Advice on this new build

[yiplong]

Instead of doing crossfire why not just put in a single faster chip? This will simplify the process a lot and may perform just as well.

[Kodbel]

I initially thought about doing crossfire, but found Eyefinity, which is a single card solution for hooking multiple monitors. 3 monitors will plug into 3 ports(dvi,dvi,display port) of a gfx card. Going for 5750, but now confused whether display port to dvi adaptor will conflict with eyefinity.

[Pob255]

I was planning to use a Displayport to DVI adaptor. Sample link It's not chipped and just changes the interface. Will this not work for eyefinity?

No that's no good, you need an ACTIVE DP to dvi adaptor.
You can spot an active adaptor by a 2nd lead to one of the USB ports to supply it with power.

ATM the only one for sale in the UK is the Apple one, which is apparently very ropey.
Sapphire is brining one out shortly, but they are not cheap.
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/188282

as this is just for desktop and not games then it's probably going to be eaiser to get a 785g based motherboard and use the onboard graphics for one monitor and feed the other two off a seperate card.

[Kodbel]

I am back again. It's proving more difficult than I expected it to be...
I was expecting to use Eyefinity - but then I would need a displayport capable monitor. So, that's out of the equation.
Then came hyrid crossfirex - using the inbuilt 4200 of 785g chipset with another discrete card. However I just found out only 34XX series cards are supported with 785g!! Which would leave me with only 2 dvi ports(1 onboard and one on 34XX card)

With eyefinity and hybrid crossfirex out of the equation, what other options do I have for my 3 monitor setup? To make matters worse, I have already acquired the following:
3*22" dvi monitors
AMD Phenom II X4 925
Asus M4A785TD-V EVO
HD103SJ Spinpoint F3
80GB Intel SSD
8GB 1600MHZ DDR3 Ram
ANTEC VSK2000
Corsair HX450W

[Pob255]

What you have is fine all you need to do is shove a graphics card in there.
run 1 monitor off the onboard graphics
run 2 monitors off the graphics card.

Stick with an ati card so you're not mixing drivers.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-X...plus-FarCry-II

Or http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB...Sub-DVI-I-HDMI and connect one monitor up by a hdmi to dvi adaptor

[Kodbel]

What you have is fine all you need to do is shove a graphics card in there.
run 1 monitor off the onboard graphics
run 2 monitors off the graphics card.

Stick with an ati card so you're not mixing drivers.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-X...plus-FarCry-II

Or http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB...Sub-DVI-I-HDMI and connect one monitor up by a hdmi to dvi adaptor

Isn't running 1 from onboard and 2 from discrete means letting them communicate with each other? But that's Hybrid Crossfire X, and according to ATI, it's only possible with 24xx and 34xx series(inferior to the onboard 4200)

[jim]

Isn't running 1 from onboard and 2 from discrete means letting them communicate with each other?

I don't believe so, no.

[Kodbel]

So I assume, I will only use "Surroundview" and not hybrid crossfire x, or crossfire in general. I thought surroundview only worked in conjugation with crossfire; but thanks for proving me wrong!

[jim]

So I assume, I will only use "Surroundview" and not hybrid crossfire x, or crossfire in general. I thought surroundview only worked in conjugation with crossfire; but thanks for proving me wrong!

Looking briefly, I think you're right in that Surroundview only works with Crossfire. What I'm saying is that for multiple monitors, you don't need surround view, or crossfire, or cards that work together.

You just need enough graphical outputs (generally max of 2 per card) to cope with the number of monitors you have.

You can even use ATI and nVidia cards simultaneously, if you have Windows 7. AFAIK, prior to that all cards must use the same graphics driver.

[Kodbel]

So I don't need to stick with a 34XX series card then. I will go for XFX 1GB 4650

Incase the motherboard's dvi port has no output, I will have some spare ££ to buy another one of the 4650's.

[jim]

IMO you might as well take the 512MB version instead, there's no way a card of that calibre needs 1GB of memory.