Hey guys, Was wondering about going for a triple screen setup, it nearly being Christmas and all, but had a few queries! My current setup is a single 22 LG 1920x1080 screen (Just some cheap vga screen) and seeing as these are £150 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/LG-IPS231P-BN-inch-Monitor-Screen/dp/B005D7HD8C/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1323112474&sr=8-3 and recommended as being excellent IPS screens; I would go for two of these on either side (and eventually replace my middle one). Anyway I'm running a i52500k and a Msi GTX 560ti TF 3 Hawk, see this is my problem, it only has 1gb Vram, which I understand is a big component when it comes to multi monitor setups, so my question is if I bought another one in Sli would it be playable? I understand Sli shares Vram, not duplicates it, so I don't have high hopes, but currently it's steaming through everything I throw at it. Has anyone got a similar setup with these cards, or have any information regarding performance. Of particular interest would be how it would run WoW, bearing it mind it's CPU intensiveness. Anyhow any information would be helpful ;D Arch
I would advise to give triple screen a miss unless you are going to invest in at least a pair of gtx 570's. You need to run sli unless you sell your current card and invest in an ati 6970 or something as you only need one card to run three screens, however the downside is you will need at least one screen with a display port to do this. I recently went crazy and purchased three 120hz 3d monitors and a pair of gtx 580's. Due to the gpu power needed to drive the screens in 2d mode let alone 3d mode got on my nerves as the gpu's were flat out all the time causing issues with heat etc. In the end I sold all my screens and one of the 580's and decided to settle on single screen gaming due to not having to mess with shoddy multi screen drivers etc. Give it ago but it will cost you!
Or a £15 Active Mini DP to DVI adaptor from Ebuyer....... I run Triple screens (LG IPS231P) on a single HD6970 and it is great. Productivity is fantastic (especially as I am used to multi screens at work). I can swap and change between Portrait Eyefinity, Landscape Eyefinity and my current favourite - mixed mode. In mixed mode I run PLP, gaming on the middle monitor and having the additional screens for stats/forums etc. In the Op's case I wouldn't want to run Surround (which will work out of the box on 2 GTX560's with just DVI cables) due to the lack of Vram. There are arguments that we do/don't need more than 1GB of Vram for 1080p gaming, but put simply there is no argument that more than 1GB of Vram is required for Eyefnity resolutions. I can near as makes to difference saturate my HD6970 playing BF3 @ 3560x1920 so GTX560Ti 1GB is no where near enough. Generally speaking for most games at this sort of resolution you will be heavily GPU limited (ignoring any CPU limitations around SLI/CF). My single HD6970 is just about enough for a mixture of medium / high settings in BF3 but you won't be maxing anything out short of Triple CF/SLI. The drivers in my experience (AMD at least) are very good for multi monitors. It was almost plug and play in my case. The only thing that took a bit of time was alignment and bezel correction. Once I had the profiles set-up along with keyboard short cuts I was ready to go. Updating drivers is no issue as the settings remain from one set to the next. A little bit of advice though, If you do triple screens don't do it just for gaming.
Shoddy drivers??? I run a triple SLI GTX 580 setup running 3 Dell U2212 monitors and I have not had any issues with the drivers and surround gaming... OP -If you like having all the eye candy turned up, then you can only do this with 3 GTX 580s. Otherwise using 2 560ti as a minimum will leave you playing your games on low settings, which will look like poo. I also owned 3 LG IPS231P monitors and I highly recommended them. Comparing them to my U2212, there is nothing in them. They are both as good as each other. So if your planning to go down this route, you will be wanting to drop 2K on upgrades...
