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Sapphire HD 6950 1GB + Galaxy MDT 520 1GB

ndsouz

By ndsouz
in Video Cards and Monitors

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ndsouz Newbie

ndsouz

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Hi Guys,

I have a Gigabyte FXA UD5 Motherboard with 16 GB 1333 DDR3 Ram & a Phenom 1100T 3.3 GHZ with a 1200 watt Antec PSU.

My Motherboard has three pci express slot, x16 x16 & x8 and a PCI slot.

I currently have two Sapphire HD 6950 1GB which were on crossfire, but now are un-crossfired and running independently.

My Idea is to have my main 30 inch monitor connected to the first HD 6950 for video, surfing, Music, Movies & Games.
And have four 22 inch monitors connected to my second HD 6950 for running stock charts across split screen.

I thought that it will work all five monitors like this, running both cards independently, but its not working that way.
The ATI-AMD or Catalyst software is not letting me run 5 monitors even with both cards independent (not crossfire)
I can only run four.

I bought two vertical dual monitor stands, thinking i may be able to place two monitors vertically on the left side of my 27inch and two vertically on the right side.
But now I'm only able to run the two monitors vertically on the right side, my 30inch on the center and one 22inch on the left side, with the top left monitor not working.

Because ATI doesn't seem to support five monitors, I thought maybe it will work with six monitors.
So, I removed the 22inch monitor from my second PC & connected it to my card (once on the top card and once on the bottom)

But it seems Sapphire 6950 1GB won't go over four monitors even with two cards running Independently, 5 monitor and 6 monitors don't run at all.

Since I spent so much on four monitors, two vertical monitors stands & additionally two active display port adapters (DP 1.2 to DVI) That's over $852 USD + for all this and now i can't get it to work the way i want as cards are not letting me run more than four monitors.

As a last stand now to get all five working, (Remember i need just discreet or low-profile on the four 22inch , its just to display stock charts and nothing else)
I just made a purchase on ebay for the Galaxy MDT 520 1GB card that has hardware support to run four monitors off four DVI ports.

So I am planning now to remove my second 6950 card and hook the Galaxy Geforce MDT 520 there and connect the four 22inch screens on them.
So maybe ATI cards or Catalyst isnt letting me run four monitors on second card, I'm giving a shot with a NVidia card there.

The cost of the Galaxy card is about $49 i paid and I'm expecting Arrival.

Would anybody be kind enough to say if this will work now? I want to run five monitors independently and seperately off two graphics card.
1st card will be the 6950 1gb for gaming, so its a question of the second card NVIDIA and running four monitors off of that for stock charts.

Links to all my GPU card specs and vendors are here.

Sapphire 6950 1GB --- > SAPPHIRE HD 6950 1GB GDDR5

Galaxy MDT 520 1GB --- > product

Regards,
Nick from Mumbai in India
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JBags Newbie

JBags

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you cant run ATi and nvidia cards togther , sorry to ruin your plans.

False. Unless you're running Win Vista.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, ndsouz, I cant help you with why connecting all your monitors to your 6950s didnt work. My first thought was that you werent using DisplayPort adapters as, IIRC, AMD cards only allow for two DVI connections, but you then said you were using active DP adapters so... i dunno. ( I dont have much experience connecting more than 2 monitors, sorry)

 

But that nvidia card should work, especially if it comes with those DMS59->DVI Y adapters.

 

Also, is your mobo a 890FXA UD5? if so, looking at Newegg & gigabyte's website, it has 4 physical pci-e x16 slots (electrical x16, x16, x8*, x4). If this is your board, I'd put the nvidia in the x4 slot (*as the x8 shares bandwidth from the 1st x16 slot) and run your 4 monitors off that, then re-crossfire your 6950s to your 30"

 

EDIT: 790FXA UD5 only has 3 slots, and seems like the one mentioned in OP. In such case the 3rd x8 slot shares bandwidth with the 2nd x16. Not sure if a 6950 would be bottlenecked by a 2.0 x8 slot, if both are kept for Crossfire

Edited by JBags
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ndsouz Newbie

ndsouz

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you cant run ATi and nvidia cards togther , sorry to ruin your plans.

