ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefiniti6

source: guru3d.com
Go play some games .. on six LCD screens

Think about this for a second, can you even grasp the idea that it has only been six months ago when ATI released its first DX11 class products ... six months (!) Not a month went by with ATI not releasing a new product in that Radeon Series 5000 range.

The cycle is complete though, ATI filled every little and foreseeable gap in the DX11 class graphics card market. As such they will now focus on respins, future products and the more niche gear with somewhat lower priority.

Niche is the word that I like to label today's test product with. Extravagant, extraordinary, yes ATI finally released it's Eyefinity6 SKU officially. Though we believe this will be one tough puppy to find on the market one fact remains .. there will be small market for this product. And sure, not so much the gamer, but the professional end user and corporate entities can save a lot of dough with a product like shown today. Imagine presentations on a couple on say a monitor or four, an instruction video on the other and so on. What am I talking about ? Eyefinity6 .. a high-end Radeon HD 5870 based graphics card with no less than six display port output connectors that can drive six monitors simultaneously for you to wither work, present or play games at an insane and nearly ridiculous monitor resolution.

And gaming, yep .. it is exactly that last option what we'll be looking at today. We know .. we understand, there's 0.01% chance that any of you would purchase and replicate a similar setup as shown in this article it certainly is fun to read up on. It's x-factor hardware, Top Gear stuff for computer geeks and gamers.

So yes, we'll look at Eyefinity6, we'll build a nice frame that can hold the six Dell monitors we are using in this review and then will get our groove on. Now we'll also show some performance numbers as we'll not only use one, but two Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 cards, which we'll setup in CrossfireX, but more overly I like this article to be a show case. As such we'll record some high-definition footage and show you videos of a gaming in a MASSIVE monitor resolution of 5040x2100.

Hot damn .. this is going to be fun ! But first meet the product empowering it all ...

ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 edition

So ATI introduced Eyefinity technology on their Radeon HD 5000 series graphics cards six months ago. This literally boils down to multi monitor desktop and gaming nirvana. You will have no problem connecting say three 30" monitors at 2560x1600 per monitor -- combined to 7680x1600.

The ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 card however is a little weird, it's the freak nephew as it's capable of driving a total of six monitors over one card. And sure, it's clocked a little faster as well at 850 MHz on the core, as well as its 1600 shader processors.

Memory wise the card is clocked at 4800 MHz (gDDR5) much like the reference 5870, but here's one thing different. The ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 edition, at least the model we received, comes with a nice phat 2GB graphics memory. And that will help in uber-high resolutions with AA pretty decently. The TDP is slightly higher than the standard 5870 at 228W and 34W in idle.

Resolution wise you can drive up-to six monitors each capable of 2560x1600 (!)

So the ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 edition will be able to drive up-to six monitors per graphics card. We'll test this live in action, and yes, it works very nice.

You can combine monitors and get your groove on up-to 7680x3200 pixels separated over several monitors -- multiple monitors to be used as a single display. I think the limit is even 8000x8000 pixels, but don't hold me to that.

Some examples what you can do where:

• Single Monitor setup in 2560x1600


• Dual Monitors setup in 2560x1600 per monitor


• Three monitors setup in 2560x1600 per monitor


• Six monitors setup in 1920x1080 per monitor

Have a look at some examples:

You can arrange the monitors next to each other, above each other and really any combination you see fit for it.

And sure we also understand that 99% of you guys will never use more than two monitors. Perhaps not even 0.01% would use maybe even six monitors. Personally I like to game on three screens. It's really immersive, and especially on flight-simulators, racing games and strategy games (large field) you can enhance your visual experience, and obviously with more information thrown at you, you can game more precisely as well.

Keep in mind that for six monitor support the special edition (Eyefinity⁶) card is mandatory with six DisplayPort connectors.

Ehm dude CrossfireX ?

For those that are wondering, would it be possible to use two ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 edition cards driving six monitors ? So I can answer that with a yes, CrossfireX is now (though with limited game support) supported, it's actually something we'll tryout today. Especially with beastly resolutions like tested today, you'll need some serious rendering power. Now it is actually surprising to see how well performance with one card is. But two is obviously much much better.

