i find it hard to believe that a high end video card cant play some modern high setting game (i guess bf3/4 for the sake of discussion) on 3 monitors by itself.
everywhere i read when googling around, its just a few opinions without really adding any discussion or proof; that you MUST use some sort of sli/crossfire.
they all say you will lag. but thats just bullstuff, they must be using crappy cards.
Q1a: is the only reason multiple cards needed, is to have more HDMI ports? as cards generally only have 1 or 2 and you would need 3?
Q1b: how else can it be done with a single card? special cords or adaptors to split a single hdmi output to 3 monitors, that actually still allows them to surround-view and not just clone 1 desktop 3 times?
Q2: what video card has 3 hdmi ports and can handle high end games lol
A1a: Sort of, this is very important, if your standard card doesn't have enough ports that means you cannot run more than two monitors, but lag has nothing to do with it
A1b: No way afaik, there may be some form of $100 adapter that will work, but I doubt it's worth it, but no, standard splitters will clone the display with no way to change that
A2: Afaik no single card has 3 HDMI ports, most high end cards have two DVI, one HDMI, and a miniDisplayPort or DisplayPort.