Hey guys

I'm trying to run 3 - 4 monitors (unfortunately I don't think that eyefinity will work since I'm using two in portrait and two in landscape) and looking for the best solution for a project studio build I'm finishing up.

I usually use passive cards when building a DAW, but I'm not sure that I can find a decent card passive card that doesn't take up more than two slots (and most of the measurements I see from the manufacturer are for the card, not the card and the heatsink).

I'd love to toss in a 6850, but not only is it probably overkill, the passive versions are simply too large to use two of them in a single case.

My google-fu must be weak this week as I've been unable to find the real world dimensions on a passive card (i.e., includes the heatsink in the measurements) that wasn't 2 years out of date.

Any suggestions would be welcome. If passive is an impossibility, that's okay (but it is definitely preferred).

Your title says "studio DAW". So, since this isn't a gaming system, and apparently all you're looking for is support for many screens, what's wrong with a 2+ year old design? I'd suggest looking at a pair of GT9800 cards, or even lower performance. Way more than you need for a non-gaming application, and easy to cool with an Accelero or similar heat-pipe cooler.

If you were to be fine with 3 monitors, maybe look into SAPPHIRE Ultimate 100326UL Radeon HD 6670 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card, according to the specs it does support eyefinity, but crosscheck it.



Now if you need 4 or more then probably the best route is to go with eyefinity 6 card, like PowerColor AX6870 2GBD5-6DG Radeon HD 6870 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card Eyefinity 6 Edition.



If you want nvidia, the only card that can do more than 2 monitors is the GTX590, the rest you will need SLI, totally overkill for a none gaming setup. There is a none standard card that idk if it would work with what you are planning, in case you are interested, Galaxy 56NGH6DM3TTX MDT X5 GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) Multi Display 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card, according to the specs,

For what it may be worth, if you look around a bit at the AMD web site, they say that eyefinity 6 CAN support a mix of horizontal and vertical monitors. In fact they say that they estimate that there are hundreds of possible combinations of setups. The info was on the Eyefinity FAQ page, with all the other questions answered too. Click here for the AMD Eyefinity FAQ page. The link will take you to the bottom of the FAQ page where it answers your question. And, as long as you are running eyefinity in extended desktop mode, the monitors can be of different resolutions. Only when they are in a Display Group or cloned do they need to be the same resolution.

Given the above, I think you can use a single, passively cooled, eyefinity 6 card and run your 3-4 monitors in whatever combination of orientations you would prefer. Make sure that the card you choose can support all the monitors you will need. For example, some of the entry level workstation AMD cards will only support up to 3 monitors, etc.

Thanks for the feedback guys!

Like I said, Eyefinity is pretty much a no-go for me on this one. After calling AMD, they confirmed that a 2x, 1 extendted configuration is not supported by the current slate of Eyefinity cards (like I said, two monitors, one on top of the other, in landscape; the other monitors are in portrait).

Their response was either two video cards, or something like the Matrox interfaces. I never had much luck with the Matrox interface for multiple displays, so I measured the case and went from there (remeasured actually; I originally posted because I couldn't find accurate measurements for the passive cards). I ended up using two PowerColor Go! Green AX6750. Scary thing is that aside from being a little tight with the SATA ports (for one card), there were no issues with installation and they worked fine out of the box. I'll probably put the cards through their paces today, but otherwise it's looking good, and the solution is passive (and after 2-3 hours of light gaming before I refresh the box, both cards were relatively cool to the touch).

Thanks again for all your help everybody!

But you can still run 4 monitors off a single card and not use eyefinity... No need to buy an overpriced Matrox card.

Hi, unless you're going to play games or are using software that can use GPU power why not just go with a pair of HD6450s? Small lower power, single slot passive cards, loads of grunt for throwing around Windows "Aero" and playing videos etc. The "full" HD6450 has GDDR5 RAM where most you can buy have (G)DDR3 and so have half the memory bandwidth, still pleny for all non-3D gaming. Some HD6450 maybe further crippled with 32bit RAM interface, should be 64bit, just avoid them! If feel the need for more 3D power look at a couple of HD6570s, eg HIS 6570 [Heatsink wraps over back of card, need empty slot, or two, between them]
Seb