When ATI’s Eyefinity technology was first introduced to the world it was a marvel to behold. The sheer thought of one graphics card handling the graphics load of three or even six monitors was a thrilling prospect, to say the least. However, after the 5000 series launch many found that they were lacking the necessary components to properly use Eyefinity. This is due to the fact that Eyefinity requires at least one monitor to feature a DisplayPort connector, which is far from the standard. To solve this problem an expensive adapter was required, costing the user as much as $150. This increased the cost of ownership and ensured Eyefinity stayed in a niche segment of the market.
Over the past week though, we have learned that ATI has been working behind the scenes on ways to address this issue. First off, they have been working directly with companies that manufacture monitors in an effort to make the DispalyPort more readily available and cheaper. This push has started to pay off as we are now seeing multiple monitors on the market either using the DisplayPort connection type, or are exclusively setup for Eyefinity. However, they have also been working on a means to eliminate the high cost of current active DisplayPort adapters.
The new adapter, like the older and more expensive versions, uses an active design, but these latest dongles do not require power be provided via a USB connection. Additionally, at $29.99 per dongle the new adapter only costs a fraction of the price of those currently on the market.
Internally the new cable uses a single piece of silicon with a DispalyPort decode and a TMDS for the DVI output. This greatly reduces the power requirement (hence the reason no additional power is needed) and should also eliminate the flicker issue that is prominent with the powered Dual-Link adapters.
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