EyeFinity 6 - not very user friendly.

We got the Eyefinity 6  a couple of months ago, after waiting for it for close to 4 months. Originally the purchaser just saw ATI HD 5870 and not additionally the  Eyefinity 6, so we ended up with a Matrix 3. That had to be sent back and the right one ordered. When it arrived I tried to use it in a couple of my systems but they didn't have enough power to handle it. I had a co-worker test it in his system to ensure it was functional, and was too busy to try it out until now.  We had purchased a 750W power supply for a team member and never put it in a system, so I put it in the GA-EX58-Extreme with 12Gb that I use most often to test 16 monitor configs. We even changed the casing, because I was having issues putting a pair of M9188's  into the system and I figured I might want to put 2 Eyefinity's so I can use it to compare to the 2 M9188's. Compare is a big word. I'm not comparing performance but seeing how certain things behave in Windows.

Generally I know more about multiple monitor behaviours in Windows then most people, with the exception of the engineers I work/ed with. I know it from NT 4.0 to Windows 7...  But there are issues I've stumbled across in our WDDM drivers in 'stretched' desktop that I have no basis in comparison with anything else out there in the field.

To get back to the EyeFinity, I put it in a Dell T7500. It was the only free system I could think of that could handle the power hungry requirements of this card and it's size. I used the same displayport to minidisplayport adapters I use on the M9188 and the same DVI to displayport adapters since I was using all DVI LCD's.  Part of the reason for this is that the Eyefinity 6 comes with 5 adapters. So I figured I'd just use the ones we use. They are pretty standard, or so I thought. They have worked on other displayport ATI and Nvidia products.  

I installed drivers and for the life of me I could not enable more then 2 heads at a time.  I tried more then one driver package. I looked for threads talking about it.  I just found something about passive and active adapters so I think that's my problem. I may not have had that problem had I used the adapters it came with I suppose but the fact it came with 5 when I want to connect 6 already means I need to use at least one other. They provide 2 mini displayport to displayport , 2 DVI to mini displayport and 1 HDMI to mini displayport. So unless you have those exact connections, you have to go out and buy adapters. Does not make it an intuitive product. 

The M9188 comes with 8 mini DP to DP adapters and 8 DVI to displayport adapters. When you connect them to whatever LCD you have they work. The M9188 is NOT power-hungry. If you had 4 PCIe x16 slots like in a Dell T7500, and there were drivers that supported it you could put 4 x M9188 and it would boot.  You don't even need extra power connectors. You'd have 32 heads. But I digress.

I'll continue my experiences with the EyeFinity 6 later today.