Guru3D will be creating a test setup existing out of six Dell 22" monitors at 1680x1050 in 3x2 Landscape display mode, and that is a total staggering resolution of 5040x2100.

Considering the average enthusiast games has a resolution of 1920x1200 with his monitor, that's 2.3 Million pixels to fill preferably 40 times per second.

With our six monitors in 3x2 Landscape display mode at 5040x2100 we are pushing the limit further ... that's over 10 MPixels. You understand the dynamics now, right? You'll need a lot of RAW performance, and that's something two R5870 cards definitely can help out with.

It's now time to have a peek at some photos. First we'll show you the Eyefinity6 card up-close and personal, then the hardware setup, then the software setup and obviously we'll have a chat about the new functions like Bezel management that ATI introduced with the latest Catalyst 10.3 release.

First a photo shoot on the Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 armed with 2GB memory.

Product Gallery Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6

Meet the Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6. In all it's essence this is a regular Radeon HD 5870 with some slight changes. First up we spot a small core frequency increase to give the product a little more of an aggressive bite, it's only 50 MHZ more though. What is interesting though is that this model comes packed with 2GB memory. Especially in very high resolutions like used today that will help out a lot with AA.

Next to that we obviously spot the 6 DisplayPorts. Let's zoom in on that

Here we have the six mini-DisplayPort connectors and bellow it the cooling exhaust. Should regular sized DisplayPort connectors have been used ATI would have had to forfeit on cooling. This is a perfectly fine solution and from what I heard ATI will deliver the proper cables or converters with the card for your convenience.

The rear side -- just the air intake is to be seen. the cooler itself and the shell is 100% similar to the original Radeon HD 5870s, really nothing has changed on that end.

The card has a slightly higher TDP and as such ATI need to make sure you can deliver enough current to the product. You'll need both a 6-pin and 8-pin PEG connector coming from your power supply. The card will be fed 75 Watts though the PCIe slot, 75 Watts over the 6-pin PEG and then another 150 Watts can be draw from the 8-pin PEG connector. That's 300W available, roughly 75W more than needed.

But let's assemble everything and create us a sweet multi-monitor setup now shall we?

Eyefinity Hardware Setup

Alright let's get started. To setup six monitors you'll need a little more than a graphics card alone.

Now let me assure you that FedEx will not be happy when they deliver 'the goods'. It's quite a lot of boxes alright.

So the ingredients for our little experiment are:

• Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 (x2 for CrossfireX)


• Six Dell 1680x105 monitors


• Monitor mounting frame (EdBak)


• Six sets of power cables


• Six sets of Display Port to Mini-Display port cables


• A lot of time ...

To be able to create an Eyefinity cluster of monitors all you need to do is hook them up to your graphics card, but sure ... how do you stack the monitors if you have six of them ?

Well that can be answered real quickly, you can make a frame, or preferably order a frame with VESA mounts for your monitor. Ours comes from Edbak, a company on Poland. Not cheap, but definitely more handy and good looking. Also, nothing about this project can be considered cheap anyway. you might as well do it right.

I already figured this would be a painstaking time consuming processes; and since there's nothing easier to tick off the girlfriend I left the office and brought the entire kit home to setup and play games on in spare time in the evenings.

Once we assembled and secure the frame we can already see a where this is heading. Yes indeed .. a very ticked off GF. Okay it's time to start mounting the monitors to do this we need to remove four screws for VESA mounting.

You see the square? In each of the four corners are four screws for the VESA mount, we remove them to be able to mount them on the hexagon mount based monitor frame.

Now this is a painstakingly slow processes and really a two man job. Once all monitors are mounted and roughly aligned well it's time to think about cable management. Six monitors each with one display port cable and one power cable. Yep -- that's twelve cables and a GF looking even more irritated (you know the look with two eye-browses lifted).

Line up your monitors and things start to take shape. Now I expect that 99% of you will go with three monitors positions horizontally (Landscape) as six is a little extravagant. But heck, we like extravagant, excessive? Bring it on!

Make sure the bezel of the monitors are very close to each other.

With the monitors lined up we can go into the next phase. It's time to plug in and power up the gear now. We insert the six display port connectors, don't worry about what cable goes to what connector, We can properly align monitors with the Catalyst software in a very easy manner.

