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Greetings all,

Right now I have a fairly standard video card with 2 DVI ports, one powering my single monitor and another powering my HDTV (with a DVI-to-HDMI cable), which are in separate rooms. I never need to have my monitor and TV active at the same time.

I'm looking into a possible computer upgrade. I'd like to know if the following situation is possible. I want three monitors on my desk powered by a single card, which I hear these new Eyefinity cards are capable of. But, I also want my TV hooked up. At any given time, I would want either my three monitors active or my TV active, never both at once. So it seems to me it might be possible to do this all a single 3-port card with a splitter of some kind.

Is this possible? What hardware would I need?

Thanks!

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4 Answers 4

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Since this was technically never answered properly for others who may be interested in the same thing, here is the answer:

Yes, this is quite possible. Since the DisplayPort is required for your triple-display setup to work with Eyefinity, you will still have a free DVI or HDMI (on most if not all cards, this is actually just the output of a built-in DVI>HDMI converter) port. So assuming the remaining monitor or TV has the respective available port and you have the necessary cables and adapters, if necessary, then you will not need any "special" hardware to do it.

Keep in mind that when using Eyefinity for the triple-display, the remaining DVI/HDMI-connected display will have no signal.

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Any reason you want all 3 off the same card? You should be able to get the same effect and more (all 4 on at once if you wanted) by simply getting another dual-dvi graphics card.

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  • Well that's the thing, I feel like I if I buy another card, I'll be paying for something I'm never going to use. If the setup I want isn't possible with a single card, sure I'll just buy another. But if is, surely that would be best.
    – Paul Accisano
    Commented Jan 10, 2011 at 3:14
  • But surely one of these 3 port Eyefinity cards will cost a lot more than just getting another standard 2 port card? I fail to see the logic.
    – Steve
    Commented Jan 10, 2011 at 14:24
  • Not really... This one is $65 after rebate at the time of this posting: newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102870 Cost isn't the only issue either. Heat and noise from a second card also play a factor.
    – Paul Accisano
    Commented Jan 11, 2011 at 14:37
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The ATI cards only support two "old world" interfaces at a time. (5xxx Series) Old world is everything which is not displayport.

So 1x Display + 1x DVI + 1x HDMI is possible but not 2x DVI + 1x HDMI. Note that a displayport-> DVI/HDMI Adapter will count as HDMI/DVI and not as displayport. See ATIs FAQ on this: http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/amd-eyefinity-technology/how-to/Pages/faqs.aspx#how-many-monitors

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  • I'm aware of this already; as I understand it, it's nothing an active dongle won't solve. That's not really my question here.
    – Paul Accisano
    Commented Jan 10, 2011 at 3:15
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You would need a video card that supports 3 outputs. You can use a DVI Splitter because all a splitter does is display the same image on all monitors. It does not support extended desktop applications.

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