Solved display port or DVI?

[HAVOC]

I just bought a new display that has DVI, display port and VGA. I'm looking at getting an EVGA GTX980 which has DVI and display port. What would be a better choice? The display is 1920x1080 at 60Hz.

 

[Layback Bear]

Check and see if that card and monitor has a HDMI ports.

HDMI work very well with 1920x1080 at 60Hz.

 

[HAVOC]

The display only has VGA, DVI and display port. It's a Dell E2715H.

 

[Layback Bear]

Then I would use the DVI port on the display. DVI to DVI.

What do you use for audio?

 

[HAVOC]

Creative 5.1 surround plugged into the onboard sound of my motherboard.

 

[logicearth]

DVI, HDMI, Displayport. Does not matter pick what is easiest and readily available. Especially at that resolution all video connections will work fine, even VGA.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
I believe the point is you can use both = multiple monitors
You'll wonder how you lived without using two monitors so long
Also I believe dvi supports sound if the monitor has built in speakers
vga does not
Picture quality does not matter that is up to the monitor.

 

[AddRAM]

DVI doesn`t support audio Mike. (natively without any adapters etc)

Nice monitor Havoc.

Dell 27 Monitor

Use the DVI cable that comes with the monitor for now Havoc, buy a DP cable if you want, I never really noticed the difference on a monitor smaller then 27"

FAQs - DisplayPort

 

[HAVOC]

You'll wonder how you lived without using two monitors so long

I've been using three 22" displays for a long time now, but after tearing my computer apart to build a new one I've been left with one display. The 27" Dell I just bought doesn't have built in speakers. I wanted a 27" display that had no extra "options" such as built in speakers, USB hubs, card readers and the like. Just a plain display. I'll be ordering two more 27" displays shortly to complete my setup. My monitor arm will support up to three 27"/28" displays. I think 28" is pushing it.

Seeing that I have to remove all the DVI cables so I can buy longer ones (I don't want use extensions) I'd ask if display port was a better option.

What I like about the new Dell display is that it's about two inches thinner, the power and menu buttons are "in" the bezel unlike the E2210. With the E2210 bezels touching each other in a multiple display setup, the buttons would get "stuck" sometimes.

 

[dsperber]

I just bought a new display that has DVI, display port and VGA. I'm looking at getting an EVGA GTX980 which has DVI and display port. What would be a better choice? The display is 1920x1080 at 60Hz.

You don't want to use VGA.

You want to use DVI or DP, but in this case with your monitor only providing 1920x1080 and since you have your own external sound system (through the sound card) and don't need to provide audio to the speakers in the monitor, there's no matter which one you use. DVI or DP will provide identical digital performance for video on this monitor. If you'd needed audio to the monitor you would have HAD to use the DP approach since DVI doesn't carry audio but DP does.

Sometimes, with higher resolution monitors there might be a limitation in supported resolution depending on DVI or HDMI or DP, with DP typically being the advanced connection method that supports higher resolutions (and also possible configurations with "daisy-chained" multiple monitors). But in the case of your E2715H there's zero difference between DVI and DP.

If the monitor arrives with a DVI->DVI cable, just use it, as your GTX980 supports it. If not, go with whichever cable you want. Zero difference, DVI or DP for this monitor.

 

[HAVOC]

Ok. Looking at the GTX980. It has three display ports on the card. I'll be using three cards in tri-SLI.

Would it be better to have one 980 drive three displays or have a single card drive a single display? This is how I had my tri-SLI GTX580's, one DVI cable went from one card to one display. But with the amount of display ports on the 980 would I see any benefit one way or the other?

I'm just trying to see what would be a better choice as I'd like to do my cable buying and cable management once.

 

[dsperber]

Ok. Looking at the GTX980. It has three display ports on the card. I'll be using three cards in tri-SLI.

Would it be better to have one 980 drive three displays or have a single card drive a single display?

You're asking if three cards in SLI mode, one display per card, is "better" (for performance?) than one card driving three displays?

These are very expensive cards, so you're prepared to buy three of them instead of just one?

And they take two 6-pin PCIe power connections each. Do you have a PSU that is large enough and has sufficient PCIe connectors to support SIX of these cables going to three cards (two cables each)?

