crapy clawn forums

Hey all, so I actually had some extra time today to screw around for awhile, spent it on the internetz looking through newegg and working on the upgrades I want to do for my PC on my return. One of the things I definately want is a decent eyefinity setup. I'm going to hold off on the video card, ram, and possible processor upgrades until closer to home due to how much prices on those can change over a few months, but I'm tempted to work monitors right now due to some deals. Regardless, if anyone has some experience with these (I remember some talk of them awhile back) I'd appreciate some advice.

Currently I have a single 24" Dell 2407 monitor. It runs max res of 1920X1200 at 60hz with a 6ms refresh. All around a good monitor, but has no displayport connection (my understanding is that you can have up to two of 6 monitors without it for an eyefinity setup, and can always buy a little dongle thing that provides that support).

What I'm looking at is either:
A) Picking up 2 X ASUS ProArt Series PA246Q Black 24.1" (also 1920X1200, most comparable to what I currently have. Link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824236119 ). Currently at $440 per monitor with free shipping to give me an array of 3 side-by-side. Thinking this is my preferred option.

B) Picking up 3 X ASUS VE278Q Black 27" 1920x1080 (only 1920 X 1080. Link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824236103 ). This would give me a larger set of identical screens all 3 side by side, with the old dell placed above the center for an additional verticle view. I think I'd have to drop the resolution of the dell to the 1920 X 1080 for the eyefinitiy.. These are currently $300 each, so total price about the same.

Anyone have suggestions on this? Something I'm missing?

Option A is superior; better panels, better resolution. With either setup you might notice input lag differences between the new monitors and the 2407. You might consider posting on hardforums or Anandtech's forums for more input.

That, and I really don't like 16:9 (1920x1080) for monitors. I'm not really short on horizontal space when using a computer, so I favor monitors with more vertical space - 16:10 or even 4:3 are better than 16:9 IMO. So I'd stay with 1920 by 1200 if you can.

What if you turn the 16:9 monitors long-ways?
You'd get more vertical space!

Because that would really suck for gaming. I'll probably do it when I get new monitors, and use the 16:9s just for work stuff where reading/typing is important (I can't just turn them on the fly because the stands are fixed and can't do swivel, rotate, etc.).

At 27" space is not an issue rofl.

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So I went with option A on this, picked up the pair of 24"ers to flush out my current one. Already had the wife check them out and looks like I'm okay as far as dead pixels/etc.

I'm now looking for a video card to handle the 3X1 eyefinity and be able to do that with some BF3 (figure that's our next graphics intensive game). Price range I'm looking at is $200-300. Took a look through newegg and found the this as my current forrunner:

ASUS EAH6950 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5 Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814121431

But anyone have suggestions/other recommendations?

You'll probably want 2 of those. Some are able to unlock the extra shaders to get to a 6970 (mostly reference cards, though some non-reference). You can also wait for the new stuff to come out (September?).

Be home soon dummy!

Card looks good, but keep in mind it uses 3 slots so that could be an issue with some motherboards. Here's another option with a better-than-stock cooler... 2 slots and cheaper.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

You'll definitely want 2 in crossfire. If not a 6950, then two 6870's (what I'm running now, probably good for medium settings in BF3). Your resolution will be 5760x1200, so a single card will probably only be able to handle low settings in BF3.

From the sounds of it the 3X1 configuration will be pretty taxing on any card. Should I be looking at a pair of 6950's?

Yes, you'll probably want two. Hexus has some benches for a ~6MP display with a single card for reference. I'd wait until ~September or closer to BF3's launch if you can.

Heretic: Since I'm lazy and it takes me a good 3-5 minutes to load each webpage so I don't want to research myself what is the new series of cards coming out? Also is there a set release date yet? Would like to see a good drop in price of video cards, espically if I'm looking at buying a pair of them...

AMD's 7-series (Southern Islands GPUs anyway, no idea if they'll stick with the numbering scheme) is supposed to be out in September/October barring any delays due to the fab, but there's no set release date. They supposedly started taping them out in February, so it looks like they're on track for that time-frame. BF3 is end of October. Nvidia's new stuff likely won't be out until late-Q1/early-Q2 2012.

