Eyeinfinity Question

[htpcdennis]

Hi,

I'm wanting to go Eyeinfinity. Which will be soon 3 x Samsung SyncMaster S23A750D (i'm hoping).

I currently have 2 x XFX 7970's on water.

I'm considering getting a 3rd one.

My question is...
I have an Asus Maximus IV (P67) with a 2600K @ 4.6.

Question 1:
If I was to add a 3rd card. Would the 3rd card be fully used in the likes of BF3 and newer games?
My current 2 x cards both run at 99%.

Question 2:
I currently have the two cards in slots 1 & 4. Which is what the manual says to do for better performance. (native only)

With QuadFire it says to use slots 1, 3 & 5 which uses native and non native.

I have an Asus Xonar in slot 6 (4x).

Because slot 6 is populated would it effect the performance of the Quad fire in slots 1, 3 & 5?

I've been looking at the shared and was not 100% sure.

Can someone please let me know if this will work out?
With slot 1 & 6 being shared... will this cause issues?

(Or is this where Ivy Bridge becomes important?)

Here is a pic of the manual page...



Thanks!

[hostage67]

When they are shared what this typically means is that if only one slot is being used you get the full 16x speeds out of the slot, but if both slots are being used then it is split so you only get 8x out of each slot. That being said 8x is still plenty and should be fine for your purposes.

Also keep in mind that each additional card has diminishing returns. First card is 100%, second card is about 90% and third card is usually around 70%.

So in short...

1. You will lose some overhead with Crossfire, but 8x should be enough for you to get whatever you can out of the card.

2. The cards are typically split between 1/3 and 2/4. So the recommendation to use 1/4 would be so that you are getting the full 16x out of each slot and giving as much space as possible between the cards for the best cooling. Since you are using one of the slots already and the rest will be filled with video cards all 4 slots will be split using 8x(I believe this will always be the case with 3+ cards on current motherboards).


So in short, don't panic, what you are running into is totally normal. I would guess your two x1 slots are sharing the native channel, which is why when used you are only seeing 8x on slots 1/3. So yes, it will technically impact you, but you shouldn't notice the diff between 8x and 16x.

[m0tek]

Hi ,
Im on a dual 6970 (Flashed from 6950) , I Play most of the games on 5040 x 1080 (whatever the native resolution is...dont remember) on high settings.
im not sure you should add a 3rd Card (and not sure it will be 100% utilised as well)

As for eyefinity - it's good when it works - don't develop too much hope for it - since it has the fiddling that usually needs to be done (i.e - game supports the resolution but instead of the HUD being centred - its spread across 3 screens) - of course there are fixes and patches (like wide screen gaming forums).

I Am now leaning across getting a korean ips screen (the apple look-alike's screens) 27" and selling the 3 22" screens i have (**** - they take a lot of space , and i use them mostly as an extended desktop) , other then that - for eyefinity to work well you need an active mini dp converter to DVI (im on eyefinity since the 5870 days - and back in the days that sh** used to cost so much ) .

Thats just my 2 cents