 

Actually I've done extensive research about it and yes Nvidia as well as AMD official forums state that Nvidia and Radeon cards can work together in extended desktop mode only with windows 7 and higher. So I'm ready to take a $50 shot at the Geforce 520 MDT to see if it all works as I intend too.

 

 

you cant run ATi and nvidia cards togther , sorry to ruin your plans.

False. Unless you're running Win Vista.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, ndsouz, I cant help you with why connecting all your monitors to your 6950s didnt work. My first thought was that you werent using DisplayPort adapters as, IIRC, AMD cards only allow for two DVI connections, but you then said you were using active DP adapters so... i dunno. ( I dont have much experience connecting more than 2 monitors, sorry)

 

But that nvidia card should work, especially if it comes with those DMS59->DVI Y adapters.

 

Also, is your mobo a 890FXA UD5? if so, looking at Newegg & gigabyte's website, it has 4 physical pci-e x16 slots (electrical x16, x16, x8*, x4). If this is your board, I'd put the nvidia in the x4 slot (*as the x8 shares bandwidth from the 1st x16 slot) and run your 4 monitors off that, then re-crossfire your 6950s to your 30"

 

EDIT: 790FXA UD5 only has 3 slots, and seems like the one mentioned in OP. In such case the 3rd x8 slot shares bandwidth with the 2nd x16. Not sure if a 6950 would be bottlenecked by a 2.0 x8 slot, if both are kept for Crossfire

 

 

Yesy mobo is a 890FXA UD5 , I don't have any intentions to re-crossfire the cards as the performance I'm getting with a single card is for the time-being more than enough, I'm happy with 40 to 50 fps in games, my monitors a 60hz refresh rate, so I'd like to keep fps down or i experience tearing with over 60fps. Might just keep the second radeon card for the future, when my radeon starts to perform lower in future games.

 

Thank's for the info, I'll re-check which slots are shared with the first one, so I'll put it in the one that's not on sharing.

 

We'll my stuff just arrived from NY to my city, so i should get the doorstep delivery perhaps today or tommorrow and will update if it works out as planned. Or else I've have wasted on a stand, wasted on a 5th monitor, wasted on two DP to DVI adapters and wasted on this new galaxy MDT card. Maybe as last alternative then might have to invest in building a second discreet desktop pc and have the galaxy mdt card installed on a second pc with my four monitors running on that... I have a spare cabinet with 500 watt psu and a dual core amd athlon 2.2ghz with 8 gigs ram, but the motherboard is somewhat in a non-working condition, so maybe will spend a bit more to find a mobo for that. (its a ddr2 mobo)

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ndsouz Newbie

ndsouz

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Run 3 on one card and two on another. Three is the most you'll be able to run from a single regular 6950 card AFAIK.

That was the original idea, but it won't work no matter what combination i try. only four work, it does detect five monitors . But it only lets me run four, i can disable the fourth and enable the fifth to make it the fourth and vice versa from the catalyst software or the windows screen setup. But five monitors together isn't happening. I'm just worried after i upgrade to the geforce if it does this same crap, .... hmm well let me try it first instead of assuming it wont work :)

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ir_cow Newbie

ir_cow

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its news to me that ATi and Nvidia work in the same computer. anyways why dont you get a card that is ment for what you want to do.

 

ATI 100-505532 FirePro 2450 512MB

 

ATI 102-C07001 FirePro 2460

AMD 100-505746 FirePro W600

 

Nvidia has a few also, But i would take custion as Nvidia blocks geforce cards working with Quadros so I would not be supprised it ATi has done the same thing.

Edited by hornybluecow
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ndsouz Newbie

ndsouz

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Just removed my second radeon 6950 and installed the galaxy mdt geforce 520 and YAY! All my five monitors are working just the way i wanted and working independently five screens.

Also my radeon is suddenly working cooler, before with two radeons the temprature was around 60~70 degrees celcius. Now the radeon is about 49~55 celcius and also the geforce mdt works very cool at 30~36 celcius.

 

I'm happy!! :)

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ndsouz Newbie

ndsouz

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okay great. the mdt geforce doesnt go over 40 celcius on load and i have put it on the fourth slot x4 express and the first card is my sapphire 6950 w/ 2 cooling fans and its 44 celcius on idle and 64 on load, previously it was 64 on idle and 80~92 on load. I'm happy :)

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