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.
Agree. The Eyefinity6 card
must be able to support 6 single link DVI connections via simple passive adaptors. If you want dual link resolutions then you sacrifice two outputs each so you end up with 3 - the same as the current 5870.
It needs to be fully DP+ capable, able to switch each to single link DVI output.
If the 6 card is effectively gimped by the requirement to use active adaptors then the whole fuss of Eyefinity is going to fail...
And, if nVidia is watching and reading and picks up on these requirements for their next card then the current slot at the top for ATI is going to be very short again...
Dave, can you please confirm the DP+ capabilities of the Eyefinity6 card - can it run each output at single link DVI resolutions via passive adaptors...?