I can answer some of my own questions now :P
I installed an additional 5850 and it surpasses all my expectations, worked perfectly. I already had ati drivers installed so I just inserted the card and booted up and was good to go.
With this new card installed I can:
- use my big screen without replugging any cables
- have all four displays enabled simultaneously
- run my main toon in WoW at almost the highest graphic settings (nerf shadow detail)
- let the 5850 render four WoW windows with slave toons
- let the 5970 render just my main toon
- render all five windows at the same resolution (1920x1200) for pixel perfect mouse broadcasting
- run slave toons with much higher background fps
- run slave toons with much higher graphic settings (used to be everything at absolute minimums)
- With Trifire enabled I am also able to play Dragon Age: Origins in Eyefinity, previously I didnt do this as I had to disable Frame Buffer Effects to get playable framerates and the game is unplayable without them
- Possible performance gains in other games
- Disable CrossfireX for whenever I want troublefree compability mode
GPU usage on my main is now around 45-50% with every setting maxed out except for shadows which is one notch below max. With shadows at max gpu usage rices to 95% right away and fps remains at 60 but will drop occasionally.
GPU usage on slaves is around 40% so I have plenty to go on for Cataclysm also.
Also overclocked the cpu to 4 Ghz and that cant hurt either.
This has been a huge upgrade and I feel like I have a brand new computer =)
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