Eyefinity 5 monitors without DP monitors

So my brother has 5 monitors, he is using 3 for gaming while the 5 will be for normal usage.

I believe for the third monitor and everyone after that, it has to be an active DP adapter right?

He is using an Sapphire 6950 Rev 1 (6970 now) which has two DVI's, 2 Mini DP's and one HDMI. Catalyst 10.10 enabled 5x1 so should be possible.

Monitor 1 - DVI to DVI
Monitor 2 - DVI to DVI
Monitor 3 - Mini DP active adapter to DVI
Monitor 4 - Mini DP active adapter to DVI
Monitor 5 - HDMI to DVI?

Thing is am confused about Monitor 5? It needs to be active as well right?

Saying that, can all 5 monitors work just by their normal collections in extended desktop mode without switching to Eyefinity mode?

If so that's fine as well, since he is only gaming on three monitors, the other two or one will just switch off I believe if that is the case.

I do believe 6970s can only support 4 monitors. 2 DP, 2DVI, due to a lack of clock generators. Sapphire might have FleX version to combat this, but I'm not sure.

You should be able to use 5 monitors in extended mode as you need to create groups in CCC before you can eyefinity up...

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Originally Posted by Repressor

I do believe 6970s can only support 4 monitors. 2 DP, 2DVI, due to a lack of clock generators. Sapphire might have FleX version to combat this, but I'm not sure.

You should be able to use 5 monitors in extended mode as you need to create groups in CCC before you can eyefinity up...

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Ah~ That's true, so 5/6 can still work in extended mode without trouble, if that is the case like you say, then that's acceptable.

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Originally Posted by IronWarrior

Ah~ That's true, so 5/6 can still work in extended mode without trouble, if that is the case like you say, then that's acceptable.

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Only if you have the cards to generate the outputs! One standard 6970 isn't enough!

As others have said, a standard 6970 only has 2 clock generators so you cannot run montors off [b]both[/] DVIs and the HDMI; you can only use two of those outputs concurrently, so only 4 monitors can be run off the one card.

To run five monitors you'd have to either find a card with an additional clock generator (Sapphire produce a "Flex" range that have this, and according to google both 6950 and 6970 variants are available, at around £200 and £300 respectively), or get one of the Eyefinity 5 / Eyefinity 6 cards that have mutliple mini-dp outputs, and then an appropriate number of adapters (of which 2 could be passive, and the rest would have to be active).

As far as the eyefinity set up goes, you'd set up one 3x1 group and two 1x1 groups, then in Windowds use the 3x1 group as the primary desktop and extend the desktop onto the other monitors. But you'll need the right card first, and a standard 6950/6970 won't do the job, I'm afraid.

It's not the clock signal generators as such.
Basically it works like this, the display unit can control up to 6 outputs, that's all built into the gpu, it also has 2 clock signal generators built in.
each display port connection uses 1 output, each vga/hdmi/dvi also uses one output but also need one clock signal. (this is why you need an active dp adaptor as it needs to generate a clock signal)
The Sapphire FelX card have an additional clock signal generator on the pcb which is why they can use all 3 hdmi/dvi outputs at the same time (basically they built an active adaptor into the card)

Remember just because the gpu can control 6 outputs you're still limited by the number of display ports on the card will limit you, even though the gpu can control 6 outputs if you only have 2 display port outputs then you're not going to be able to feed any more than 4 monitors.

Using more than 2 monitors in extended desktop . . . I don't think so.
it's dependent on what the drivers will support, ati basically got round driver support issues with eyefinity by setting it up as an SLS display (single large surface) You might be able to use 3 monitors in eyefinity with a 4th on extended desktop.

Also remember that because eyefinity is SLS that all 3+ monitors in the SLS have to run at the same resolution.

The easiest way to do it would be to set up 3 monitors in eyefinity on the 6950 and get a 2nd cheap card, doesn't need to be powerful for basic desktop duty, to run the other 2 monitors in extended desktop.