DisplayPort MST hubs availablity date?

[caveman-jim]

Originally Posted by Ristogod

So charge an arm and a leg. I want this thing. It's dumb as crap that ATI cards don't ship with a minimum of 3 displayports on them. They could offer downgrade converters from displayport for the interface challenged. But why **** over those willing to buy into their eyefinity technology by shorting them for the intended usage?

Like all businesses, AMD listens to it's biggest customers first. 5 companies account for more than 50% of AMD's revenue. So obviously their priorities are aligned with serving their biggest customers first, moreso especially now that the new CEO is an ex-member of one of their Customers (Rory Read came from Leonovo) - he's going to be very focused on business relationships, where Dirk Meyer was the chief engineer on the original Athlon (as well a microprocessor guy at Intel, and before that DEC).

So that's the reason we don't see a lot of unrecovered spend on niche products, despite the fact that, to us, it is a major marketing point. Multi-panel gaming is awesome, I hate being on 1 panel when I could be playing on 3. The best experience I had was with the cards that have enough native DisplayPort outputs to drive all displays on the same input type (5870 E6 cards, 6990). I've passed this feedback onto AMD numerous times.

Summer 2012 was the last time frame I was given for a possible availability of MST hubs, and now that I've seen them working I'm hopeful they will actually appear one day. When that is I don't know, fingers crossed for the next couple of months I guess.

[muzz]

Totally unreasonable that they push Eyefinity as a huge selling point, and not only gash the folks buying it, don't SUPPORT it!

[Omega53]

Originally Posted by muzz

Totally unreasonable that they push Eyefinity as a huge selling point, and not only gash the folks buying it, don't SUPPORT it!

/Thread

[shadow001]

Originally Posted by caveman-jim

link to Product page or manufacturer announcement?

No anouncement needed, as the overall timeframe since we've been hearing about the hubs, is long enough that it's well past any possible technical issues delaying it's introduction in the first place, and more towards companies not being interested in mass producing them to begin with, since it's a specialised product for a very small market.


As other said, it would be nice if AMD took the risk/oportunity to mass produce and sell these directly, rather than relying on other manufacturers to take the initiative all the time.

[Ristogod]

Well, they better put at least 3 displayports on the next series then if they aren't interested in supporting their established customer base with hubs.

[noko]

Originally Posted by Ristogod

Well, they better put at least 3 displayports on the next series then if they aren't interested in supporting their established customer base with hubs.

Well if they did that then there would be no incentive for manufacturers to make hubs . Two for a reason.

[muzz]

Originally Posted by Ristogod

Well, they better put at least 3 displayports on the next series then if they aren't interested in supporting their established customer base with hubs.

Doesn't look to me like they care.....SELL SELL SELL!

[caveman-jim]

Originally Posted by muzz

Totally unreasonable that they push Eyefinity as a huge selling point, and not only gash the folks buying it, don't SUPPORT it!

Originally Posted by Omega53

/Thread

Originally Posted by muzz

Doesn't look to me like they care.....SELL SELL SELL!

Give it a rest guys. Those of us who actually acknowledge and try to pass on details of problems like Eyefinity on mixed display connector types don't need to endure this trolling to get to the good stuff from real users.

[caveman-jim]

Originally Posted by shadow001

No anouncement needed, as the overall timeframe since we've been hearing about the hubs, is long enough that it's well past any possible technical issues delaying it's introduction in the first place, and more towards companies not being interested in mass producing them to begin with, since it's a specialised product for a very small market.

Do you have a source to back up your claim it's not a technical problem?

Originally Posted by shadow001

As other said, it would be nice if AMD took the risk/oportunity to mass produce and sell these directly, rather than relying on other manufacturers to take the initiative all the time.

Lots of things would be nice.

Let's take a look at reality shall we, and notice that AMD divested itself of manufacturing capabilities for it's primary business - CPU's, GPU's, Chipsets, APU's etc. etc.

