thejuicybiscuit

Thanks for the responses, guys. The post was more of a hypothesis than anything; I was only curious to see if it could be done with the hardware I have (and will get). Seeing as it isn't, I'll figure out what to do with the ultrawide, then. Thinking about it, I could probably use it as a testbed monitor. Been wanting to set up something like that for ages. To be honest, having three QHDs with a UHD up top sounds more sensible and less messy anyway. Again, thanks!

That's true, I suppose.

I should have mentioned; I plan to get another 980 Ti for SLI gaming.

The monitor colour groups show where games are likely to be played across monitors simultaneously. I'd either play on the 4K screen or across the 3 QHDs at any given time. The ultrawide won't have games played on it that much.

Hi there, guys! Now, from reading the title, you're probably thinking: WHY THE HELL DOES THIS GUY WANT TO POWER FIVE MONITORS?! And my response is: if I can, why not? I've been handed down an LG 29UB65 monitor from the company I work at (the guy's now using a 4K monitor for his work). I also have an 4K monitor/TV from LG (can't remember the model number, but it's capable of 4K @ 60Hz), plus I'm planning to buy three 1440p monitors. If you must know, my bonus last year at work was large, whilst also unexpected. Here's the planned layout: The 4K, middle QHD and ultrawide monitor will be in a fixed position on the wall I'm mounting it to, whilst the two other QHDs will be manoeuvrable so I can position them in a surround setup. I'm aware that the Gigabyte G1 GAMING GTX 980 Ti (what a mouthful, eh? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)) can power four monitors by itself without any active adapters needed - I essentially have the setup in the image minus the 4K monitor (and the QHD monitors; I'm using 1080p ones at the moment). My question is: will an active adapter fix my 'problem' here? I remember using one on a R9 280X GPU to initially power the three 1080p monitors I have, as the GPU my itself could only do two. Thanks in advance! Biscuit x

There are ways of doing it, but it will involve methods that aren't particularly 100% kosher with Microsoft, like Microsoft Toolkit for example, and you'd have to find the specific route for you that works. I don't recommend that method. I'd personally grab an edition of Windows 8.1 (or Pro, depends on what you need) and do it the 'proper' way. Licenses for Windows 8.1 (or Pro) are cheaper than what they were. You could even just bite the bullet and buy the Windows 10 license key from a local store or online. There's bound to be good deals where you live.

Hey guys; thought I'd update everything for y'all. Managed to get the system up and running again after only an hour's maintenance. I removed the CMOS battery (dem old skool methods tho) and kept it out of the switched-off system for 30-40 minutes. It then allowed me to re-enter the BIOS, still running the fans at full speed. My BIOS version was 2101; I must either have a brilliant subconscious memory or amazing guessing skills! I grabbed the 2201 BIOS from ASUS, but it on USB, flashed the BIOS using the extremely convenient ROG Connect button on the back, and my BIOS was updated in around 40 seconds. The time and date, plus the settings I had for my fans, were wrong, so I corrected those as well. The machine booted into Windows 8.1 Pro like nothing happened to it. shypin, I'm marking your answer as the one that solved it. VioDuskar, you get credit too as it's always worthwhile having the BIOS up to date. Thanks a million everyone for the discussion and aid on this.

Wow. Thanks for the response, guys. I planned to BIOS flash anyway but I never thought the CMOS battery would be involved here. I'll let you guys know once I've got home and tried this out. I plan to leave work early today (12:00 GMT) so I can revive my machine.

