r9 380 and four monitors

[Piroko]

As I already stated earlier in this thread, I am using 3 legacy ports on my Nvidia card. It's an MSI that does not advertise any special multi-monitor capabilities. Nvidia cards do NOT require display port to use more than 2 displays. You're the one misleading, please stop posting false information.

Learned something new. It's such a well documented feature on Nvidias page that the only source of more precise information is actually Anandtech themselves, who mention:

Meanwhile alongside the upgrade to HDMI 2.0, NVIDIA has also made one other change to their display controllers that should be of interest to multi-monitor users. With Maxwell 2, a single display controller can now drive multiple identical MST substreams on its own, rather than requiring a different display controller for each stream. This feature will be especially useful for driving tiled monitors such as many of today’s 4K monitors, which are internally a pair of identical displays driven using MST. By being able to drive both tiles off of a single display controller, NVIDIA can make better use of their 4 display controllers, allowing them to drive up to 4 such displays off of a Maxwell 2 GPU as opposed to the 2 display limitation that is inherent to Kepler GPUs.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8526/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-review/5

This does read though that there are artificial limitations (identical streams) to this feature. Can you confirm/dismiss this?

 

[RussianSensation]

RS, please stop posting in this thread. As usual, you have no experience or 1st hand knowledge of the topic. You're adding nothing but confusion and misinformation. Don't bother responding to this post, as I will ignore it as I do basically all your posts to prevent further thread pollution.

Use facts, not opinions, to point out what I stated incorrectly in my replies for the purpose of helping the OP. Go back to read the original thread and the requirements.

2 legacy displays (similar to how the OP is running on his HD7770 - this limitation does not apply to R9 200-300. If this is false, provide information why this is false with facts). I will gladly admit I am wrong for the purposes of the helping the OP.

No adapters required - provide an alternative NV card that will allow the OP to not use adapters to run all his displays based on everything he described.

Your comment about AMD's Displayport limitations is misleading because if the OP had 6 DP/mDP displays, a single AMD card could drive them all, something Maxwell cannot even do. AMD has limitations when connecting 3 displays when using DVI/HDMI ports, which doesn't apply in this situation because the OP will be driving 2 displays off miniDP, and 2 other displays using HDMI and DVI. I've discussed this point already, and it is you who provided no explanation whatsoever as to what information I provided to the OP was incorrect and why the Sapphire R9 380 miniITX wouldn't work for this.

Instead, you told me to stop posting in this thread and started to discuss how I have no experience of running 3-4 different monitors, which has nothing to do with the topic at hand. instead of actually discussing the technical merits of the information I provided, you started to talk about my experience running 3-4 different monitors on 1 card. How about you man up and tell the OP how much inferior NV's multi-monitor solution is vs. Eyefinity for his specific situation?

Please point out exactly why the R9 380 miniITX card I linked to the OP based on the entire discussion in this thread and why you think that an Nvidia card is a better solution when the OP already has dual miniDP adapters that he can reuse on the Sapphire R9 380?

As I already stated earlier in this thread, I am using 3 legacy ports on my Nvidia card. It's an MSI that does not advertise any special multi-monitor capabilities. Nvidia cards do NOT require display port to use more than 2 displays. You're the one misleading, please stop posting false information.

Not one person even debated this point. You are just inserting a constraint into the thread only you brought up. No one is saying/disputing anything about NV's requirements to use DisplayPorts for 3 displays. Please read what's actually being discussed.

 

[Headfoot]

OP: i've got a r9 290 and I can confirm that running 3x DVI+DVI+HDMI works fine. They are all identical for me though, you'll have to have the two identical monitors you have there running off the same output if you go AMD. You'd have to figure out which two ports are linked, I think its one of the DVI's and the HDMI, but youd have to test configurations until it works. I think 380 and 380x also have this capability.

Safest bet is to run 2x DVI/HDMI then put the rest on DisplayPort regardless of brand but you could theoretically do it without one of the active DP adapters with the right card.

 

[jplusk12]

OP: i've got a r9 290 and I can confirm that running 3x DVI+DVI+HDMI works fine. They are all identical for me though, you'll have to have the two identical monitors you have there running off the same output if you go AMD. You'd have to figure out which two ports are linked, I think its one of the DVI's and the HDMI, but youd have to test configurations until it works. I think 380 and 380x also have this capability.

Safest bet is to run 2x DVI/HDMI then put the rest on DisplayPort regardless of brand but you could theoretically do it without one of the active DP adapters with the right card.

Thanks for the info. I do have two identical monitors so that is good to hear.

 

[AshS1n]

Some graphics cards can "support" up to X amount of monitors, but will require an expensive active display adapter in order to do so.

Make sure you double check what your GPU is capable of.

 

[jplusk12]

UPDATE: So after getting an email from gigabyte telling me what I wanted to do was possible, I went ahead an ordered this card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&cm_re=gigabyte_r9_380-_-14-125-821-_-Product and it worked just how I wanted it. I have two monitors running on the DVI connections, 1 monitor on the display port using an active adapterand one 1 TV using the HDMI cable. Just wanted to update this thread for future people searching the same problem on google.

 

[Headfoot]

good to know, thanks for the update