In which case, why in the blue hell would you expect a company that just spun off a multi-billion dollar foundry business to decide to manufacture a dollars and cents part that'll ship in the thousands, maybe tens of thousands if they're lucky, over the next 3 years?

Clearly, they won't. Clearly AMD need a manufacturing partner, someone who can take a custom ASIC or CMOS design and get it manufactured in low volume, stuck on a PCB, slapped inside a case, packaged, and shipped worldwide, to help them out. Hmmmm, I wonder if they know anyone that does that kinda crap already? Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

The failure of AMD to resolve the tearing/blinking/blanking/BSOD problems experienced by some users on Eyefinity with mixed display connection types is evident, and the delay in getting MST hubs to market to address something that could have been addressed through a fundamental basic design change (3 native DP outputs, or three TDMS signal gens - i.e. Sapphire FLEX - on PCB) is another failure.

None of this means that Eyefinity is ****.

[noko]

The tearing issue is the issue and need for the MST hub for those having this problem. This gives Nvidia the advantage now for multiple monitors, at least the 3 monitor configuration since nVidia has 3 DVI outputs (all dual DVI at that). The two Display port configuration looks like (my best guess) to allow a market for MST hubs. Since this configuration now has some cards on street we will see if it is enough for someone to make the MST hubs for it. Then again adding the cost of a MST hub to a video card purchase for multi-monitor gaming may just drive more folks over to Nvidia (that is if one can get a card from them that is).

I see no reason for not having 3 DP outputs with adaptors for HDMI or DVI, hell you get one now for DVI. If MST hubs once again does not come to fruition then maybe AMD needs to change the configuration a little.

[noko]

Some AMD talk of MST hubs and other display techy stuff:

http://blogs.amd.com/play/2012/04/26...issing-out-on/

[shadow001]

Originally Posted by caveman-jim

Do you have a source to back up your claim it's not a technical problem?

Taking this long to solve?......Be serious now, as enough time has passed that you could almost develop and release a brand new video card using a new GPU architecture in that timeframe, and it's far more complicated than a hub technology wise.

Lots of things would be nice.

Let's take a look at reality shall we, and notice that AMD divested itself of manufacturing capabilities for it's primary business - CPU's, GPU's, Chipsets, APU's etc. etc.

In which case, why in the blue hell would you expect a company that just spun off a multi-billion dollar foundry business to decide to manufacture a dollars and cents part that'll ship in the thousands, maybe tens of thousands if they're lucky, over the next 3 years?

Clearly, they won't. Clearly AMD need a manufacturing partner, someone who can take a custom ASIC or CMOS design and get it manufactured in low volume, stuck on a PCB, slapped inside a case, packaged, and shipped worldwide, to help them out. Hmmmm, I wonder if they know anyone that does that kinda crap already? Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

The failure of AMD to resolve the tearing/blinking/blanking/BSOD problems experienced by some users on Eyefinity with mixed display connection types is evident, and the delay in getting MST hubs to market to address something that could have been addressed through a fundamental basic design change (3 native DP outputs, or three TDMS signal gens - i.e. Sapphire FLEX - on PCB) is another failure.

None of this means that Eyefinity is ****.

Take a page off of what Nvidia did with their 3D glasses kit, wich last i checked was marketed directly by them, even though the displays needed large players like samsung to support this...


The sales from 3D glasses and 120Hz displays is small fries in the overall scheme of things, especially in the early days a couple of years ago when Nvidia introduced it for the first time, but they did it anyway.

[noko]

Originally Posted by shadow001

Taking this long to solve?......Be serious now, as enough time has passed that you could almost develop and release a brand new video card using a new GPU architecture in that timeframe, and it's far more complicated than a hub technology wise.





Take a page off of what Nvidia did with their 3D glasses kit, wich last i checked was marketed directly by them, even though the displays needed large players like samsung to support this...


The sales from 3D glasses and 120Hz displays is small fries in the overall scheme of things, especially in the early days a couple of years ago when Nvidia introduced it for the first time, but they did it anyway.

