Best GPU for Matrox TripleHead2Go ???

As the title indicates I'm looking for the best video card setup with 3 22" LCDs running a combined resolution of 4320 x 900 via Matrox TripleHead2Go. A friend of mine want's me to build a computer for her, for gaming and some work as well. After reading up on it abit I've seen some things that would seem to indicate that Crossfire does not work with this, which would indicate either a 4870x2 2gb or a high end NVIDIA SLI setup. She wants to be able to play games such as Assassin's Creed and the new Prince of Persia, as well as use Dreamweaver and Photoshop Elements among other GPU intensive software. That's allot of pixels to push out and obviously will need some good graphics power. I would prefer to go with a single GPU, but I'm wondering how well any single GPU will scale with that resolution.... Any thoughts?


*** the rest of the system will be either a i7 920 or a Phenom II 955 setup - that's basically to be determined by how many hundreds the video card (or cards) costs. ***

Update - after a few hours of searching the intrawebz I have it straight from the horse's mouth (manufacturer of TripleHead2Go) that CrossfireX and the 4800 series are indeed compatible and working with their system. So that means my question now has been simplified to this:

What GPU or combination of them will work best at pumping out a good framerate with 4320 x 900 screen resolution? A pair of 4890 1 GB in CrossfireX looks like the best value, but if that's not going to cut it a dual 4870x2 or dual GTX295 perhaps? I shudder at the heat put out by either of those options, but if that's what it takes.... I can tell her to only game inside a walk-in freezer if necessary. lol Thoughts anyone????

This is a tricky situation, and a decision you must base purely on what games you plan to play at that huge resolution.

In general, for gameplay at high resolutions, the GTX275 will outperform the HD4890 (both single and SLi setups) However, the performance difference is slight, and is application dependent. Perhaps in 70% of games, the GTX275 edges ahead, while the HD4890 picks up the other 30% (again, by slight margins in either direction)

As far as the best scaling option for an SLi/Crossfire setup, that would be dual GTX285s. The reason is simple: two cards in SLi scale better than 4 cards in Crossfire (ala the 4870X2 x 2 in Crossfire)

The heat output is my biggest concern with the dual 2 core ATi setup. That isn't to say the GTX285 doesn't put out a lot of heat, but it isn't as much as a 2 core card like the 4870X2 (which makes sense).

Best advice would be to run 2x GTX285s in SLi if your budget permits, but dual GTX275s will also suffice. If you go with the latter option, that opens up the 2x 4890s in Crossfire as well (based on budget). But, for sheer performance and best scaling, the dual GTX285 package should dominate here.

that is an old review from last year; the current edition does support up to 5400 x 1050 and one of the in-between editions does support 4320 x 900 which is apparently the edition that my friend has. In any case I may end up keeping the PC for myself after building it!!!

so, you can now dedicate one monitor just for the GW radar, the other just for inventory and party window... neat.

Oops, after more research I deleted the original message - you guys are too quick at responding.

Anyway, here's a link to some info:
http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/su...atibility/gxm/

It may be hard to find anything to give you an idea of what sort of GPU power you need to get good frame rates.

Thanks Rahjah - I had considered the 275 and then passed over it in favor of the 4890 (2 of each of course) - then I looked over the 295 but they are too expensive if SLI is required. In honesty I didn't even check out the GTX 285 - I think that may be the best way to go, with the option to add a third one down the road if it actually needs it. I can fit 2 of them into the budget and it appears to be the most powerful solution that is feasible.

I'll put up a prospective build here a little bit later. XD

I'm not sure if you have purchased this or not but unfortunetly guild wars is rendered as vert-.

It crops the vertical component of the screen more and more as the aspect ratio increases and leads to an image that is 'zoomed in' and leaves the field of view a bit off..

If you would like I can post some screenshots for you to have a look over?

As for gpu's the 4GB mars edition of the 295 will most likely be best (no sli). Other than that I would stick with a single card (4870x2 or 295) or the two 4890's.

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When trying to decide you can use 2560x1600 as a half decent measurement of performance (Its very similar to 3842x1024).

