. What do u guys think One more thing,with a setup like this,how long before I might need to upgrade again,this rig must last at least 5 years.
1) No rig lasts 5 years, practically speaking the hardware is obsolete the moment you open the box. With a doubling of transistors coming every 2 years in 5 years time you will have just 1/5th that of a modern machine. 2) If you intend to game in eyefinity then ideally you need a lot more graphics performance than a 5850. Its a 2 generations old card, it is the mid range card and it wasn't really up to eyefinity gaming when it was released let alone on today's games. I don't think its likely you'll be able to get what you want.
An i7 2600K or 3770K are both very capable processors when it comes to pushing those kind of resolutions, but a 5850 is nowhere near powerful enough to compete with it. A (pair of) 7970(s) or similar would produce the kind of oomph you need nowadays to run 3 x 22 inch screens. I upgraded from a 5970 (5870X2 effectively) to a single 7970 and found a huge jump in performance, but 2 of em
firstly this ^: secondly, I have Eyefinity and I would suggest at least a 7950 if you wanna play some games. For usuall "every day bussiness" a 5850 is more than enough and Eyefinity have a lot of advantages. I would never go back to a single TFT....:nerd: Don't forget, GPU Power is not all that you need. RAM is in Eyefinity more important (and your 5850's don't have enough), that was the main reason why I sold my 2x5870 and went 2x7950.
5850's dont have enough vram for gaming with 3 screens( as was said above and was the main reason i ditched my 5850 for a 6970 initially ). I game at 5040x1050 on 3 22" screens and my 2 6970's just about cope and can nearly max every game( generally no AA or minimum AA, cant max out any of the Crysis games on 3 screens or Metro 2033 ), probably better going for a single 7950 if you can( but better if you get 2 ).
It would seem that the eyefinity technology doesn't really justify the price tag. If you want it done right.
