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CrossFire and Apple 30" LCD

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Pf.Farnsworth

Member
Joined
Jun 24, 2005
After doing some homework on the nvidia forums and other places I have learned that you can indeed run the 30" Apple LCD in SLI mode with 2 7800 GTX's. There were problems with this due to hardware limitations in the 6800 but the 7800 has worked out all the problems and everything works great.

Now what I could not find is why I am asking.

Can you run the Apple 30" LCD in CrossFire mode with 2 ati cards? Keeping in mind that as far as I know ati's CrossFire requiers the two cards to be linked together via DVI to DVI cable in the back. That means that 1 DVI output on each card is taken up. Now the 30" Apple LCD monitor requiers dual DVI. The monitor cord has 2 DVI connectors on the end and needs to have both pluged in to work. Now I guess my question here is since 1 DVI on each card is taken up do you plug one in to one card and the other in to the other card? That is if you can run that monitor on ATI's CrossFire mode period.
 
afaik with the new x1800xt cards you can run an apple 30" screen of just one card - if i remember they have dual link dvi outputs....
 
My quess would be yes you can because the only reson the the cards are linked like that is half the screen is coming on one card and the other coming of the other card. if you plug the apple monitor in both cards thay will work the same, the apply will get half the screen from the dvi at the crossfire card and the other throught the other dvi in the other card. if ou catch my drifft
 
I would think so too. I was wondering if anyone saw any information anywhere about this. I found out the details on the nvidia end pretty fast, multiple users trying to get it to work with sli and how it turned out, forum posts, reviews. But nothing on ATI and crossfire. Crossfire being pretty new I expected it but still. Would be nice to get some information where this was actually tied and not only in theory. I would hate to spend $1200 on 2 cards only to find out it wont the knife doesnt cut the cheese. And I really want to go with ATI and crossfire, ati is great and the impovements they made in crossfire vs sli are nice, I would love to support them but I cant lay down so much money untill I know for sure. Ironicaly one guy on nvidia forums was trying to get his to work with SLI and lost a bunch of money on buying, selling and buying different cards before he figured out that the 6800 didnt cut it but the 7800 did :) He was the gini pig there for the sli folks. But I am to broke to be one so I'll have to wait for someone to try haha
 
Vrykyl said:
afaik with the new x1800xt cards you can run an apple 30" screen of just one card - if i remember they have dual link dvi outputs....

What about the X1800XL? Would this run a apple 30".
 
should, but the million dollar question is will the monitor run on dual card setup with crossfire on and functioning properly.
 
When using a Crossfire card as it is now, X850, X800 you can only come out of one DVI to a monitor. This is info that came straight from ATi. The question was asked because a bunch of my friends and myself run dual monitors. I am not talking about tech support but a product manager.

As far as the Apple...well I just need to get my butt in gear and get one. I have never seen a monitor need two DVI connections to run.

Ohh crap, I just thought about something....the X800, X850 could not run that display...there is a 1600*1200 limit on them. Now the new X1800 cards will use a different system and you will be fine Crossfiring (don't look at me, I did not make the name up) them.

Do you have a pic of the connectors the Apple uses. I am not sure if my wife will let me drop that kind of $ this weekend with X-mas so close.

Also, yes the X1800 will run the Apple display. You cannot tell the difference between a dual link DVI and a single link DVI just by looking at it. The X1800 has two dual links and the 7800 cards have one of each.
 
Highendtoys said:
As far as the Apple...well I just need to get my butt in gear and get one. I have never seen a monitor need two DVI connections to run.

Well this one does. From what I know from reading and talking to apple reps the card sees the 30" panel as 2 seperate smaller panels that make up the total size that is 30".

Sentential said:
Any X1k card has dual-linked DVI ports. This includes even the X1300SE. So the anwser is yes across the board

well we already know it can run on any X1k card. What we don't know is 1. Will it run on 2 of them in crossfire mode. And 2. will the crossfire mode work properly.

Aside from guesses, assumptions and estimates we don't really have any concrete data. No official statement nor any personal accounts of it working.
 
Highendtoys said:
Ohh crap, I just thought about something....the X800, X850 could not run that display...there is a 1600*1200 limit on them. Now the new X1800 cards will use a different system and you will be fine Crossfiring (don't look at me, I did not make the name up) them.

this is actually not true, as i was just playing around on my x800pro and set my resolution (albeit over 2 monitors) to 2560x1024

:eh?:
 
Pf.Farnsworth said:
Well this one does. From what I know from reading and talking to apple reps the card sees the 30" panel as 2 seperate smaller panels that make up the total size that is 30".



well we already know it can run on any X1k card. What we don't know is 1. Will it run on 2 of them in crossfire mode. And 2. will the crossfire mode work properly.

Aside from guesses, assumptions and estimates we don't really have any concrete data. No official statement nor any personal accounts of it working.

I'm pretty sure it will work since one X1K card can run two of them fully.


koontz946 said:
this is actually not true, as i was just playing around on my x800pro and set my resolution (albeit over 2 monitors) to 2560x1024

:eh?:

Really you have 1280x1024 on each monitor.
 
Quailane said:
I'm pretty sure it will work since one X1K card can run two of them fully.

actually that's a fallacy. Thats is comperable to saying one monitor will run on SLI so two monitors will run too, as we know SLI does not support multiple monitors yet (to my knowledge). So no, just because it works on one card does not constitute it will work on two of them nor that crossfire will function.
 
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