We now install Catalyst 10.3 or higher and bingo .. we got a nice desktop wallpaper greeting us -- phew -- at least one monitor is giving proper image. It's now time for the software configurations as all the monitors need to be enabled and obviously aligned and positioned.

Eyefinity Software Setup

Once you boot into windows, install the latest Catalyst drivers (10.3 or higher mandatory) after which you'll need to restart.. Once you are in the OS, start up the Catalyst control suite -- ours, I'm afraid, is in Dutch.

You'll now spot a plethora of monitors, six of them. Click on the active monitor and left click on the monitors in the middle and select "Make Group".

You'll be asked to specify your group preference, we have six monitors and select 3x2 Landscape display mode. After your monitors go active you'll notice that all screens are scrambled through each other like a jigsaw puzzle. We need to sort that out, and luckily ATI solved that in a really easy to work with method.

We are going to arrange the screens corresponding to the image wee se above us. ATI did this really clever.

To arrange the displays in your group there is no need to physically move or re-wire your displays. A wizard is provided to arrange the display surfaces included in your Display Group.

The wizard will output a blue screen on one of the six monitors in the group. Now at the upper screenshot you simply select which screen is blue. Click on the corresponding cell in the CCC UI to the one that is highlighted. After you have finished the sequence you'll have a somewhat bigger resolution alright.

But we are not there yet though.

We now have six monitors, yet will need to think about something else. The monitor bezel can create a distortion. At catalyst 10.3 there now is a Bezel correction feature.

Especially if your monitors have thick bezels, or displays of differing bezel thickness, Catalyst Control Center now lets you compensate through a fairly easy to use tool/sequence. Lets take a look at that.

Here we are compensating the six screens displays, as you can see the bezel divides a yellow triangle in two monitors. By clicking with your mouse on the controls on the right you adjust to compensate for bezel thickness.

Here you can see what that looks like on six displays; the bezel divides the yellow triangle. Using the controls on the right you adjust to compensate for bezel thickness.

Last note; ATI's Catalyst 10.3 also has support for multiple groups and fast switching between Eyefinity modes.

Right we have the screens all setup and ready to be used.

Performance and test setup

Before we begin actual visual testing, we obviously need to address performance. If you create a multi-monitor setup you need to be aware of the fact that you'll need a beefy graphics card as well.

Let's say you are connecting three 24" monitors with a screen resolution of 1920x1200 and place them horizontally next to each other. Now you will end up with a 5760x1200 pixels screen resolution. That my friends is 6912000 pixels thus nearly 7 Mpixels of resolution that need to be refreshed at least 35 times per second.

With our six monitors in 3x2 Landscape display mode we are pushing the limit further ... over 10.5 MPixels. You understand the dynamics now right?

With modern game titles this immediately already poses a threat to the 5870 as we have increased the load on our graphics card three to five times more than usual. So yes, in the end you should consider and opt CrossfireX if you plan a project like this for gaming with modern titles.

The 10.3 Catalyst drivers and higher have pretty good support for CrossfireX. A lot of games (but not all) are now supported. We'll obviously put that to the test today.

To grasp what we are doing, we recorded video's showing Eyefinity with six monitors setup in Landscape mode.

Since we are using such a high resolution, we should not at all be too CPU bound and to demonstrate this very point I've been evangelizing I will use a mid-range system (with exception of the graphics cards) made out of the following items:

Hardware:

• Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 2048MB x2


• MSI AMD 790FX motherboard


• Phenom II 955BE Processor @ 3400 MHz


• 2x2GB DDR3 memory 1066 MHz


• Samsung 500 GB HDD


• Dell P2210 (x6)

Software:

• Windows Vista 64-bit SP2


• DirectX 9/10 End User Runtime


• ATI Catalyst 10.3 beta

So yes really dog ... that's all we'll be using. A very affordable PC, remember we are GPU bound at a massive resolution of 5040x2100, not rather CPU or system bound.

So how does that relate to graphics performance you might wonder? Well, let's have a look at the frame rates of some of the tiles we are testing today, both on Single GPU and Multi-GPU setup.