With three cards that's a lot of electricity to consider and pay for, and a lot of fan noise, and a lot of heat... no?

I'm not a gamer, I've never had a video card this powerful, and I've never run in SLI mode. I am a simple person, and simply drive two displays from my single video card. Two monitors is sufficient for my needs, as is one card to drive both. Sure, it's not as "hot" as two cards in SLI, but I don't need that kind of performance.

Your best advice will probably come from someone else, after you describe your real performance desires. But the 980 is considerably more card than the 580, so with 4GB of memory it might well provide sufficient much stronger performance in one single card driving three displays, at considerable power savings over three 580's.

I'm honestly not really qualified to comment.

 

[AddRAM]

1 card drives all the monitors

Just connect all the cards together in sli.

Apparently Havoc has enough money to shake a stick at

 

[dsperber]

1 card drives all the monitors

Just connect all the cards together in sli.

I'd like to know more about SLI configuration (although I'll never use it myself).

He says his current 580 setup (with three cards, in tri-SLI mode) has one display per card.

Sure, the new 980 card has three DP connectors available, so it could talk to three displays at once... even if it were the only card in the machine.

But if he had three 980 cards, could he not also do the same thing he does with the 580... namely have one cable per card going to a display? Or are the additional two 980 cards "slaved" to the primary 980 via SLI cabling for additional horsepower, and the primary 980 then just has all three monitors connected to its three DP connectors (with no monitor connected to either of the other two slave 980's)?

Are these two valid but different connection options to choose between, either of which can be used and still support three monitors with three cards? And if so, does either approach provide better performance, or is it really identical?

 

[Indianatone]

Scalable Link Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This should answer your question. SLI is similar to crossfire combining the cards for a better video performance.
Display port is capable of higher resolutions so be careful that the highest resolution of the monitor is only available with a display port. Many 30" and above monitors this is the case.

DisplayPort - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[HAVOC]

The 980's will be used with the SLI bridge installed. When I had my 580's I was having weird issues with only two cards and three displays. The only way to get rid of the issues was to add another card for tri-SLI. I'm just wondering if I would see an increase/decrease in performance between the two connection methods (DVI or DP). I'm leaning towards using a DVI cable between each card and each display so I don't run into the same issues as the 580's. The max resolution of my display is 1920x1080 so I'm thinking DVI is adequate.

 

[AddRAM]

That`s defeating the whole purpose of using SLI, you want the combined power of all the graphics cards capabilities coming out of just 1 card, that`s what sli and crossfire does.

There is no sense in buying 3 expensive cards and hooking up 1 monitor to each, you can do the same thing with 1 card.

You were already told, DVI or DP there is no performance difference on small monitors.

You guys should really start reading up on sli and crossfire

SLI | FAQ | GeForce

Go ahead run a graphics benchmark with just 1 card and check the FPS, now connect a 2nd card in sli and run the test again, your FPS (frames per second) will double, if not triple.

We all run Heaven on the Extreme setting.

https://unigine.com/products/heaven/

http://www.sevenforums.com/benchmarks/223272-show-us-your-unigine-heaven-benchmark-scores.html

With 3 980`s you should easily go to the top of the list. (also depends on your cpu)

If you game across all 3 monitors, all 3 should be hooked up to the same card, if not, only the monitor hooked up to the top card will take advantage of sli.

This is pulled right from Indiantone`s link:

" All graphics cards are given an equal workload to render, but the final output of each card is sent to the master card via a connector called the SLI Bridge."

I hope this puts this topic to rest.

 

[Layback Bear]

My understanding DVI, Display Port or HDMI at 1920x1080 video will all be the same. With Display Port you can go higher than 1920x1080 if your video card and displays are capable.

What I'm I not understanding?

 

[AddRAM]

Seems like you understand perfectly Jack

You get a cookie

 

[HAVOC]

The reason why I had a single card connected a single display with my 580's is that I only had a DVI connection on the Dell display. I needed three cards because I had issues with nVidia surround and the only way I was able to fix it was to install another card. If i enabled SLI one display would shut off. If I disabled it the three displays would work but not be in the position I had them (Left/Center/Right). The left and center displays were connected to the first card and those were the displays that had the most issues. The video cards were fine as I've changed the slots they were in a couple times.

I also used the nVidia surround configuration tool and it didn't help.