Triple Monitor Gaming: GeForce GTX 590 vs. Radeon HD 6990

Playing a game with the wide field of view is absolutely awesome! Those who can't or won't do it are really missing out.

Maybe I missed it, but what monitor mount was used for the monitors in the photo?

Anyone who's interested in multimonitor gaming should check out http://widescreengamingforum.com/. Been around a while now. I've been playing games in triplehead format for a long time - my first triple card was a Matrox Parhelia driving three 1280x1024 monitors. Performance wasn't great, but it worked. Matrox moved on from that card with a very clever idea - the Triplehead2go, http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/th2go/. This little box looks like a single monitor to the video card, at up to 5760x1080 resolution. It has three ports on the other side for monitors, and splits the incoming video stream accordingly.

Looks like 3 wall mounted "arms" with full swivel and tilt. Newegg sells Rosewill ones that fit 17" to 32" screens for around 50 bucks (depending on the sale day) That's my guess

This whole thread has just made me angry. I purchased two of the latest greens some time back and I returned home to unopened cards but a dead 30" 305T. It stranges me a little to have to pay another 1kusd for a brand new one.

I would be interested in knowing if having the monitors in portrait mode would have made any difference. Resolutions of 4536x2048 and 3600x1920 would likely give the same performance results but might mitigate some of the playability issues.

I personally didnt like gaming at massive res's. My almost 6 years old apple 30 inch displays were probably to blame. With a little over an inch of a bezel on *each* display - its just far too disruptive to gameplay, especially when you need to mess with so many settings and files to get certain titles running (this may have improved in the year and a half since I tried it out).

Also the fact that my eyeballs are around 2 feet from my display doesnt help, scanning over 90 inches of display area just doesnt work out (and no, portrait was not an option for me/these particular displays). Even if I did rearrange my setup completely to "fix" that issue, I still dont see the point.

Bottom line, if your keen on trying out multi screen gaming, I dont think I could stress enough how much worth it is to get displays with ultra thin bezel (or if you dont mind a little DIY, take them off completely!). Much too gimmicky for me tho :/ Even as much as it costs being an early adaptor in general - the lack of support and gpu power needed to truly run modern games at such high res's just hurts too much.

Nice article. I have a setup with 3 24'' monitors and a single HD 5970. I actually use the monitors on portrait mode (better for writing code), so I get resolutions like 3240x1920 (or something like that).

The games run pretty smoothly, with some exceptions. Crysis 2, for instance, is one of them. Your benchmarks show that the Radeons don't have decent performance with this game. I think the game is optimized for the nvidia cards (it says so when it starts), so I need to use only one monitor to play it. And I still get a very annoying flickering in outdoor scenarios.

I had some problems with Civilization V as well. It's either too demanding on the graphics card or poorly coded. Lowering the resolution made it better to play. Something similar happens with Formula 1 2010. If I play it maximized it's not as smooth. If I reduce the windows a little bit, like 80 or 90% of the whole screen, it plays just fine. I don't get it.

The other games I played ran pretty smoothly, though. Medal of Honor, Assassin's Creed 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops were great. I didn't get to measure FPS, but I played fine. Oh yeah, and my favorite game of all PES 2011 only plays in 1920x1080; the game won't allow you to maximize the window, which sucks.

That's it. The bottom line is that I have been using a single high end Radeon with three 1920x1080 montors and I am pretty happy with it.

2x 6970: $700 (slightly better performance than 6990)
3x HannsG 28" 1900x1200 monitors: ($750 to $900) - I bought them on sale
Total: $1450-$1600 < $5000

This was my initial reaction to the article!! 5000$ is extremely overboard Especially when an EXTREMELY close experience, close to the same size, can be had for A LOT less (I also have 3 Hanns G 28/27.5" monitors) and a single raedon 6870 Oc'd (about to be two)

I currently have an Eyefinity set up with 3 Dell U2311 running at 5760x1080. I love it. I would never go back to just one screen game-play if I didn't have to. I'm using two XFX 5870 XXX edition cards and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 runs above 60 fps with almost every setting on high. I think i have the anti-aliasing down a bit. Some people say that 3 monitors is overkill.... well obviously they haven't gamed on 3 or haven't tried being a little more productive when not gaming cause having 3 monitors is so much nicer for doing work such as writing research papers, or building websites or anything else that needs multiple windows simultaneously.

Btw... Great Review!!

I don't personally believe its Nvidia's "fault" to only have 1.5GB per card. I think it was purposefully done that way.

A) It suits pretty much any bezel corrected resolution across 3 1920x???? monitors which is more mainstream in the eyefinity/surround community.

B) 3x 30" monitors is a niche among niches. Just a guess here but I would say there are probably less than a thousand users running 3x 30" displays not including companies and the like.

