triple monitor graphics card

blackhatracing · Apr 17, 2012

Hi guys I was looking for a bit of up to date advice.I have around £160 to spend on a graphics card that can run gtr evo-and cod4 on a triple screen set up it doesent need to be a very high resolution but I am looking for a decent frame rate,has anyone any experience of graphics cards round about this budget.I know the questions been asked before but with prices dropping and new cards coming out I hoped someone with experience could point me in the right direction.....I'm running windows7 with a quad athlon11 x4 630 processor 2.81 ghz and 4gig ram...

glight · Apr 18, 2012

I live in Canada so I'm not familiar with the UK online shops but a quick search tells me the best card you can get for that price is a 6870. I don't play evo or cod4 but a 6870 should be plenty to run those in eyefinity.

If you want to play anything relatively new you could splurge and get a 6950 for around 200 gbp. The 6950 will be better for the more modern games as it has twice the VRAM (2GB) of the 6870 which is important when you are at mega eyefinity resolutions. But you won't need the 6950 if you're only going to play evo and cod4.

Hope that helps

edit: here are the links I found
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-...s-eyefinity-hdmi-2x-mini-displayport-2x-dvi-i

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-...pu-830mhz-1408-cores-eyefinity-hdmi-2x-mini-d

Jim Cole · Apr 18, 2012

Keep in mind when looking at graphics cards that nVidia won't support triple monitors on a single card so you are pretty much forced to use ATI, but that isn't a bad thing

blackhatracing · Apr 18, 2012

glight said:
I live in Canada so I'm not familiar with the UK online shops but a quick search tells me the best card you can get for that price is a 6870. I don't play evo or cod4 but a 6870 should be plenty to run those in eyefinity.

If you want to play anything relatively new you could splurge and get a 6950 for around 200 gbp. The 6950 will be better for the more modern games as it has twice the VRAM (2GB) of the 6870 which is important when you are at mega eyefinity resolutions. But you won't need the 6950 if you're only going to play evo and cod4.

Hope that helps

edit: here are the links I found
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-...s-eyefinity-hdmi-2x-mini-displayport-2x-dvi-i

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-xfx-hd-6950-dd-cooled-pcie-21-(x16)-5200mhz-gddr5-gpu-830mhz-1408-cores-eyefinity-hdmi-2x-mini-d

I had a look at the HIS HD 6950 IceQ X GDDR5 2048MB Native HDMI 2xDVI 2xMiniDP and it looks like the right one in my price range (£160 from amazon) but I was wondering if anyone plays gtrevo or cod4 and how they found the frame rates,all i'm looking for is 1024 768 on each screen but looking at reviews there is not much info that I can find.

Marcus Meyrick · Apr 18, 2012

I use an MSI 6950 2gig (twin frozr) on a Phenom 955 BE (3.2 @ 3.6) and i run 3 x 1680*1050 22" monitors. It runs race 07 (and by default gt evolution, race on etc) at 5040*1050 at full graphical quality without breaking sweat.

I can run BF3 at medium prettyness at aroung 40fps on 5040*1050 (although i prefer single screen on my FPS games).

COD 4 ran flawlessley at 1920*1082 on my old 4890 without issues so i am sure it will run on a 6950 at 5040*1050 without any issues and with somewhere above 60fps (and likely a lot higher).

Bang for buck the 6950 is a great card.

**EDIT** if you want eyefinity triple screen don't forget to budget £15 - £20 for an active display port adaptor.. you will need it.

Chris Preston · Apr 19, 2012

blackhatracing said:
I had a look at the HIS HD 6950 IceQ X GDDR5 2048MB Native HDMI 2xDVI 2xMiniDP and it looks like the right one in my price range (£160 from amazon) but I was wondering if anyone plays gtrevo or cod4 and how they found the frame rates,all i'm looking for is 1024 768 on each screen but looking at reviews there is not much info that I can find.

I've put in 1800 hrs into CoD4 so I think I'm eligible to answer this

I have a "meh" computer, only a 9800GTX+ but my x4 965 gets me most my FPS and I run 250 fps constant mid settings but looks nice with my config (1280x1024 one screen). The 6950 would pass with flying colours so don't worry about it running CoD4 with any hiccups.

My personal opinion is for you to get the 6870, I like that card a lot and convinced my friend to get one and he loves it, I'm waiting for the updated one, the 7870, to lower in price to buy that to replace my dinosaur video card.

Hope this helps

Jim Cole · Apr 19, 2012

Chris is correct in the statement that it should run your CoD4 with no issues, but I would not take his advice on the 6870 as the 6950 has twice the graphics memory and you will need it if you are going to be running triple screens. Also as mentioned you will need an "ACTIVE" display port adapter for the third monitor so make sure you get one of those as well.

blackhatracing · Apr 19, 2012

Jim Cole said:
Chris is correct in the statement that it should run your CoD4 with no issues, but I would not take his advice on the 6870 as the 6950 has twice the graphics memory and you will need it if you are going to be running triple screens. Also as mentioned you will need an "ACTIVE" display port adapter for the third monitor so make sure you get one of those as well.

I have made up my mind and will go for the 6950,when I get it up and running I'll let you all know about the fast framerate(lol I hope !!)

Chris Preston · Apr 19, 2012

Jim Cole said:
but I would not take his advice on the 6870 as the 6950 has twice the graphics memory and you will need it if you are going to be running triple screens.

