Today's Hard|Forum Post
Today's Hard|Forum Post
Date:
Tuesday , July 20, 2010
Author:
Brent Justice
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
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NVIDIA Surround Technology Performance Review

NVIDIA’s new multi-display Surround Technology is put to the test with GeForce GTX 480 SLI video cards in 3x1 Surround mode. We compare directly to AMD’s Eyefinity technology and the same three displays with 2GB Eyefinity6 HD 5870 CrossFireX and 1GB HD 5870 CrossFireX.

Introduction

If you are not familiar with NVIDIA Surround technology and 3D Vision Surround you first need to take a look at our experiences here. There we have described what this new technology from NVIDIA is. There are actually two parts to NVIDIA’s new Surround technology, that is the plain Jane 2D aspect which directly competes with AMD’s Eyefinity technology, and then there is the 3D Vision Surround aspect which is more complex and right now has no competition from AMD.

This evaluation’s focus is on NVIDIA's Surround Technology supporting multi-display gaming and its performance versus AMD’s Eyefinity all using identical 3x1 Landscape configurations. This will give you an idea how GTX 480 SLI stacks up to 2GB and 1GB HD 5870 CrossFireX in 3x1 gaming at 5760x1200 resolution. We will have a separate performance evaluation on 3D Vision Surround gaming coming up soon as well as articles covering GTX 460 SLI and GTX 470 SLI 3x1 performance.

NVIDIA Surround Technology

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In NVIDIA Surround three displays are supported up to 2560x1600 resolution on each display, the same as AMD’s Eyefinity, although Eyefinity can currently support up to six displays at 2560x1600 each. For our evaluation we’ll be using Dell 2408WFP displays, which means our maximum resolution (without bezel correction) is 5760x1200 in Surround and Eyefinity mode. Alternate Frame Rendering (AFR) is used. The crutch with NVIDIA’s technology is that SLI is required to use Surround mode right now due to connector limitations. AMD Eyefinity supports all three displays (2 DVI and one DisplayPort) with a single video card. Our testing today will be done with dual cards, so we will be using SLI and CrossFireX for the best possible performance from both sides.

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Configuring each system is really quite easy. Installing GTX 480 SLI and HD 5870 CrossFireX requires bridges across the top, the proper power connectors and then plugging in the displays. With GTX 480 SLI we can use three DVI connectors. With Eyefinity6 HD 5870 we have to use three MiniDP to DP adapters for all three displays. For the regular 1GB HD 5870 we can use two DVI connectors and one full size DP connector. There really isn’t much to the hardware configuration, and the software setup is also very easy.

I truly find AMD’s setup process a bit easier in the software. To position the displays in the right order in Catalyst Control Center the displays light up blue and you just click on where the blue display is lit up in the software and it arranges them automatically. In the NVIDIA ForceWare software you have to manually move the displays around, and it took me a minute before I realized that I could do this in the menu I was at. I sat there for a minute trying to figure out how to get them in the right order before I thought to myself: "well what if I just try to move them here in this dialog menu" and that worked. Both CCC and ForceWare allow you to set bezel correction, but for out testing today we are not using it.

(Editor's Note: In NVIDIA Surround configuration software, if you click the "identify displays" button, then arrange the displays in the same order as on your desktop; is all you need to do. Very simple, but it is not as intuitive as AMD's multi-display configuration application. Overall though, I find NVIDIA's Surround install experience to be more polished.)