Alright, home now so trying to finish up the computer upgrades. Just picked up a pair of the 6950's that Sabs' linked to above, at $245 each. Not bad...I'm betting they'll drop a bit in price as the new stuff comes out in a month or two, but frankly I have no job right now, so did the "how much is a solid month of no-job-gaming worth in savings if I hold off a month in buying the stuff". Figured that even if I save $100+ in waiting, I'll still get my use out of them by buying now.

Already have the 2 extra 24" monitors hooked up to my current card...not running eyefinity, just a 3 monitor configureation, and still loving it already.....sooooo much desktop space I've been opening extra programs just to fill it.

Last thing to do now is to work on maxing out my ram. I'm currently running the 6 gb (X 3 chips) that I origionally purchased (Corsair Dominator stuff). I've got an additional 3 slots sitting empty right now, want to finish filling that out with another 12 gb (x 3 chips), but newegg is out of them right now. Will have to wait another few days until they're back in stock. After that I think I'm done with the upgrades for a bit, at least unless something is just NOT working for me or I can find an awesome deal. Reguardless thanks for the help all, it's always a pain in the ass to get caught up on tech every couple of years prior to doing the next upgrade.

Still having a few problems with getting Win Vista64 to fully accept my eyefinity setup (some BSOD's, working through what the issues are), but getting some decent functionality out of my setup now too.

In the end wound up with boosts to 3 X 24" 1920X1200 monitors (2 ASUS, 1 Dell; currently in a standard 3long X 1tall configuration...going to try out turning all 3 upright but same physical layout soon, see how that works), 2 X XFX ATI 6950 Cards, and 12 gig's of Ram. I've gotten L4D2 working with it, havent tried BC2 yet. Here's screenshots from the initial results from a playthrough of Dead Center with randoms:

Here's the one file small enough to post at regular resolution: And the following are all at a reduction to 30% of origional size. Biggest thing to note is the huge angle of view. Gives such a better situational awareness when you can see out of your peripheral vision.

And now have BC2 running. Crashed on me after about 10 minutes...not sure what's up with that (could be overheat, no A/C right now and just open windows), but can't get it to do screenshots. Reguardless the results are the equal of L4D2, huge perpheral vision (sorry, about 5 or 6 drinks into my day, spelling is not currently a strongsuit). Really kinda liking this whole thing. Next up: Eyefinity Solitare!

Admittedly I have not yet tried Porn. I really should try that also. Do they do Eyefinity in 3D yet?

Lastly: thanks to all for the help with the upgrades. Really appreciate the assistance in getting the correct components figured out and such!

And must note: It works with Company of Heros, though takes more then a little getting used to...basically expands your battlefield X 3 to the left and the right....just very....different to get used to the non 1X1 screen mouse-scrolling...once you get (Mildly) used to it it's not bad, just different.
Just adding this one becuause...

geekgasm.

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The task bar on COH looks really stupid.

Teaks can you run fraps and tell me the framerates you're getting? I want to get an eyefinity setup for BF3.

Id prefer to not do any research and just have Heretic/Zenzog tell me what to buy.

Been running BFBC2 on eyefinity for some time and fps is great.
I picked up some cheap monitors on woot one day and they are great.

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Heretic, Zenzog, others...

What are your thoughts on this?

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Thuban 3.3GHz, 3.7GHz Turbo 6 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor HDE00ZFBGRBOX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819103913

One of these cards... which one?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... ageSize=20

8GB DDR3 1333MHz

Still need a matching mobo and monitors. Thoughts?
Maybe this mobo? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128444

Happy with my ASUS.

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CPU: x6 is probably overkill, esp if you want to OC. That's getting very close to Sandy Bridge prices and AMD doesn't have the performance at the higher price range. NCIX, Newegg, MicroCenter, and Frys have all had sales on both the x6 and SB CPUs (with SB around $200), so it depends on how much you want to spend and when you want to buy (Black Friday, etc).

GPU: The Rev2 Gigabyte card should be good. Has slightly better power components than the one that's $10 less and should be much quieter compared to stock cooling.

RAM: Get 8gb of at least 1600MHz, preferably @ 1.5v if you go SB instead of AMD. There shouldn't be much of a price premium and the extra performance is worth it.

Mobo: For AMD, reference this list to make sure the mobo won't blow up when you stick a 125W CPU in it. Most newer Gigabyte boards and most of the Asus boards should be fine, it just depends on what features you want. The mobo you linked should be ok, but I prefer boards with heatsinked VRMs.