14 DAY TRIAL // Late last year back in September, Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices announced the introduction of its much-anticipated line of Radeon HD 5800 Series of graphics cards. The new GPUs brought forth a number of solutions, including the support for DirectX 11 and the company's Eyefinity technology. When launched, Eyefinity generated quite a buzz, especially among computer enthusiasts, which got to see how a high-performance graphics card can really change the way a game is played.
Despite the fact that the company trumpeted the Eyefinity's support for no less than 6 displays on a single card, at first the technology only enabled consumers to connect three displays. On that note, this week, AMD announced the introduction of its new Radeon HD 5870 graphics card with no less than 6 DisplayPorts, designed to support a multi-monitor configuration that could scale at up to 6 monitors per GPU.
Obviously, the power required for a card to support the immense resolution of a 6-monitor set-up, was higher than what was expected of the regular HD 5870 card. This is why the new card saw the day of light with some modifications, which would ultimately benefit consumer and enhance the card's overall performance. The Eyefinity 6 card, because that's exactly what AMD calls it, is featured with 2GB of memory, a step-up from the regular HD 5870 card.
On that note, just before the official announcement, AMD invited us to a preview of a 6-monitor, Eyefinity-based set-up, featuring 6 of Dell's P2210 22-inch widescreen LCD monitors. This was a step forward for us, as we already played with a 3-monitor, Eyefinity set-up, when we got a chance to play with AMD's dual-GPU behemoth, the Radeon HD 5970. However, this was different, because all 6 monitors were the same model, providing us with a more homogeneous Eyefinity experience. We must note that after we entered the room where the configuration had been installed, we couldn't help but being impressed by the entire set-up.
Once everything is ready, it's immediately clear that this technology has been designed for enthusiasts, as you'll require a lot of desk space to take full advantage of the visual experience that 6 monitors can deliver. In addition, you should also consider the power bill. Nevertheless, we won't talk about such details here, but rather of our experience with Eyefinity and the new features that were enabled with the Catalyst 10.3 driver release.
The reason we mentioned AMD's Catalyst 10.3 drivers is that drivers were specifically designed to introduce a number of features related to the company's Eyefinity technology. This proves that AMD is committed to providing enthusiasts with the best Eyefinity support and will develop the necessary solutions to enhance that experience for the end-user. Among the features that were enabled in Catalyst 10.3, we need to highlight the following:
Display Bezel Compensation for Eyefinity setups Per-Display Controls for Eyefinity Eyefinity multiple groups Eyefinity Display configuration switching As you'll see in the video below, the majority of these features are already available and functional on the Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 card. We found that the first two were probably the most useful features available in the new drivers, as they enabled a better visual experience and provided the end-user with a bit more control on his set-up. Configuring them is relatively simple, through the Catalyst Control Center, where you will also be able to configure the 6 displays to work as a single unit.
We were able to play with H.A.W.X and DiRT 2 and from our experience, we do have to say that playing H.A.W.X. on Eyefinity 6 is something you will want to try out for yourselves. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about the DiRT 2. The main reason for that is the fact that, despite the bezel compensation utility provided by AMD, the experience is still influenced by the rather large bezels on these monitors. We can only say that, until monitors with thinner bezels become available, Eyefinity 6 might not be the best choice for every game out there.
However, we do have to note the importance of this solution in another market segment, namely that of professional users, which need to work with several windows at one time, but lack the necessary support from their current display. With 6 monitors hooked together on a single card, the desktop workspace that is created is impressive and can be arranged in number of ways. In addition, the price premium of such a solution could have a better amortization for a professional user. On that note, we believe that a smaller card, such as the Radeon HD 5770, with 6 DisplayPort connectors, would make for an ideal buy.
Finally, we believe that the Eyefinity 6 and the entire Eyefinity technology has some marketing potential, but it's really up to the end user to establish whether such a solution is adequate for his requirements. However, if you are an enthusiast, we do recommend trying it out, it might just make you enjoy some of those older games in a different way.
