[quote] - Display Port being a MUST to triple screen game ( how many Gamers have a monitor with DP, not too many, and only the newer Dell's and HP have that connection, which are rather pricey displays, so all the good priced monitors or us with old monitors are left out ? )
As I've said, DisplayPort is the enabler to this technology, its not feasible to offer it as a "no extra cost" value add feature without it.
I don't think anyone here is asking for ATi to do a "no extra cost" value add feature. I think what most of us are saying is that there should be some variation of the card that does away with DP and uses all DP+ that we'll happily pay the premium for over having to deal with active adapter costs. Would DP+ port not cost us less than a bunch of active adapters? With that in mind, is the architecture capable of 6 DP+ ports on the 6 mini-dp card? For the 6-port card to be the most flexible card targeted at multi-display users, ATI is setting the requirements out of reach of most everyone by not going DP+. This either forces people to purchase multiple active adapters or multiple DP displays. DP simply has almost zero market saturation at this point making this requirement a bit unfeasible for most that would be interested in this card. There is a pre-established market for EyeFinity and it's not currently properly targeting it. EyeFinity should set the bar low enough to allow it to gain acceptance and the DP requirement is an impediment to that, especially if DP+ could be used for a marginal increase in cost.
How much price difference is there in the manufacture of a DP port vs a DP+ port? One would not think it was equal to the price of a $100 active adapter or for that matter 1/10th the price. I'm not getting the economics here as far as a card like the 6-port can't have all DP+ electrical port outs?
While you're coming at this from the larger picture and as a manufacturer, those of us here come at it from the perspective as the established surround-screen gaming community that simply doesn't have any market saturation at all of DP based products. There seems to be a lack of marketing research that was done when looking into the EyeFinity target market. You openly admit only just a few days ago even finding WSGF, which has had a focus on this type of technology for years now. I'd say almost 100% of the WSGF is DVI/HDMI based multi-display. The lack of DP+ and the adapter issue is making what would otherwise be a wonderful new tech and putting roadblocks in place for acceptance. By only using DP, ATI is passing the buck as far as user expense to all of us who will have to now go track down active adapters.
In order to gain wider acceptance I think most of us would be willing to pay a price premium for DP+ based cards. A price premium built into the card for DP+ is significantly less than hiding the cost and passing it onto the consumer via active adapter price premium.