12K Resolution Gaming Setup Renders 1.5 Billion Pixels, Costs $17,000

[Over_Lord]

What do you call a person who sets up three 32-inch 4K (that's 3840 x 2160 pixels each) side-by-side, pairs three of ASUS's HD 7970 GPUs together to play games using AMD's EyeInfinity technology, all of which costs a whopping $17,000? Insane is one word, rich another or a crazy gamer? Perhaps a mix of all the three.

The setup consists of three Sharp PN-K321 4K monitors connected to three AMD HD 7970 GPUs which are together capable of pushing a mind-blowing 1.5 billion pixels on the combined 12K screen resolution, together with a Power Supply Unit that conks off in a few minutes, perhaps just not able to bear the pure awesomeness of the setup. Oh, to get the setup working, AMD put together some custom drivers to make sure that EyeInfinity works well. Before using the custom drivers, the whole rig was able to pull together a measly 8 frames per second, to be more accurate, a slideshow.

Do check out the video, for that's as close as you're ever going to get to such a glorious setup.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Prima.Vera]

I only see 2 cards. Am I missing something?

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I really wish people would stop calling it 4K... this set up is 24.8 megapixels. By comparison, mine is 2.3 megapixels.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

nice, crappy case though.

 

[Jstn7477]

As much as I want a 3840*2160 screen, I really don't right now considering my 7970 even struggles at 1080p in some games. ~140 PPI for each display is awesome, though.

 

[Nordic]

I want one of those monitors. My price range is ~$300. Make it happen.

 

[hckngrtfakt]

Crappiest setup ever for a tri-fire setup... :shadedshu

The case sucks, the PSU overheats because is probably a no-brand POS
and the CPU cooler ? really ,.. might as well use the stock one....

And am i missing something or does the article say "3 gpus" when i only
see 2

 

[Over_Lord]

I want one of those monitors. My price range is ~$300. Make it happen.

Sure. Gimme the $300. I'll see what I can do

 

[Prima.Vera]

As much as I want a 3840*2160 screen, I really don't right now considering my 7970 even struggles at 1080p in some games. ~140 PPI for each display is awesome, though.

You must be joking!! Name 1 (one) game that is struggling with your card at 1080p! One!

 

[Jstn7477]

I want one of those monitors. My price range is ~$300. Make it happen.

Add a zero, and then $2000 to that.

It would be convenient if these became more sanely priced right around the time where GPUs are much more powerful than they are currently (I hope that comes true within a few years). I guess for strictly desktop/photo work they would be excellent aside from having a microscopic user interface.

You must be joking!! Name 1 (one) game that is struggling with your card at 1080p! One!

Borderlands 2 (drops to ~80 FPS frequently, have to set my 120Hz monitor to 100Hz to minimize the drops), Tomb Raider 2013 (50-70 FPS), Planetside 2 (50-70 FPS), Far Cry 3 (50-70 FPS), etc. I haven't played any of the Crysis games in years but I might fire those up this weekend for shits and giggles, as they sucked on a 9800 GT back in 2009.

 

[Nordic]

You must be joking!! Name 1 (one) game that is struggling with your card at 1080p! One!

He plays at 120hz I think, and wants all 120fps. My 7970 at stock has yet to see a game give it trouble at 1080p.

 

[RejZoR]

Crappiest setup ever for a tri-fire setup... :shadedshu

The case sucks, the PSU overheats because is probably a no-brand POS
and the CPU cooler ? really ,.. might as well use the stock one....

And am i missing something or does the article say "3 gpus" when i only
see 2

Erm, there ARE 3 cards there if you haven't noticed. One with black aftermarket cooler all the way above and 2 with reference cooler below it...

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Crappiest setup ever for a tri-fire setup... :shadedshu

The case sucks, the PSU overheats because is probably a no-brand POS
and the CPU cooler ? really ,.. might as well use the stock one....

And am i missing something or does the article say "3 gpus" when i only
see 2

Get your eyes cheked bro there are 3 gfx the top ones all black , , you cant see the cpu cooler at all and for that setup an ax1200 would be on its kneees flat out.
I also look upon this with envious eyes though I too would bin that case

 

[Jstn7477]

He plays at 120hz I think, and wants all 120fps. My 7970 at stock has yet to see a game give it trouble at 1080p.

You're correct. I settle for 60ish in the newest games but a few of the games dip below that occasionally. Some of the cutscenes in Tomb Raider where Lara Croft's hair flips out with TressFX on causes drops into the sub-20 FPS range.

 

[lyndonguitar]

Pretty bad investment for a $17,000,
I could have bought a monster 1080p rig, pre-ordered an Xbox One and PS4 + 1080p HDTVs, have a Steam Store shopping spree, a gaming laptop, Hell, I still could even buy a cheap car with the remaining $$$ and buy myself a few boxes of pizza and cases of beer.

