AMD's Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 31, 2010 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
More Games & Productivity
Seating distance is also an issue when you're working with such a large display. A single 30" monitor takes some adjusting for most people, but a wall of six 22" panels really requires a set of wireless input devices. I found that sliding my chair back a few feet from the screen and using a wireless Xbox 360 controller made the whole experience a lot better.
Unfortunately not all games work well with controllers, in which case you'd probably need a wireless keyboard/mouse. Either way, plan on being further away from your desk than you are now.
AMD's present solution to the crosshair problem is to create multiple display groups. For example, you could create two 3 x 1 groups and simply use one for gaming and use both when you're working. If you do the sort of work that requires a lot of real estate spread out over a physically large distance then this can work.
When you factor in the cost of stands we're still looking at around $1500 - $1700 for a 5760 x 1080 display, which is cheaper than a pair of 30" monitors. Personally I'd prefer the latter but they do cost another $1000 more than what we're talking about here.
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Zstream - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Hmm, wonder if they have a snap to grid function in Windows 7 for each LCD. That would be nice...Taft12 - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Those of us with 6 or more screens have been using multiple low-end video cards (including PCI where necessary) for many years now. It's still much cheaper than this.Guspaz - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Perhaps because such solutions have been available for non-gaming uses for VERY many years. You could grab Matrox graphics cards (still hanging around in the business world), or use two GXM products to get six displays on a standard ATI/nVidia graphics card.There are also other solutions from other companies, or just the possibility of sticking three dual-head graphics cards in a system, which can be pretty cheap if you don't need powerful 3D performance.
In short, for productivity, this is old news; Eyefinity is really only of note for gaming, and it doesn't look very useful or practical for that either. Triple-head gaming has merit since it avoids many of the problems, and that can be done fairly easily (some graphics cards support three outputs, or you can use a GXM product).
lwatcdr - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
I could see this being used for Simulators and military systems as well.Maroon - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
I hope AMD didn't spend a lot of time on this because this is an unbelievably niche market they are after with this card.What needs to be done (if possible) is take the monitors apart and just piece together the screens and somehow relocate the hardware all behind everything.
sparkuss - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Anand wrote:The larger frame buffer did help raise minimum frame rates, but not enough to positively impact the average frame rates in our tests.
I thought there had been review comments before about the 5870 being memory limited in some tests. Does this mean that the added 1GB doesn't solve any of that without further hardware/software changes from ATI?
The 2GB cards, standard not eyefinity, are starting to list at manufactures sites. I was going to wait for them but maybe not worth it after all? I'm not interested in eyefinity, just CF for 1920 +above gaming.
Do you have any of the base 2GB cards planned for review shortly?
And P.S. the new comments system lose all adv editing?
poohbear - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
6 monitor support is good and all, but seriously how much demand is there for a card that can support 6 monitors? its a niche product, not sure what all the hoopla is about.:pnotty22 - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
From Review "It's worth mentioning that these power numbers were obtained in a benchmark that showed no real advantage to the extra 1GB of frame buffer. It is possible that under a more memory intensive workload (say for example, driving 6 displays) the 5870 E6 would draw much more power than a hypothetical 6-display 1GB 5870."I think a tester should run Furmark when in 3 way or 6 way eyefinity. I have a sinking feeling, this would break the card. The tests prove out that you need crossfire grunt of two 5870's to do any gaming. So the extra cost of this card , trying to do it all in one is a failure.
catalysts17TX - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
i have a 4870, great card but runs hot and sucks up a lot of wattage at idle power both the 5850 and 5870 due much better in heat and wattage, but at load the 5870 uses more wattage than my 4870 does. the 5870 card is NICE with the eyefinity 6 edition. MY question is will there be a 5850 Eyefinity 6 Edition? dont care about price just performance and wattageTaft12 - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Will Displayport ever start catching on as a monitor connector? The majority of displays still don't include a DP input and if it hasn't started by now, I wonder if it ever will...