Now we could measure performance of the card at normal resolutions like 1600x1200 etc and compare with other cards of course. But really, it's the six monitor double whammy performance everybody is after, so we'll focus only on that.

Results are a bit of a mixed bag, with two cards you'll definitely have enough horsepower under the hood to play most of your games at decent frame rates and very good image quality settings.

In all the games above we have maximized image quality except for AA levels which we selected and altered manually to compensate the overall framerate. Though at 5040x2100, you really do not have a real need for Anti Aliasing whatsoever, my man.

All games scaled with the two R5870 Eyefinity6 cards setup in CrossfireX, except for whatever reason Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 was jinxed, we could not get it active with two GPU, we even tried renaming the executable. Ah well. With on card we still get near 40 FPS with 4xAA, perfectly fine.

As you can see, with some AA activated a single R5870 Eyefinity6 quickly runs out of juice unless you fiddle around with image quality of course. Anyway, the numbers are a little dry to look at, but they already show that we should get very decent performance. Let's watch some video's !

Eyefinity6 Video examples

In the following video's we'll be showing you a high-def recording of a couple of applications and games. This method, we feel, will get you a better idea of what you can expect, what's hot and what's not.

In the examples below we opted to show you some games with and also without Bezel management. Bare in mind you can choose your preference (if the game will allow a custom resolution (bezel managed)).

Ehm .. Productivity mode?

Now you could also use the screens in work environments for presentations, information boards like you see at the airport and really a multitude of choices and options come to mind.

But you and me as couch potato know that the RV870 GPUs empowering the Radeon HD 5870 cards have plenty of raw Video processing power to to some wicked stuff. Check out the chill video.

So here we have four 1080P video streams while I'm browsing the web, do a little Photoshop, I could work a little of course as well. Mind you that we are still using that mid-range Phenom II system okay? Now obviously of you reproduce this at home for similar reasons like shown in the video .. then you are spoiled my man. But this is fun, really a lot of fun.

Okay, what you guys want to see are games I guess ...

Resident Evil 5

Here we have Resident Evil 5 -- we show the benchmark as it's a nice way to show you performance with the actual readable framerate on screen. For RE5 we have not enabled Bezel management which immediately looks distorted. We are playing in a native 5040x2100 resolution. As you can see at roughly 60-'ish frames per second we have nothing to worry about, the game will be absolutely playable.

Batman Arkham Asylum

In Batman Arkham Asylum we show the a part of the intro sequence. The video camera was not properly configured though, hence the blown overexposure. Still, a good and very playable game with six screens. We have Bezel correction activated meaning we work in a customized resolution. Batman Arkham Asylum is a nice title for Eyefinity with six monitors.

Unigine Heaven Benchmark

The heaven benchmark actually is a DX11 title. For whatever reason it would not run in DX11 mode in Vista, despite DirectX being updated to the latest build. So you are looking at the 3D Engine rendering 5kx2k in DX9 for a change. Overall performance was above the 20 FPS, but as you can see .. the benchmark is struggling, it is just sooo heavy on the GPUs (which it is designed for). Great to look at, with Eyefinit though. Very impressive. AA is disabled. Bezel correction is applied, and that certainly looks good.

Half Life 2 EP1

Well we couldn't leave it out now could we?. HL2 is once again a nice example of where Eyefinity with six monitors works really well. With the 3D engine aging feel free to flick on hefty AA levels and the game will still produce awesome numbers. With 8xMSAA we still averaged out at 80 frames per second. Have a look at how rusty I have gotten where ol Hilbert used to be the l33t king Gordon!

Anno 1404

One of the games a played till I dropped was Anno 1404. RTS games work really well with so many monitors. You are not hindered by the Bezel that much (bezel correction was off btw). Overall, framerates were quite okay. This title was however limited by the Phenom II X4 955 BE processor. More screens equals more components and objects to deal with in this RTS and that requires a lot of horsepower. Still as you'll notice, the frame rates are fairy okay, even with big cities. An excellent title for Eyefinity with six monitors. Check it out.