Hi there, guys. Sorry if this is in the wrong place; please move if needed. So to give you guys a bit of the story... I was going to bed, but wanted to keep my machine on to install some games through Steam. Before I did this, I thought I'd calm the chassis fans down since the Corsair AF120s and AF140s aren't the most quiet. I put them on a 40% duty cycle. I then went back to the landing screen (I do this after any changes within the BIOS, regardless of whether or not the changes are visible there; force of habit). I then accidently press Enter on the 'Load Extreme OC Profile'. I don't know if it selected anything as no changes were visible on that page; I press F5 to get the optimised default settings regardless. I press F10 to save my changes. Instead of doing a warm reset like it usually does, the machine seemed to turn off, come back on after a few seconds, failed to show the RoG POST logo (with the option to get into the BIOS) and came up with a legacy-esque screen with the American Megatrends logo (detailing the CPU and RAM that I had, both showing their correct speeds). The only drive it seemed to spot was my 2TB Seagate HDD, which was just for mass storage; I have a Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD in there to handle the OS, some games and programs. My SSD wasn't there, according to the mobo, so the 'Insert Proper Boot Device' (owtte) screen appeared. I even tried booting from my multiboot USB drive, no success. During this time, any keyboard I used was unresponsive (Corsair K70 RGB, Logitech K270, Logitech K400, MadCatz, S.T.R.I.K.E. 3), so performing any command was impossible. The machine hasn't moved from its position under my desk, there wasn't any strain on any cables (like the SATA power or data) and the machine worked perfectly beforehand, cold-booting into Windows 8.1 Pro in around 15 seconds. System specs (as far as I know): Mobo - Asus Crosshair V Formula-Z (BIOS revision was recent; I believe is was 2101 but I can't be 100% sure on this, I obviously can't verify) CPU - AMD FX-8320 @ 3500Mhz (stock) Cooler - Corsair H80i Liquid Cooler RAM - 16GB HyperX Fury @ 1866Mhz (stock) GPU - Asus R9 280X DirectCUII Storage - Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD Storage - Seagate 2000GB HDD Fans - Corsair AF120s and AF140s where they fit I plan to do a BIOS flash tonight with the 2201 CAP file to see if that fixes anything; hopefully it should as all components functioned, and functioned well, before this. Luckily I'm in the middle of an X99 build (all I need to make it boot-able is the CPU and RAM) so even if this machine turns into a paperweight I'll have a functional machine within a couple of months, but as I'm giving this machine to a friend, I really don't want to give it to him like this. Any help or guidance will definitely be appreciated. Much love. <3

Not a lot of people decide to go with a surround 1440p PC setup; it's usually just 1080p surround, going ultrawide, or even 4K. Surround gaming is definitely a different experience compared to your standard single monitor setup, as the extra peripheral vision can help in simulators, FPS's, and even RPGs. Whether you enjoy the extra vision is up for debate, but personal preferences... So why not take the plunge? The immense horsepower needed. VRAM usage is a huge issue beyond 8 million pixels, and the top-tier cards (like the Titan X and R9 295X2) are the only ones with the VRAM to do so. Seeing as 7680 x 1440 is considerably more than this (11,059,200 pixels to be exact), I'd be having to look at top-tier cards like the Titan X; to actually get the performance of the architecture at the resolution, however, two of these in SLI would be 'needed'. Rarity. Well, maybe not nowadays, though triple 1440p setups are not as common as triple 1080p's for example. I currently own a triple 1080p setup; it's wonderful to have that amount of screen real estate, and most of the mid- to high-end GPUs will run this resolution comfortably. You'll be looking at a 970/R9 280X or higher to be able to slide all of the graphics sliders to the right and still get ~60fps. Cost. 1440p monitors aren't cheap, and if you wanted to get one with a decent panel (i.e. IPS or better), you're looking at the sort of prices desktop 4K monitors were back in the day. Three of them isn't a choice made lightly. Cost. Again. You'd also need the graphical horsepower to back it up, too. Plus, the necessary PCIe lanes. And a reasonable amount of airflow in the case so your components don't starve. And a PSU that won't melt when you give 'er hell. You can kinda see the problem we face. Time. Linked with the cost, no doubt. You have to be so patient with the machine, especially if you over-clock it (to be honest, you'd be mad not to at this price). Also, if, like me, you don't earn an incredible amount of money per month, you'll be waiting a few months to rake in the funds. I'm quite lucky to have the money for this build (mainly because I'm selling my old one for a tidy profit). I'm starting this blog to document me building this machine, and so you guys can maybe get some pointers. Who knows; you may want to build one just like mine. :) --- Oh, this'll be a build log, not guide, but I'll try to squeeze in a few tips if I can.

SkywardKkalox, I've marked your first answer as the best one; thanks for giving me a decent idea on what I'd need. I think patience will be a virtue here, so I'm gonna stay put for a bit and see what NVIDIA and AMD have on offer in the next few months. I'll keep this post going, so you can continue to discuss and to let you guys know how I get on when I decide.