I know the 6950 is a better card, I'm saying for 70 pounds less I think the 6870 is a better deal. He also said his limit is 160 pounds which is 40 less than the price of the 6950.

blackhatracing · Apr 19, 2012

Chris Preston said:
I know the 6950 is a better card, I'm saying for 70 pounds less I think the 6870 is a better deal. He also said his limit is 160 pounds which is 40 less than the price of the 6950.

I appreciate youre input chris but the reason I'm going for the 6950 is its on amazon uk for £159.90 with free delivery so I reckon thats a great buy and hopefully it will give me decent frame rates with a triple monitor set up

Chris Preston · Apr 19, 2012

blackhatracing said:
I appreciate youre input chris but the reason I'm going for the 6950 is its on amazon uk for £159.90 with free delivery so I reckon thats a great buy and hopefully it will give me decent frame rates with a triple monitor set up

That's a pretty good price. My friend runs dual monitors with a GTX 260 I think it is and gets a solid amount of FPS, don't worry about the 6950 it will get you all the FPS you need and then some

Also do you play CoD4 often? Because hardly anyone plays it anymore and there's only a few servers with people on it

blackhatracing · Apr 20, 2012

Chris Preston said:
That's a pretty good price. My friend runs dual monitors with a GTX 260 I think it is and gets a solid amount of FPS, don't worry about the 6950 it will get you all the FPS you need and then some

Also do you play CoD4 often? Because hardly anyone plays it anymore and there's only a few servers with people on it

when I'm not playing gtr2 and gtrevo I often go on the cod4 modern warfare servers,I was on tonight and there is a few hundred servers with a thousand or so people playing!!!!! check it out its still a very popular game with lots of people playing

Brian Clancy · Apr 21, 2012

6950 for £160 is a bargain and a bit of a no-brainer for eyefinity. Its the minimum card I would recommend for eyefinity with high settings and good FPS. Plus a card like that will have a much longer life before it really begins to struggle, so its actually cheaper in the long run. I run a 6970 @ 4164x1024 and I can run anything with max settings and get really good fps, the 6950 wont be very far behind

blackhatracing · Apr 21, 2012

Brian Clancy said:
6950 for £160 is a bargain and a bit of a no-brainer for eyefinity. Its the minimum card I would recommend for eyefinity with high settings and good FPS. Plus a card like that will have a much longer life before it really begins to struggle, so its actually cheaper in the long run. I run a 6970 @ 4164x1024 and I can run anything with max settings and get really good fps, the 6950 wont be very far behind

thanks for that brian if it can run gtr2 and evo with a decent framerate across 3 screens set to 1024 768 on each one I'll be a happy guy

Jim Cole · Apr 21, 2012

No worries, I run a 6950 with full graphics across 3 screens for a total of 5240 X 1050

blackhatracing · May 14, 2012

Jim Cole said:
Chris is correct in the statement that it should run your CoD4 with no issues, but I would not take his advice on the 6870 as the 6950 has twice the graphics memory and you will need it if you are going to be running triple screens. Also as mentioned you will need an "ACTIVE" display port adapter for the third monitor so make sure you get one of those as well.

Hi jim I got an xfx radeon hd 6950 and it works a treat,the only trouble is I just got an accell ultraav display port to vga adaptor and it doesent fit,the connection to the graphics card is the wrong shape...which at more than £20 is a dissapointment to say the least.can youreself or anyone tell me which adaptors fits the card?I have tried to google it and the answer was the wrong one....got the extra monitors but no active adaptor to get them up and running....boo hoo....

glight · May 14, 2012

Guessing you got a regular displayport adapter: the 6950 has a MINI displayport. I made the same mistake when I bought mine but I managed to get an exchange before NCIX shipped it

. Anyway hopefully the place you bought it can get you a refund.

You might have better luck trying to find a mini DP to DVI adapter and then using a DVI to VGA adapter. I think miniDP to VGA adapters are kinda rare.

blackhatracing · May 14, 2012

glight said:
Guessing you got a regular displayport adapter: the 6950 has a MINI displayport. I made the same mistake when I bought mine but I managed to get an exchange before NCIX shipped it . Anyway hopefully the place you bought it can get you a refund.

You might have better luck trying to find a mini DP to DVI adapter and then using a DVI to VGA adapter. I think miniDP to VGA adapters are kinda rare.

I tried going down the route of a mini display port adaptor to vga,but in the description they all say they are for a mac laptop?no mention of fitting a pc graphics card.

Jim Cole · May 15, 2012

A mini display port adapter is indeed required for connecting to a HD 6950.
try this one and see if it does the job for you:
http://www.amazon.com/Cirago-Displa...2KTK/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1337075309&sr=8-6

If you can't get your money back on the adapter you got or get an exchange, then you will likely want this:
http://www.amazon.com/Accell-B112B-...06/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1337075309&sr=8-16

blackhatracing · May 15, 2012

Jim Cole said:
A mini display port adapter is indeed required for connecting to a HD 6950.
try this one and see if it does the job for you:
http://www.amazon.com/Cirago-Displa...2KTK/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1337075309&sr=8-6

If you can't get your money back on the adapter you got or get an exchange, then you will likely want this:
http://www.amazon.com/Accell-B112B-...06/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1337075309&sr=8-16

thanks for the info..I had a look on amazon uk and they have the accell b112b,so I'll give that one a try and fingers crossed...