One of the newest technologies to come out of the new 5000 series video cards from ATI is their Eyefinity Technology. This technology allows for the use of up to 3 monitors on a single video card for panoramic viewing. This can give you up to an incredible 5760 x 1080 resolution while in landscape mode or 1920 x 3240 in portrait mode.

You can even mix and match your displays

There has been a lot of sales hype that has been written about Eyefinity, but not a lot of technical information and usually you have to peruse the technical forums to find out the information needed before embarking on using Eyefinity. This is why we created this page, to give you the technical information that we have gathered, since some of the information was left out from ATI/AMD.

1. Myth: You can connect three monitors to a 5000 series card and it will work with no issues!

FACT: There are 4 ports on the 5000 series cards (some of the 5670's have three - DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort) 2 DVI, 1 HDMI, 1 Display Port. You can connect them to three monitors and here are the scenarios:

DVI / DVI / DisplayPort
DVI/ HDMI / Display Port

One monitor MUST either have a DisplayPort input on the monitor (There is one HP, one Dell, and one Samsung as of 1/16/10) or you must use an ACTIVE DisplayPort Adapter. This is an adapter that has extra power to it for frequency management (usually by way of a USB cable). As of late the only locations to get one is Amazon.com and Dell. The cost is $100 for the adapter.

AN INEXPENSIVE PASSIVE ADAPTER WILL NOT WORK!

2. Myth: In CrossFireX, with two video cards, I can run 6 monitors at a time!

FACT: Sorry guys, that is false. CrossfireX will only allow for 3 monitors as all your processing power is sent to the primary card. Naturally, if you have two video cards in your system and not CrossfireX, you can drive 6 monitors under Windows Desktop Extended mode, but it isn't stretched, it is just more real estate.

3. Myth: All games look great in Eyefinity

FACT: Well not really. The key is games that allow for non-specific ratios (outside of the 1440x900/1680x1050/1920x1080 standard widescreen resolutions). A list of games is here with more being added with patches. Fortunately, games like World of Warcraft, Half Life 2, Left 4 Dead (1 and 2), HAWX, Need for Speed: Shift have been validated, and games like Bioshock, Crysis, and STALKER are Eyefinity Ready.

4. Myth: All 5000 series cards can do Eyefinity at max resolution

FACT: The 5670 card can do 1680 x 1050 across three monitors, but is real crappy when pushed beyond that. Additionally, the 512MB version of the 5670 card is not CrossfireX capable. This is why Wicked Machines only handles the 1GB version of this card as it's base card.

If you are looking to expand your gaming realm with Eyefinity, come to the guys who have it figured out, Wicked Machines.

Oh, you will notice in the top photo three monitors on a single stand. We have the option for that particular stand available on our triple monitor packages.