AMD Eyefinity

Most users have long known of this multi-monitor technology. Essentially, all AMD graphics cards support Eyefinity, which is the best multi-monitor technology today. It supports up to 6 monitors even in case of single-GPU cards. Although, connecting 6 monitors requires special hubs compatible with Multi-Stream Transport.

But even without a hub any of today's AMD Radeons supports up to 3 monitors in various configurations. For a game to work with Eyefinity, it just needs to support non-standard resolutions and aspect ratios. About 70 games have been tested to support Eyefinity so far, and hundreds of applications are also compatible.

Speaking of the powerful Radeon HD 6990, it should provide at least 30 fps with 3 monitors at 7680x1600 or 5 vertically stacked monitors at 6000x1920 even in demanding games — one thing previously impossible for single graphics cards. Of course, such resolutions are most likely found at exhibitions and similar events, because most users will prefer a projector or a large TV to 5 monitors, because the latter would take just too much space.

The need for efficient cooling (maximum hot air exhaust in particular) forced engineers to change the set of interfaces. One half of the card's bracket is occupied by air exhaust holes, the other half houses one Dual-Link DVI and four mini DisplayPort 1.2 ports. In other words, they provided as many interfaces as possible, given the limited space available.

"But I'll have to get relatively rare and expensive mini DisplayPort adapters, won't I?" you may ask. Not at all, because the bundle includes three: one passive mDP-to-SL-DVI, one active mDP-SL-DVI and one passive mDP-HDMI.

This allows to keep the interface part compact and still allow you to output signal to 4 receivers. Very nice!.

DirectX 11 games

After reading all this theoretical stuff about how powerful Radeon HD 6990 is, you may still wonder if one even need to buy it, because there are only that many demanding games, and even those can decently run on a non-top-end graphics card.

Well, AMD answers that by working with game developers and helping them implement innovations made possible only with DirectX 10 and 11. To name a few (both released and coming): Dragon Age 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Total War: Shogun 2 and DiRT 3.

Dragon Age 2

This title supports AMD Eyefinity, including the new 5x1 portrait mode, AMD CrossFireX and AMD HD3D (requires software from DDD).

Thanks to DirectX 11, the game engine also supports contact hardening shadows, bloom and diffusion depth of field, PN-triangle tessellation and High Definition Ambient Occlusion (HDAO). All that helps image get closer to photorealism.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

The long-anticipated installment of the Deus Ex series should support AMD Eyefinity and native support for AMD HD3D. But we're more interested in DirectX 11 features: diffusion DOF, PN-triangle tessellation for landscape and some other effects to be announced later. Well, they still have enough time to implement all that.

Total War: Shogun 2

This title supports AMD Eyefinity and CrossFireX, as well as DirectX-11-provided advanced DOF, contact hardening shadows and hardware tessellation.

AMD Catalyst 11.4

Traditionally, new hardware is released along with new software. This time AMD updated its Catalyst Control Center.

Considerably changed, the GUI is now task-based and resembles the numerous settings windows of Windows 7. The new interface provides means to quickly add, remove, rotate displays and create Eyefinity display groups. It also provides hints, lists tasks supposedly related to the current and allows to bookmark the most visited pages.

Besides, they have finally added automatic drivers update, although you can disable it completely.

It's interesting that settings now have a different name. The reason is AMD is promoting new brands like VISION, so if you have an all-AMD configuration, you'll see "AMD VISION Engine Control Center". But if you have a different CPU, you'll still be using AMD Catalyst Control Center. Also, users of workstations based on AMD FirePro and AMD FireStream will have "AMD Catalyst Pro Control Center".

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