Testing Mixed-Resolution AMD Eyefinity: 6400×1080

Final Thoughts

AMD’s 6400 x 1080 resolution looks absolutely fantastic in modern DX11 titles. The extra real estate over a single monitor set-up is just mind-blowing and even over a 5760 x 1080 set-up the extra real estate is useful. This is because you get more real-estate in the central display area which normally contains the important things (like the HUD, any subtitles, the cross-hair, etc.) so it feels less restrictive having more space at the centre in between the bezels. For some people the bezels on the monitors are always going to be an issue so as a result we advise any users thinking about this set up to choose their displays carefully, make sure you know what the bezels and stands are like (tilt/swivel/rotation etc.) before you buy. Since 2560 x 1080 monitors have come out the main downside for me has been that you can only really have one. Having three 2560 x 1080 monitors in Eyefinity would be ridiculous in terms of the width of the set-up, you’d have to sit so far back just to see everything, so once you’ve purchased one there’s no real scope to expand your display set-up without replacing it. However, now you can use them with standard 1080p monitors on either side and it gives a much more immersive experience for gaming.

In terms of what it takes to run this 6400 x 1080 resolution we were pleasantly surprised. The XFX R9 290X Double Dissipation 4GB graphics card we used ripped through all the games at medium settings with 60FPS or more with no issues whatsoever, at high most games were a breeze, easily passing 40-50 FPS, with exception to the GPU-killer Metro Last Light which brought our system to its knees. I feel that you could probably eek out playable frame rates with an AMD R9 280X or AMD R9 290 providing you tweak and tune: overclocking, maybe leaving some post-processing and filtering (like SSAA, MSAA, AA and AF) a little lower to allow you to crank texture quality up and such. I certainly do not feel this set-up is inaccessible either, you can pick up these 29 inch 2560 x 1080 monitors for around £250-350, while a couple of 23 inch 1080p panels will probably set you back about £200-250. If you wanted something cheaper you could opt for a 27 inch 2560 x 1080 variant and go with 22 inch 1080p monitors instead. In terms of GPUs an R9 290X is around £375 or you can pick up an R9 290 for around £275 and close the gap with overclocking, which is very easy and is what I would personally recommend. You would also benefit more from going for a cheaper Core i5 Haswell based system, e.g. based around the Core i5 4690K, than using an LGA 2011 system like we did. That’s because Haswell CPUs have better IPC than LGA 2011 CPUs so perform better in the vast majority of games.

A final point worth mentioning is that this is “AMD Exclusive” technology. Last time I checked (which was at the time of writing) Nvidia Surround does not support mixed resolution set ups in any way, shape or form. If you want to run this kind of set-up you will have to jump ship to Team Red. This is hardly surprising because AMD have always had stronger driver and software support for multi-display technology: AMD Eyefinity is leaps and bounds ahead of Nvidia’s Surround and will be for the forseeable future unless Nvidia changes something drastically and quickly. That certainly isn’t just my opinion, speaking with Club3D last year they told me that AMD’s multi-display technology was one of the many reasons that they ditched Nvidia products to be an AMD-only graphics card partner.

Thank you to AMD for providing the displays that made this content possible.