Just reminded myself of the Titan X SLI video Linus and Slick made with the 5K display, which in turn has 3 million more pixels than triple 1440p, and the presets that they used were damn near impressive: Ultra presets on the games I play quite a bit were hitting 50 fps easily, and that is beyond what I need for pretty much exactly 75% of 5K. I just can't bring myself to spend nearly two grand on GPUs alone, deal with the debate-ably boring cooler design, roasting memory modules (102'C according to the good folks at Tom's Hardware), and almost 500W of TDP; I know my PSU will handle it without a problem. Plus, the thought of trying to do a custom watercooling loop - turning boring Titans into sexy Titans. I've never done custom loops before (I've only used AIOs or your traditional air cooling); it's something I wanna try, but not on a rig costing £3,500 at this point

Thanks for taking the time to grab that link. I think the VRAM buffer is going to be the deciding factor here. There's 6GB of it on the original Titan, which (from what I understand) should be a good amount for triple 1440p monitors. Obviously it's down to the game at hand, and I know for a fact that GTA V, for example, is going to be a VRAM hog, but surely 6GB should be capable of handling most games at this res at high-ish quality? As you can tell, I really don't want to buy into the Titan X if I can help it.

Wow; wasn't really expecting that quick of a response! Thanks guys! I was initially looking at two 980s, but heard from some sources that the 4GB VRAM wasn't gonna be enough to drive all dem pixels, and seeing as there aren't any 1440p surround benchmarks in plain view on the Internet (and doing my best to extrapolate from 4K benchmarks), I have been in a bit of confusion over the whole thing. It sounds like quite the elegant solution, though, and I really crave the non-reference coolers in the build. The GPUs are really the crux of the build at the moment. I saw Linus' surround build guide with the two R9 290s, which has the 4GB VRAM on its board, and the settings he had to use didn't seem particularly impressive to me (in order to average out at around 40 fps). I'm really hoping NVIDIA deliver on their promises with the supposed 980 Ti, that should hopefully be coming soon and be the answers to my pixel prayers. Does anyone know of any 1440p surround build logs or benchmarks that I can have a look at and see what they are using? I really want to keep to the new tech in this build, so the GTX 900 series is kinda where I wanna be.

Hello, you wonderful lot! I'm planning an X99 build for myself, and I want to be able to power three Dell U2515H's (or different monitors of said resolution) at 60 fps, preferably with V-Sync enabled. I've seen many different reviews and benchmarks for the top-of-the-line GTX graphics cards (i.e. the Titan X, 980 and 970), but nothing has really been covered that well for the 7680x1440 resolution. My budget is big for the GPUs, but not limitless, and I'm trying to get my machine (without the monitors) to come in at around £3,000 total. I'll detail my machine specs below: Mobo: Asus X99-DELUXE CPU: Intel i7 5930K (overclocked to 4.2 GHz) RAM: 16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum @ 2800 MHz (just for the pure sexiness ;D) Cooler: Corsair H100i (maybe the GTX model; I'll make my mind up later on) Case fans: Eight (yes, eight, including the four SPs in push-pull on the H100i) AF120 and SP120 fans Case: Corsair 780T Storage: 2 Crucial MX100 512GB in RAID 0 (unnecessarily overkill, but with my trusty ol' WD 2TB drive as a nightly back-up disc, I can enjoy the theoretical ~900MB/s write speeds). PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 1200 P2 (so nothing melts even when overclocking) GPU(s): TBD The main reason why I'm going for this resolution is for the screen real estate on the desktop. I do a lot of Photoshop and video editing for myself and a friend (sorry: no samples ), so the move to Intel and NVIDIA from AMD is a fairly smart one, plus I plan to do a lot of benchmarking, too. Truly maxed out performance in-game isn't mission critical for me (so I am more than happy turning down the settings a little) but I do want the game to look beautiful at a stable 60 fps (as said, with V-Sync on, so I don't witness humongous amounts of screen tearing). VRAM looks like an issue at 11.5 million pixels, and 4GB (on the 980 and 970) doesn't seem like it will cut the theoretical mustard with maxed settings. So, to summarise, I would like 7680x1440 at a stable, stutter-free 60fps at high-ish settings (prepared to OC if needed) preferably custom cooler designs so my PC looks baller the dang thing to be quiet and fairly cool when I game, as I play driving simulators on a 5.1 speaker system at the mo the GPU budget to be ideally less than half of the whole thing. Any help here will be much appreciated. EDIT: Oh, and if this is in the wrong place, feel free to move it. I am a forum newbie as it were. :3