Over at Develop3D, they got the scoop on Dassault System’s use of new ATI FirePro V9800 cards that supports the 6-way EyeFinity, and find that it actually works pretty well.  I have to admit, I had to wonder if a single card has the necessary horsepower to push 6 monitors with any decent framerate.  I’m not the only one.

Of course the practice of using a single graphics card to drive multiple monitors also has its critics. AMD rival Nvidia, who can currently only support two monitors with one of its Quadro graphics cards, says that there is not enough 3D performance in a single card to drive high-res powerwalls effectively.

This is a claim refuted by AMD, who explained that the card is already in use at a number of customer sites and there has been positive feedback. Dassault Systèmes, for example, has been testing Catia V5 and V6 with an ATI FirePro V9800 and has reported that performance is still very good after switching from one to six HD resolution screens.

ATI claims a 10% performance penalty when driving 4 monitors, and an adidtional 10% when driving 6.  That seems a bit low to me, as that’s a lot of pixels to push on each frame.  However, they may be simply exploiting popular shortcuts, as typically the 2 screens in the center will hold the bulk of the geometry (The user’s natural tendency to put the main focus front and center), with the remaining 4 screens only partially used.  In the example shown above, the upper-left and lower-right screens are nearly unused.

Of course, there is also the question of resolution.  They say “6 HD screens”, but HD could be 1280×720 or 1920×1080.  I run my big screens at 2560×1600, can this run 6 of those in a timely manner?  I honestly don’t know.

via DEVELOP3D blog – AMD drives six HD monitors from a single ATI FirePro V9800 graphics card. via FireUser