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    580M Tri-Screen?

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by BlakeE450, Dec 6, 2011.

  1. BlakeE450

    BlakeE450 Notebook Consultant

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    Hello,

    I was wondering why my father's M14x as well as my own (each with a 555M) seems to be able to output to two external screens WHILE still using the internal display still (for a total of three active screens)... but my M17x r3 with a 580M cannot accomplish the same feat.

    I've noticed the same thing with my standard NVidia 580 in my desktop as well.


    Any ideas or info I should know? (Or better, a way to get past this? :p)


    Thanks a ton!
     
    BlakeE450, Dec 6, 2011
    #1
  2. DJFOX

    DJFOX Notebook Enthusiast

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    DJFOX, Dec 8, 2011
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  3. froogle

    froogle Notebook Evangelist

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    A single Nvidia processor can only drive 2 monitors. You need to go Radeon to drive 3. The exception, as Fox pointed out, is if you are using an external device to split a single ultra high rez single across two normal rez devices.

    On the other hand though, I think the full 580 card is basically a dual processor card, so two GPU's on a single card. not sure if that carries across to the 580M as well, but with a single 580 full size card you can indeed drive 3 monitors.
     
    froogle, Dec 8, 2011
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  4. KCETech1

    KCETech1 Notebook Prophet

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    5 or 6 actually. i pump 4 externals by hdmi and laptop screen with a fire pro. alot is how the mfgr implements outputs.
     
    KCETech1, Dec 8, 2011
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  5. froogle

    froogle Notebook Evangelist

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    Well sure, yeah. He was asking about 3 though. You're right of course.
     
    froogle, Dec 8, 2011
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  6. BlakeE450

    BlakeE450 Notebook Consultant

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    Odd... my father says he uses literally nothing special to drive the screens.


    Anyway, going to be looking into one of those to add it to my Chirstmas list!



    Thanks again everyone!


    EDIT:

    I'm interesting in pushing a 120hz 3D signal to these two external displays... could someone point me in the direction of one of these that is able to do so?
     
    BlakeE450, Dec 8, 2011
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  7. froogle

    froogle Notebook Evangelist

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    can I just throw a word of caution in here? Moving up to triple screens is a compromise at the end of the day. You get a much wider view of everything but you will undoubtedly have to reduce detail/quality in almost everything you run. I do a huge amount of triple screen gaming on my desktop, running Crossfire Radeons. You simply can't throw that much data around and not expect to suffer in some areas.

    Just wanted to throw that out there - I remember when i first made the switch I was quite dissapointed. Now I just make the choice each time - quality = 1 screen, immersion and lower quality = 3./
     
    froogle, Dec 8, 2011
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