2560x1600 (30" monitors) is 4096000 pixels
3842x1024 (3x 19") is 3934208 pixels

5040x1050 (3x 1600x1050) is 5292000

Oh, and make sure you have a dual dvi cable to connect the TH2G device to your PC.

GW is actually both vert- and vert+: it takes out small chunks from the top and bottom, and add small chunks to the side.

My friend has the TH2G setup already, she just doesn't have a PC that can handle it for gaming. I wasn't aware that GW was vert- or vert+, but it doesn't matter since she doesn't play it anyways. :/

Ordered the parts today:

CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 945 3.0ghz (will be OC'd moderately)

Mobo: ASUS M4982 Deluxe

GPU: NVIDIA GEFORCE 275 GTX 896mb x 3 (Yep - Triple SLI Baby!)

RAM: Patriot Viper 8gb DDR2 1066

HDD #1: WD Caviar 750GB with Vista Home Premium 64bit (free upgrade to Win 7 when available)

HDD #2: WD Caviar 250GB with XP Home 32bit

Optical: Samsung Multilayer DVD Burner w/Lightscribe

Card Reader: All in One with Firewire, E-SATA, and USB ports

PSU: Antec 850watts Continuous Power SLI Certified Modular w/94 amps on the +12V rails.

Case: Antec P183 Black (can't wait to see if this effectively dampens the sound as advertised..... should be plenty of noise with 3 high end GPUs and 5 120mm Case Fans XD).

Should be a pretty decent gaming rig with the TH2G (confirmed that it will indeed be running at 5040 x 1050 once she gets a more powerful system). I'll have to run a couple benchmarks on my single LCD (1920 x 1080) and see what kind of insane FPS I get once it's all here and assembled........... one must always test the end product, right? At least for a week or two.....

Well, good luck on the build.

I avoided the whole sli/crossfire thing myself due to heat/airflow. Got the Accelero cooler on my 4870x2, was well worth the cash.

[edit]

You'll probably get quite close to the FPS she will when its all said and done since on your monitor it will most likely need a cpu increase to raise the fps.

I dont know what you mean by vert+, the game crops your vert more and more as you skew the aspect ratio in favour of the horizontal aspect.

Easy way to see it is to hit alt+enter to go into windowed mode and drag it around. It does indeed draw more game on each side as you would hope but it ends up cropping so much of the height that its quite unpleasant imo.

I assume if you took it and skewed it heavily toward height if it would keep displaying more and more up and down.

I've seen quite a few games render similar to this recently and its very dissapointing to see that developers are not implementing proper widescreen support since it is so prevelant these days. They must be hoping that since the change usually isnt so extreme that nobody will notice or complain : /

GW also has game balance to take into account: you can't give people with bigger screens an unfair advantage. having a higher resolution in GW simply makes everything larger, it won't actually display anything more than say, 1024x768.

i tested with my old desktop monitor and my laptop (1680x1050 and 1280x800 respectively). both can display exactly the same amount of game area, but the desktop monitor simply rendered everything larger. the only exception to this is the interface, which actually does help with larger resolutions.

Im sorry but that is not correct.

I took two screenshots to show. First one is 1600x1200, second is 5040x1050.

http://img204.imageshack.us/i/gw001har.jpg/

http://img70.imageshack.us/i/gw002q.jpg/

Even although the game massacres the field of view you do still manage to gain some extra view to the sides although its simply not worth it when so much of the vert aspect has been cropped.

As i said before, quite a few games do this. It makes me sad

so you gain on the sides, and lose out from top to bottom. that's consistent with what i said: it's done to prevent someone with gigantic monitors from gaining an unfair advantage. roughly the same amount of screen area is rendered on both.

with GW I would rather see more top to bottom (aka. "ahead of me") than to the side.... for a shooter, I'd prefer more side to side, but there's not a big difference either way.... the beauty of TH2G is having that wonderful, massive, and immersive surround gaming experience.

Dear christ, that 5040x1050 is silly for GW, lol. You lost so much FoV vertically, and that extra gained on the sides is rather pointless.. lol. That would be handy for a shooter though, I 100% agree Elder.