Besides, I don't think my eyes can benefit that much anymore from have a 4k resolution instead of the normal 1080p, unless I'm far way in a couch, plus I like having more FPS more than a better resolution quality. I prefer seeing things move smoothly rather than seeing them more clearly.

That's why I game at my 1366 x 768 monitor instead for very demanding games, and I rarely use my HDTV. This practice started off when I was young, I got a pretty weak GPU(HD 3650) and can't play games like Crysis to the fullest, What I'd do is crank down the resolution but turn up the graphics to the highest(except AA), and then I could play the game smoothly.

But who am I to judge? If he got that much money to waste, Why not?

 

[Prima.Vera]

Borderlands 2 (drops to ~80 FPS frequently, have to set my 120Hz monitor to 100Hz to minimize the drops), Tomb Raider 2013 (50-70 FPS), Planetside 2 (50-70 FPS), Far Cry 3 (50-70 FPS), etc. I haven't played any of the Crysis games in years but I might fire those up this weekend for shits and giggles, as they sucked on a 9800 GT back in 2009.

Common man, that's no "struggling". Struggling is if you were playing the games in less than 25fps.
Personally I even play the games at 60fps with vsync on to prevent heating and keep the noise down.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Common man, that's no "struggling". Struggling is if you were playing the games in less than 25fps.
Personally I even play the games at 60fps with vsync on to prevent heating and keep the noise down.

Im the same +1 but clearly some have crazy perception of struggling

 

[hckngrtfakt]

Get your eyes cheked bro there are 3 gfx the top ones all black , , you cant see the cpu cooler at all and for that setup an ax1200 would be on its kneees flat out.
I also look upon this with envious eyes though I too would bin that case

Erm, there ARE 3 cards there if you haven't noticed. One with black aftermarket cooler all the way above and 2 with reference cooler below it...

Got my eyes checked and based off that video, i only STILL see 2 GPUs running the game

 

[Nordic]

You're correct. I settle for 60ish in the newest games but a few of the games dip below that occasionally. Some of the cutscenes in Tomb Raider where Lara Croft's hair flips out with TressFX on causes drops into the sub-20 FPS range.

I never played Tomb raider so I cant comment on that... but that is tressfx. A special feature.

Got my eyes checked and based off that video, i only STILL see 2 GPUs running the game

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=52001&stc=1&d=1374858744

That was for the trifire eyefinity. When he did a single monitor he only used crossfire.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

And they are probably playing at 5 FPS.....

 

[Jstn7477]

I know some people are fine with 60Hz, but kind of like the transition from TN to IPS or IGZO panels and their fantastic color rendition, trying 120Hz and experiencing the smoothness it brings makes it somewhat annoying to play games at 30-60 FPS, especially if you have a slower LCD panel e.g. 5+ ms. 60Hz on my laptop almost looks closer to 30 in reality, and my work monitor (Acer G215HV) overclocked to 70Hz looks much better. I guess it depends on the game as well, as "slower FPS games" play well even with lower FPS, but faster moving games e.g. multiplayer FPS tend to prefer high refresh rates to smooth things out.

I just can't imagine taking the games I consider "borderline" and making them run 4x worse with a 4x resolution increase. 15-25 FPS FTW?

 

[Nordic]

And they are probably playing at 5 FPS.....

If you read it, it was 8fps. Then amd made special drivers. If you watched the video he was getting 30fps with all three, and 130fps with a single monitor.


I wonder what amd did to the drivers. What did they cut out to get extra fps?

 

[Over_Lord]

And they are probably playing at 5 FPS.....

60 actually, with AMD's custom drivers

 

[suraswami]

Pretty bad investment for a $17,000,
I could have bought a monster 1080p rig, pre-ordered an Xbox One and PS4 + 1080p HDTVs, have a Steam Store shopping spree, a gaming laptop, Hell, I still could even buy a cheap car with the remaining $$$ and buy myself a few boxes of pizza and cases of beer.

Besides, I don't think my eyes can benefit that much anymore from have a 4k resolution instead of the normal 1080p, unless I'm far way in a couch, plus I like having more FPS more than a better resolution quality. I prefer seeing things move smoothly rather than seeing them more clearly.

That's why I game at my 1366 x 768 monitor instead for very demanding games, and I rarely use my HDTV. This practice started off when I was young, I got a pretty weak GPU(HD 3650) and can't play games like Crysis to the fullest, What I'd do is crank down the resolution but turn up the graphics to the highest(except AA), and then I could play the game smoothly.

But who am I to judge? If he got that much money to waste, Why not?

LOL.

thats my one year mortgage!

 

[Kaynar]

$17,000 for a stock cooler, crap case with no airflow, crap PSU, 3x 7970 (in one pic there are only 2 of them) instead of having 4x Titans or gtx780, oh and wait, thats not even a X79 platform there. How the F*** did this cost $17,000? I guess the screens cost $16,000

And all that to play Dirt 3 that can be played even by intel integrated HD4600 but this time they use 3 GPUs to get playable fps on a very light game...

Call me again when Battlefield 4 can be played at 12k res.