NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 has Three DisplayPort Connectors: G-Sync Surround!

[HumanSmoke]

idk what u mean by limited to a few. but even going as far back as the hd 6k series there was more than one DP connector. This is on the regular cards. the special eyefinity cards had 6 DP connectors and those were available since the HD 5k series..

I think you'll find that the HD 5870 Eyefinity6 is the exception rather than the rule for the Evergreen series - the 5970, 5870, 5850, 5830, 5770, 5750 all used a single DP. The HD 6800/6900 series usually sported a couple of DP outs (4 for dual cards) as do the HD 7700/7800/7900s, but the remainder of the cards usually fall into the 2*DVI + 1*HDMI + 1*DP (as do almost all of the current R7/R9 series)

 

[jagd]

Sorry , i did not get it , You understand this card one HDMI and one DVI and not a all Display port card ( not even copomparable to only DP outpot ''specials '' ) on it but telling us 5870 specials was not the norm it is sounds ok but wrong at the sametime ; AMD had 2 display ports at most of their cards since AMD 6850/6870 series.

It was 2009 when AMD put DP on 5800 series and 6850/6870 with 2 DP was 2010 , now we are in 2014.
.

What i ment by limited few, was AMD only had a few models of cards that had all those display ports on them. Most still had standard dvi/hdmi etc

 

[ZeDestructor]

damn, I have two monitors with dvi and one with hdmi
going to have an extra cost for a converter

You can get them off ebay for a dollar, and you can be pretty sure moast AIBs will include at least one DP->DVI adapter. There's a lot of users out there with two DVI screens they got way back.

Dang... People don't let go of the past, do they?

No, they really don't... Not sure why...

Doubt it is 1.3 because the standard was just released, of course NV could have got a early jump on it but we will have to wait and see... can only hope it is 1.3

given Nvidia was well and truly aware of the DP 1.3 specs well before launch (probably contributed to it in fact), there's a decent chance they'll support it

NVidia has used DisplayPort for some time, but not 3 ports.

Not on consumer cards. On Quadros, it's a whole different story, the big ones substituting the HDMI port with a DP port instead, and on the NVS line, stuff like the NVS 510 (why do they all cost >100? ): ) have 4 miniDP ports, so they can drive lots of screens from one card.

I'm trying to imagine a situation where someone is buying a $500 video card and hooking it up with a DVI->VGA converter for their VGA-only monitor. Are there people who do this?

Apparently. I was quite surprised a while ago when I found out a friend of mine had a VGA-only LCD at his workplace. That LCD wasn't even 2 years old releasewise... To add insult to injury: it's more expensive to convert the VGA signal to digital, then display than to natively take in DVI, HDMI or displayport...

 

[The Von Matrices]

The HD 6800/6900 series usually sported a couple of DP outs (4 for dual cards) as do the HD 7700/7800/7900s

Unlike Nvidia, AMD has always restricted Crossfire and/or Eyefinity configurations to require all displays be plugged into the same card, so the only ports that matter are the ones on the first card

idk what u mean by limited to a few. but even going as far back as the hd 6k series there was more than one DP connector. This is on the regular cards. the special eyefinity cards had 6 DP connectors and those were available since the HD 5k series..
http://www.amd.com/en-gb/products/graphics/desktop/5000/5870-eyefinity-6#

For the entire life of the 6000 series and most of the 7000 series it wasn't easy to have a 6 display Eyefinity setup since there were no cards with 6 DP outputs and DP MST hubs weren't yet available. You either had to buy specialty cards with a mix of DVI and DP or use quasi-supported adapters to split dual link DVI into two displays.

 

[MiguelJMPereira]

Dang... People don't let go of the past, do they?

Well, imagine that you have one great gaming 1440p 144hz monitor and a secondary old regular monitor you want to use also as a "companion". It makes sense to use it, no gain in throwing it away. The old connector would be usefull.

 

[1d10t]

I think 3x DP is for G-Sync, so you can do a 3DVSurround using three G-Sync'd monitors.

I agree - it's likely the reason for the 3 DPs.
As of right now G-sync is still only supported on single-monitor configurations, but that looks to change in the near future.