Well at Reddit a claimed AMD employee says the following:

I actually work for AMD, in the GPU division, so I can give you some insight on what's going on.

AMD GPUs are designed with DP1.2 MST, as you are obviously aware. Any monitor or monitor hub that is also MST-aware will enable the end user to connect up to three DP monitors per DP output.

The holdup is with the people who are actually making the DP hubs. Silicon issues first prevented them from getting hubs that even worked. Then they sorta worked, but only if you connected cables in a certain order and then powered on the PC (no hotplugging). Then they made hubs that were about twice the size of a Boxee Box (huge). Now they're in the process of miniaturization. We've been told we'll see retail models by the summer of this year, and we demonstrated some at the press even we held for the 7900 Series in Austin in December.

The reality is that we're at the mercy of the people who make the adapters, hubs and cables. We can push and pressure, but we can't make someone else's business do something any faster. We don't make these kinds of products, so there's no economy of scale to do it ourselves.

http://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/com...sively/c40e3xs

Does sound like it fits what has been going on but obviously unnofficial.

[koralis]

Originally Posted by caveman-jim

Clearly, they won't. Clearly AMD need a manufacturing partner, someone who can take a custom ASIC or CMOS design and get it manufactured in low volume, stuck on a PCB, slapped inside a case, packaged, and shipped worldwide, to help them out. Hmmmm, I wonder if they know anyone that does that kinda crap already? Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
.

Yes, but clearly if AMD committed to buying/reselling a displayport hub with every Radeon over a certain performance level, there'd be a LOT more incentive for at least one manufacturer to get it done.

Better would have been to just include 3-4 display ports out with an adapter to DVI/VGA. I'm sure that's simpler.

[muzz]

Originally Posted by caveman-jim

Give it a rest guys. Those of us who actually acknowledge and try to pass on details of problems like Eyefinity on mixed display connector types don't need to endure this trolling to get to the good stuff from real users.

Give WHAT a rest?
This is an ONGOING problem with Amds configuration, the excuses are poor, and the HYPE is BIG.
WHY should folks that spend a ton of $ on hardware that is HYPED have to deal with this garbage in the 1st place?

This is unacceptable, and they are WELL aware of the issue, yet have done nothing to solve it, except blame the hub makers for being slow.

How about THEY make it so the hub isn't necessary in the 1st place.

Give it a rest?

[caveman-jim]

AMD Eyefinity works without MST Hubs.

This is proven fact.

[shadow001]

Originally Posted by caveman-jim

AMD Eyefinity works without MST Hubs.

This is proven fact.

In windows sure it does....In gaming YMMV without crashing, locking up, bluescreens, and it varies immensely with drivers where some older games used to work with older drivers, while a new driver release improves the newer game releases, but screws up on what used to work before.


Frustrating, you better believe it and don't give me that extreme enthusiast excuse and that i represent a very small minority of the user base, as you've been saying that for the last several years for anyone that has a very high end setup, so it must be getting boring repeating the same excuse over and over again.


That's like saying that if you're an extreme high end user, do not buy AMD GPU's at all...

[noko]

Originally Posted by caveman-jim

AMD Eyefinity works without MST Hubs.

This is proven fact.

How common is the tearing problem dealing with different type ports? I do not know. Yes Eyefinity works but how about 6 monitor setup as indicated by AMD? That is an indicated feature that is still is not available at this time.

Originally Posted by AMD

◾AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology2

◦Up to 6 displays supported with DisplayPort 1.2 Multi-Stream Transport
◦Independent resolutions, refresh rates, color controls, and video overlays
◦Display grouping

•Combine multiple displays to behave like a single large display

[muzz]

Originally Posted by noko

How common is the tearing problem dealing with different type ports? I do not know. Yes Eyefinity works but how about 6 monitor setup as indicated by AMD? That is an indicated feature that is still is not available at this time.

The marketing dept. did their job, now maybe the designer of the cards will do theirs.