Why would they spend more money when the majority of your niche surround community isn't going to see any benefit. So the few that run 3x 30" monitors have to buy ATi, wow, Nvidia just lost 1000 customers? Big deal.

If you look at drivers as an example, most games are either patched in the drivers before they come out or directly after. ATi and Nvidia both try to keep the mass of users happy by doing this. However if you look at Eyefinity/Surround support both in the drivers and in games, there is a chasm. Game devs don't take the time to add support if the engine doesn't already support it because its not cost effective and their user base isn't running it anyway, why should they care. Same effect in driver support.

There just aren't that many people with the dosh to splash out on 3x monitors and 2x video cards, let alone 1 video card and a decent sized single monitor, though with prices dropping this is changing some.

What really bothers me personally as a eyefinity/surround owner is that this "feature" is something both ATi and Nvidia tout as 'the next great thing' and yet their own support for it is atrocious. Lets just hope it gets better and not worse.

All things being said though, I wouldn't change a thing. It was well worth the money in my opinion and adds incredible emmersivness to games not to mention making desktop tasks much more enjoyable and efficient, even if you only use two of them for the later.

As far as the article goes, I'm not ridiculing Techspot for comparing the two cards. They generally do an excellent job in the review department and usually better than most. Quite the contrary, I commend them for even attempting the subject.

Who ELSE?!?!?!? has even broached the topic of how a video card can handle 7megapixels at >30fps? Other than WideScreenForums, none that I know of. It should be a staple for all review sites to test Eyefinity/Surround resolutions when a card is released, along with the bevy of other resolutions. If they don't, they're just doing what the devs, ATi and Nvidia are doing... ignoring the customers that get the most from their products and catering to the everyone else that doesn't. Seems very unintuitive from a customer standpoint.

I was merely trying to draw attention to this fact for the uneducated Eyefinity/Surround newcomers.

Steve,

To your specific point regarding Starcraft 2 not providing support; I think that the reason was to prevent an arms race for the competitive crowd.

I have a triple monitor 22'' setup, and I respectfully disagree with your conclusion that 3x33'' is not worth it since you focus on the center screen. Black out your peripheral car windows and tell me whether you're a better driver without them; you won't be? Right?

So it goes with any gaming situation. I find I am more comfortable in my environment with the added peripheral vision than without. I could never drive without a front-facing field of vision, of course, but the side field of vision does provide a great benefit, particularly if you are playing a UI-heavy game.

And by the way, a couple extra 22'' monitors probably only costs about 500 bucks...

On the issue of "fish-eye" view, most games are built around a presumption that the screen is flat. If you curve your monitor array inward then it does look awkward, but flatten those screens out and the outside monitors appear just about right. I personally prefer to curve them only slightly. it mitigates the fish-eye view while still making the outer edges close enough to be useful.

I agree whole heartedly with this. I have 3 x 25" setup and driving games are incredible on eyefinity. I also noticed in FPS like Metro 2033 that (for example in the tunnel when I previously thought the 'creatures' were running by me, they were actually running up standing at my side.....and eating me. I would like a little tweak on the side monitors so I can take my "objects may be closer than they appear" stickers off, but other than that i think it's great.

I am finding that not to be true;
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/816/crysiswarhead5760.jpg/ all settings enthusiast 2/AA
http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/378/codmw25760x1920.jpg Highest settings 4/AA
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/3483/f12010game2011041701090.jpg Ultra settings
http://www.techspot.com/gallery/data/500/medium/Metro2033veryhigh33.jpg Very high settings 4/AA
Dirt 2 108 FPS Ultra settings 4/AA Run on 3 x 5850's

4x 5850 Asus EAH DirectCu's = $912.00
This is what i was talking about Steve. I have not figured out what is the trigger for the change in vram use, but I know it has changed from AFR to supertiling.

I'd be tempted to operate the monitors in portrait mode, making the image less wide, but higher. The three 30" monitors would yield 4800 wide by 2560 high. It would be interesting to see what that looked like.

The top monitor would almost be touching the roof, in fact it could well go that high. My neck is sore just thinking about it.

Well Steve, our guest is actually on to something here. The best use I can think of for an arrangement such as guest has suggested, is for flight simulator type programs. In this case, looking down is a likely scenario in real life.

So, to make the point of view realistic and believable, your direct eye line needs to be centered vertically in the display. And that means you would need to lower the desktop quite a bit. About a foot, actually.

sooo...when you are playing Total War Napoleon, you should have the screens up over your head?

Dear Mr 1776, when have you taken leave of functional literacy?

Or, (second answer), if you're being hit by an airstrike, (as in being bombed from above) then why the f*** not?

Wait a minute, did Napoleon even have airplanes?