I've been reading with more than passing interest the two postings from BlaskhatEspeed about his six monitor setup.
My #1 system is listed in my signature, my #2 system:
ABIT IX48 GT3 w/BIOS 12 (no other versions available - ABIT out of business)
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 cpu
Corsair Hydro Series H80 High Performance Liquid Cooler (CWCH80)
Sapphire Radeon HD6970 2GB GDDR5 PCIe 2.1 X16 video card (two each) connected in CrossfireX Mode (each has two mini-display ports and two DVI connectors)
Samsung SyncMaster225bw (two each)(DVI and VGA)
I used Google to find info about display ports (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort) and found info from AMd about adapters at:
http://support.amd.com/us/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity-dongles.aspx and info about the 1.2 MST:
http://www.club-3d.com/index.php/products/reader.en/product/mst-hub-1-3.htmlWhat I did not find was any info or review about expected or possible improvements in the display itself if the Displsy Ports were used. Google searches provided little info.
I did find many comments about monitors being 'detected' but not 'identified' and that XP could not support more than two monitors even though it could detect more. I found postings about possible software solutions: UltraMon v3.2.2,
DisplayFusion v5.0.1. I found a posting about switching monitor identities:
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=657768 (which requires registry editing). I did come to the conclusion that XP is unable to allow the user to successfully use more than two monitors but Win 7 would display six using AMd's Eyefinity (according to the info on the box and at the AMD web site).
Is it safe to assume then that if the user starts from scratch with a system that has had only one monitor connected (any others connected earlier have been edited out of the registry using the directions mentioned above) then monitor identity numbering would be as follows (if connected to my ASUS Radeon HD7970 DirectCUII 3Gb GDDR5 PCIe 3.0 x16 Video Card: monitor #1 to Display Port #1, m#2 to DP2, m#3 to DP3, m#4 to DP4, m#5 to DVI #1, and m#6 to DVI #2. Not that I have six moniors but I offer this as a possible numbering end result. Obviously Active Adapters would have to be used for a DVI to DP connection; passive adapters can be used for VGA to DP connections. So, I could then theoretically, move my two systems so that they are close enough for the video cabling to be cross-connected such that each system would have four monitors. I am numbering the display ports from 1 to 4, top to bottom as shown on the box and the DVIs are also 1 and 2, top to bottom (the red line is around DP4 and DVI 2).
Lian-Li PC-A77F Full Tower case
PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1200 ATX12V & EPS12V PSU
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme LGA 2011 X79
Intel Core i7-3960X 3.31 LGA 2011 CPU
Intel RTS2011LC Liquid Cooling Solution
Kingston KHX24C11T3K4/32X (quad 32Gb memory kit) 2 each
ASUS Radeon HD7970 DirectCUII 3Gb GDDR5 PCIe 3.0 x16 Video Card (two in CrossfireX Mode)
Western Digital Cavier Black 2Tb SATA III 6.0GB/S
OCZ Technologies Vertex 4 SATAIII 6Gb/s 512Gb SSD