3 monitors on HD5770?

[No Limit]

So I bought a new HD5770 and since I read it supported 3 monitors I bought an additional monitor for it. Turned out I didn't research this very well, because the 3rd monitor has to be displayport or it wont work.

So I have a few options. Return the new monitor I got and spend $260 on a display port monitor (22"). Not really too eager to do that.

Get an active displayport to HDMI converter. Problem is they cost $120, not really looking to do that either.

Finally I read if I get a simple VGA to Displayport adapter (as opposed to Displayport to HDMI) it should work. So I found one on New Egg for $25 and purchased it but now Im reading I will have to do some funky things such as running my center monitor through the adapter (probably losing the quality I have now running it on HDMI).

So I'm curious. Anyone do this before? I've been dreaming about having a 3 monitor set up for a long time and this seemed like a simple enough solution, turning out to be a headache.

As a side note my mother board has a ATI video card with a DVI output. But I read I can't have that enabled while my 5770 is enabled. Anyone know if this is not true?

 

[Acepilotf14]

Why would you really need three monitors?

 

[No Limit]

Why would you really need three monitors?

Productivity.

 

[Krynn72]

I'm pretty certain that you can't have your onboard card enabled while using an actual video card.

I can't say for sue, but you might lose some quality running it through the adapter. I hooked up my HDTV to my computer with a DVI to HDMI adapter, and it looks pretty bad, especially text. Might just be my TV though, I don't have any HDMI outputs on my graphics card so I can't be sure if its the adapter/cheap cable thats making it look shitty.

 

[No Limit]

I use a DVI to HDMI adapter on my HTPC and it works fine, so you might want to make sure your settings are correct.

In my case though I will be going from displayport to VGA which I kind of worry about especially if I have to do it on my main 23" 1080p monitor.

 

[Vegeta897]

My 5770 has 2xDVI and an HDMI. (as well as a displayport)
Does this not work?

Also DVI to DP converters are not $120, where are you seeing that?

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10428&cs_id=1042801&p_id=4827&seq=1&format=2

 

[Asus]

active adapters (has power) vs passive adapter (just changes the plug).

The trouble isn't doing 3 monitors. Depending on your board you could enable onboard and have the GPU at the same time. The single card could do 2 monitors and the onboard could do 1. But that would only be if you wanted a 2d desktop spanning 3 displaying. Gaming you would want all displays to be going through the performance card and having 3 displays on 1 card is where those requirements (displayport LCD etc) come from.

Does the card itself have to be display port or just the LCD?

I would see if you could set it up and try it with the cheap adapter (VGA?). See how it is and return if you don't like how the analog-digital conversion makes it look. Maybe get that adapter in a retail store to save time on shipping...if they have one.

Edit
read this.
It looks like your card must have a displayport and communicate with a displayport monitor over that port or displayport device (active adapter).

 

[No Limit]

So if I enabled the onboard video I could use that output? But gaming would then not use my video card? Im not sure how to enable the onboard video card. It is enabled in my bios but I dont see it in my device manager, I think the bios automatically disables this when you plug in an external video card.

yeah, I already purchased the adapter today on newegg. Will have to wait, not sure I could have found it locally. But I'm worried about running 1080p on a digital -> analog adapter.

 

[VirusType2]

As far as I know -

You aren't going to want to run on-board for one monitor and your brand new video card for the other two. Assuming you do get all 3 monitors to work, one will be terribly slow. I guess that can be offset with an older operating system to a large degree.

The point of the video card is that it can output to 3 displays. With Eyefinity, it has been designed to do it. The onboard won't know what the hell. So I certainly don't think you'll get the expected result in games; who knows what it will do. I would expect it not to work because the onboard surely doesn't support advanced features like shader model 5.0 and DX10/11.

Finally, I highly doubt your new video card is going to simply send the rendered video to the onboard chipset to where you could simply use onboard for its display connector.

Anyway, sorry things aren't going your way and I hope you get Eyefinity working as you planned.

 

[No Limit]

But I wouldn't use that output for gaming, just 2d stuff. I'm sure it's more than capable of handing 2d display. But you are right, I don't see how it would work. And my mother board seems to be disabling the video card automatically when an external card is plugged in.

 

[Krynn72]

Thats usually changeable in the bios. Most let you set it to Enabled, Disabled, or Auto.

 

[Asus]

After the bios the place I would look is in Device Manager. Like I said, depending on your board it may auto disable the onboard when you plug in a GPU without letting you do otherwise. Technically it should be able to do multi-monitor w/onboard and GPU (with PCI-Express). The reason some do not is based on past technology. AGP was a single card interface (onboard HAD to be disabled for the other to function).

Not from the consumers POV but from the manufacturers onboard and GPU multi-monitor should be no different than doing multiple PCI cards. But it's up to the company how they handle their bios etc.
Example of branding with some AMD chipsets that feature multi-monitor support, including but not limited to 2 displays from the onboard.
Bottom of the page (AMD site), enabling multi-monitor display

So...what motherboard model do you have?
Also, Vista only support 1 video driver at a time so you can't do Nvidia onboard w/ATI card. Betting Win7 is the same.

 

[No Limit]

I got win7. Mobo is foxconn A7VMX-K. I did check the bios already, its set to enable. Device manager doesn't show the card (doesnt show anything, not even that its not installed). So I dunno, I guess the bios is preventing this for some stupid reason.

 

[No Limit]

Hellz Yeah!!! The $25 adapter works! And I didn't have to do anything funky with my primary monitor, just had to change it from HDMI to DVI as the adapter wouldn't fit with the HDMI cable. So now I got 3 monitors, this thing is sick, I'm gonna have to take some pictures some time.