[quote]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?
Simply put, yes, as it would require an entriely new ASIC specifically for this.
With that in mind, is the architecture capable of 6 DP+ ports on the 6 mini-dp card?
No. Again, its DP that makes this capable, and the architecture behind DP.
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.
You're thinking only in terms of that market. Bear in mind that all previous graphics boards can only drive 2 displays, so
most users will either have one or two panels - for them, adding Eyefinity capabilities means they need to add another display or two anyway.
But what I don't understand is that it has already been shown that a single link DVI output works fine via a passive DP to DVI connection (dazboots had it working).
The diagrams shows that there are 6 tmds units. A dual link dvi output would need two but single link dvi output, hdmi and DP only need one. If the DP output on the current 5870 card has shown to be fully capable of driving a SL DVI output via a passive connection then why can't the remaining tmds units, i.e. all six outputs of the Eyefinity6 card do the same? If it is capable of driving 6 x 2560x1600 dp outputs via a single tmds each then why can't it drive 6 x 1920x1200 HDMI/DVI outputs that also only require a single tmds each and thus don't require active adaptors?
What if someone wanted to drive 6 DVI/HDMI panels from the card, 6 active adaptors? Each with their own power supply???