G-Sync is supported on multiple monitors but you need a card for each monitor to output on DP if you want to use surround.
In other words, as mentioned before, this card will be the first one to support g-sync surround setups out of the box.

I don't get it
You need 3 cards to run G-Sync'ed multimonitor surround,so what's the point of bringing 3 Display Port in a single cards
Oh yes for the sake of independent desktop...
Still,if nVidia support G Sync in a single monitor, i DOUBT they will support G Sync multimonitor with 1 single card.Unless they "unlocked" later via driver or firmware later,but that's highly unlikely....we talking about nVidia here.

 

[The Von Matrices]

I don't get it
You need 3 cards to run G-Sync'ed multimonitor surround,so what's the point of bringing 3 Display Port in a single cards
Oh yes for the sake of independent desktop...
Still,if nVidia support G Sync in a single monitor, i DOUBT they will support G Sync multimonitor with 1 single card.Unless they "unlocked" later via driver or firmware later,but that's highly unlikely....we talking about nVidia here.

I was not aware that G-sync was supported on 3 monitor configurations until yesterday, so my initial statement about support coming in the future is incorrect.

I'm relatively sure the reason for needing 3 cards for G-sync surround (in its current configuration) is not because of some NVidia greed but because each Kepler card only has one DP connector. I'm sure they'd love to sell you more G-sync modules if you only had a single card but can't due to hardware limitations. You couldn't have just used a DP MST hub either since G-Sync doesn't strictly adhere to the DP protocol.

This is similar to how in the Fermi series if you wanted surround you split the monitors across multiple cards because no card supported more than 2 displays, and then the Kepler cards came along supporting 3 monitors simultaneously on one card.

 

[Roel]

From what I know, G-Sync still isn't supported in surround even with 3 cards. However there will be a driver that supports it and the 980 will allow it from a single card, with Kepler you would need 3 cards. Hopefully the driver will release soon after the 980 launch.

 

[Scrizz]

What i ment by limited few, was AMD only had a few models of cards that had all those display ports on them. Most still had standard dvi/hdmi etc

this card is also an exception.

 

[1d10t]

I was not aware that G-sync was supported on 3 monitor configurations until yesterday, so my initial statement about support coming in the future is incorrect.
I'm relatively sure the reason for needing 3 cards for G-sync surround (in its current configuration) is not because of some NVidia greed but because each Kepler card only has one DP connector. I'm sure they'd love to sell you more G-sync modules if you only had a single card but can't due to hardware limitations. You couldn't have just used a DP MST hub either since G-Sync doesn't strictly adhere to the DP protocol.
This is similar to how in the Fermi series if you wanted surround you split the monitors across multiple cards because no card supported more than 2 displays, and then the Kepler cards came along supporting 3 monitors simultaneously on one card.

Apparently,nVidia will support only 2 "legacy" display simultaneously via DVI - HDMI, or 3 display via all 3 DP's populated.There's unlikely you are able to use more than 3 monitor if one of those legacy,i.e DVI-HDMI is populated.From the look of it,since Freesync introduced nVidia had to force everyone whom bought their cards to using their G-Sync.The card aren't capable,but connectors are already there,so this is was $599 price tag came from

From what I know, G-Sync still isn't supported in surround even with 3 cards. However there will be a driver that supports it and the 980 will allow it from a single card, with Kepler you would need 3 cards. Hopefully the driver will release soon after the 980 launch.

...and iPhone 4s 8 GB will upgrade to iPhone 6 Plus 64GB via OTA for free
Imagine 3 surround 5760x1080 144Hz display powered by 780Ti underling
I know this is just a initial release and mere demonstrated Surround G-Sync capable from nVidia,but by the time it was ready there's will be disruptive Freesync

 

[shhnedo]

Well, imagine that you have one great gaming 1440p 144hz monitor and a secondary old regular monitor you want to use also as a "companion". It makes sense to use it, no gain in throwing it away. The old connector would be usefull.

Believe me, I do imagine that situation. I still have "a secondary old regular monitor"(well, it's actually the main one, but still) and at the very least it has a DVI port. And because most working monitors these days have atleast one DVI port, people could just buy a DVI cable and forget about analog VGA.