[junglist1996]

It is unfortunate that this thread still exists and AMD has lost at least 1 loyal customer (been using ATI/AMD exclusively for about 10 years for each gen since the 9700 Pro) because of this situation. I had to buy a 6990 last year because of the tearing on my 6970 CFX + Dell U2410's. The lack of (i) MST hub; (ii) at least 3x DP/miniDP on reference 7970; and (iii) 7990 which presumably will have at least 4x miniDP, were the major factors leading to my purchase of the current 2x GTX680 SLI. My 3x U2410's are now connected to the GTX680's via 2x DVI and 1x DP (would have used 3x DVI but I found out one of my U2410's apparently didn't ship with a DVI cable ) and there is no tearing whatsoever. No Active DP adapters, no MST hub, no nothing and Surround Vision just works out of the box.

AMD should really start to properly support users who wish to utilize one of their well advertised features. Either make > 3x DP/miniDP on their reference card and bundle VGA/DVI/HDMI adapters or give manufacturers incentives to start making that MST hub (e.g. AMD committing to a minimum order). Or better yet, learn what NV does with Surround Vision which allows mixing different display outputs with no tearing as in my case. If AMD fails to do any of the above, it'd be hard to imagine me spending any money on their next gen parts.

[LordJuanlo]

Originally Posted by junglist1996

Or better yet, learn what NV does with Surround Vision which allows mixing different display outputs with no tearing as in my case

It's funny but the original Radeon 5870 did not tear when mixing outputs. When I sold my 5870 and bought a 6970, the tearing was the first thing I noticed in less than 10 seconds. Both cards were connected to the same monitors with the same connections: 2xDVI and 1xDP->DVI adapter. What did AMD change, and most importantly... why??? I don't know.

Now those MST hubs are my only hope to get the tearing issues sorted. I hope they are finally out this summer.

[junglist1996]

Originally Posted by LordJuanlo

It's funny but the original Radeon 5870 did not tear when mixing outputs. When I sold my 5870 and bought a 6970, the tearing was the first thing I noticed in less than 10 seconds. Both cards were connected to the same monitors with the same connections: 2xDVI and 1xDP->DVI adapter. What did AMD change, and most importantly... why??? I don't know.

Now those MST hubs are my only hope to get the tearing issues sorted. I hope they are finally out this summer.

Yeah, hopefully the MST hubs will indeed be available this summer so that people who buy their high end cards can have an option to have an optimal gaming experience.

[Bitey]

I have always had screen tearing/corruption on my 5870(eyefintiy6) if use anything but default clocks.

Though I have found a fix that works for me.

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthre...3972192&page=2

Seems it may be a "windows issues"

[caveman-jim]

http://blogs.amd.com/play/2012/04/26...issing-out-on/

[Ristogod]

Originally Posted by caveman-jim

http://blogs.amd.com/play/2012/04/26...issing-out-on/

But where can I buy one?

[Dyre Straits]

Don’t get these confused with the DisplayPort 1.1 MST Hubs already in the market.

Where is this "market" he speaks of???

[junglist1996]

Originally Posted by Dyre Straits

Where is this "market" he speaks of???

I think he might be talking about these:

http://www.accellcables.com/products...timonitor.html

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...p&sku=330-9118

They only do 3x 1280x1024 IIRC.

edit: And in other news, seems like the folks over at WSGF are trying to get a MST hub manufactured (thanks to Final8ty's post in the Other GFX forum).

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33990626

[Dyre Straits]

Originally Posted by junglist1996

I think he might be talking about these:

http://www.accellcables.com/products...timonitor.html

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...p&sku=330-9118

They only do 3x 1280x1024 IIRC.

edit: And in other news, seems like the folks over at WSGF are trying to get a MST hub manufactured (thanks to Final8ty's post in the Other GFX forum).

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33990626

So, it's really still just so much "vaporware", right?

[Treeckcold57]

New thread about the MST Hub! Here's link for you guys.

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33990626