Battlefield Bad Company 2

What a great game title this is. Check out the video. We have totally fine framerates and the game is very playable. Bezel correction is active here as you can see. Now here's where Eyefinity with six monitors disappoints, in the center middle of your screen, the crosshair and thus your focus is located. Here the Bezel creates a gap, and that is just annoying.

Your only option then is to disable Bezel management, but then the crosshair is split over two screens. s

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2

VERY impressive, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is looking great on Eyefinity. But much like Battlefield, the crosshair in the middle is smack down bull's-eye under the bezel. Absolutely annoying. The game itself obviously runs great, even at such an uber resolution. This was the one title that would not work properly in CrossfireX. But a single card at the highest settings with 4xAA still manages to produce an average framerate of roughly 40 FPS in this resolution.

Final words and conclusion

Man ... good times, that was fun gear to play around with! Well, it's time to wrap up things and have a look at the good and the not so good. Eyefinity6 works , you know what ? Rephrase -- it actually works really well. The recent driver changes allow you to combine six monitor output in combo with the sheer power of multiple GPUs (CrossfireX) and what was very important, Bezel correction.

When we touch the topic of CrossfireX, then we have to say this, you are probably going to need two cards if you want to play modern age games in a 5kx2k resolution, as yes .. we are gaming with a resolution at a freakishly 10.5 MPixels, and that's roughly five times more than your average 1920x1200 monitor. Overall performance with the help of Crossfire was with the most modern titles not super, but good enough. With older games you certainly can flick on nice AA levels as well.

Now I have to admit, from ground up, Eyefinity with six monitors has been thought through well. You create your preferred setup, install catalyst drivers, sort your screens and alternatively correct Bezel management. I really have to give props here to ATI's driver team for doing a superb job done there as it works well, a very proper implementation.

Overall from a productivity or entertainment point of view the 3x2 monitors functions really well, it's certainly the biggest desktop I have ever worked with. It's kind of like having your own command center at home, with each screen showing relevant information.

What about gaming then? Well, truth is that gaming wise the setup is a heck of a lot of fun, but the reality also remains that with most first person shooters, the Bezel in the middle poses to be a cruel issue. Exactly at the location of the crosshair (aiming cross) there's two Bezels from the upper and lower monitor and I just could not get over that or even slightly used to it. This however is a limitation for first person shooters.

Your solve, find monitors with very thin Bezels, use three monitors instead of six, or alternatively perhaps ATI will ever invent a nine monitor setup, which should solve that issue as well, hehe ...

Non first person shooters will mostly work the best. Take for example Anno 1404, what an incredible field of view are you getting in return. I foresee that Eyefinity6 could be very interesting for Flight simulator fans as well, or race fans would definitely love this all as well. In the end though, as good as the technology really is, the biggest annoyance will remain the monitor Bezels, you either dislike them, or can life with them. There's no middle way. So when you even remotely opt this kind of setup, make sure your monitors have the thinnest Bezels possible. For you as a gamer I'd seriously recommend three monitors over six really.

Bezel aside, make no mistake: you'll play your games much more immersive as you'll have so much screen resolution to work with. The experience of playing games, in our case with three to six screens is simply put fantastic, the first minutes you'll feel a little confusion as your brain actually needs to process so much information it can hardly keep up. Once you get used to it (few minutes really) the 'wow' factor kicks in and the experience is just lovely.

On the productivity and corporate side of things, Eyefinity6 is the best thing ever; relatively cheap to purchase with endless amounts of options and configurations. For an end consumer the frame, six monitors, R5870 Eyefinity6 card(s) and power bill alone simply is at the very least trivial to even consider.

So there you have it, The Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 is obviously not for everybody and honestly .. I'd prefer to have you look into a phat DLP or projector if you need to game on a very big screen. You could also opt to go with 3 bigger monitors at say 1920x1200 each. Either that or seek monitors with a extremely thin Bezel. Regardless of that fact, Eyefinity6 does guarantee a lot of e-peen, great x-factor and a whole lot of fun in unprecedented resolutions, it is a pleasure to play around with. Ohh oooh ... what about six projectors on one huge screen

Should you still have questions, ATI created an information page on Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 right here, the Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 edition cards will sell at an MSRP of 475 USD which really is a fair price for something so exclusive.