GTX 580 at 1440x900 resolution?

[xsistor]

If you get a 120Hz 24 inch 1920*1080 panel you can actually enjoy the 120+fps you will get with full detail in all the latest games.

Go for it, it will be EPIC to run all the latest games like that!

TBH on a 60Hz 1920*1080 screen a 580 is overkill however.

edit, some nice looking (awaiting reviews) new 27inch 120Hz screens coming out soon. Still same res, but would be great for games!

And in 3D!!!

 

[pmc25]

Where have you heard July for the 7000 series cards from amd? Most places seem to suggest it's more likely to be late 2011.

Loads of sites confirmed leaks 4-6 weeks ago that the 28nm chips TSMC are making for AMD had entered full volume production. Unless something went wrong since, they're not going to sit on more than 2-3 months worth of chips.

I'm sure it'll be a staggered launch again, but I don't see how it could possibly be later in the year.

 

[Anesthetize]

Not really directed at the OP but it baffles me the amount of people running mid to high end cards with tiny monitors around the 21" size, surely your better saving up and investing in a good hi-res screen that will last a good amount of years then getting a card.

Ahha, well I'm rocking a 19" at the mo, booyya!

But yeah, in all seriousness, this monitor is going out and a better one is taking it's place. The point of this thread was just to determine whether to do it before or after building the PC. One the one hand running a PC like the one I intend to build on this monitor is overkill, but nither will I get the most out of a new monitor with this heap of junk PC I'm using now. So either way I'm stuck with something that's not being fully utilised until I can get the other.

buying a top end card just for future proofing isn't really worth it tbh

instead of spending £400-500 on a gpu that u wont make full use of for a few years.
you can spend £200 that will do everything you need, then in a few years time, spend another £200 and u'll end up with something far better than the top end card u would have got.

a 480 can handle everything fine at 1080p

Do you really think something like a GTX 560Ti or a 6950 will max out Battlefield 3 at 1080p? I mean, no one knows for sure what the speficiations will be yet, but making an assumption on a game that's focusing on running completely in DX11 (DX10 for lesser cards too I think, but no DX9), would the above cards even stand a chance of maxing out a game like that?

I'm all for saving money if I can, I just keep feeling like I'll get to a point where I'm gonna wish I spent more on a better GPU. An unfounded feeling perhaps?

EDIT: The reason I'm not looking at the 480 is because that's the one that racks up a lot of heat isn't it?

 

[smogsy]

I would only consider the 580 if you have a monitor running at 2560x1440px such as the Dell UltraSharp U2711 or higher.

A 24" monitor has a native resoloution of 1920x1200px so the 580 is a massive overkill. The 570 on the other hand is £150 less and more than capable of playing most games at this res with decent AA/AF high settings.

i have a 2560x1600 monitor and in most cases my GTX570
(yes 70) performs very well in access of 80-100fps on all games at max AA/AF that the games allow
(this is with texture filtering qaulity as high qaulity in nvidia control panel)

the only game i run out of Vram on is GTA IV which i only run out by 30mb but this is a poorly coded game for the pc.

so i would agree with the qoutee

 

[OCPete]

...
As I don't know much about monitors though, how do the Hz affect the quality? what is it about a higher Hz that makes them better?
...

A 60Hz screen refreshes (draws) the screen 60 times per second. So any frame rate from your GPU over 60 fps is not visible. In fact if the GPU is drawing to the frame buffer over 60 times per second you can get issues with "tearing" where the screen displays part of 2 different frames from the GPU as the screen displays the buffer contents part way through the GPU updating it. With a 580 @ 1920*1080 you WILL get over 60fps in ALL games. V synch solves tearing but locks your GPU to 60Hz and 60FPS.

With a 120Hz screen you can display upto 120 frame per second without any issues. So movement will be much much smoother. The percieved improvement is arguably not twice as smooth but clearly noticeable. The issue with 120Hz is older TN panel technology is used to get the speed required for 120Hz and the colours and viewing angles are poor in comparison to other technologies(IPS). And 120Hz limits resolution due to limitations on the connectivity bandwidth (1920*1080 is max for 120Hz at the mo).

The important point is on a 60Hz screen @ 1920*1080 the power of your GPU will be wasted either by v-synch or to give counter-productive tearing. To get benefit your NEED 120Hz or higher res. Either of these will give you a better gaming experience.

Someone else can describe how 3D works!

 

[Anesthetize]

A 60Hz screen refreshes (draws) the screen 60 times per second. So any frame rate from your GPU over 60 fps is not visible. In fact if the GPU is drawing to the frame buffer over 60 times per second you can get issues with "tearing" where the screen displays part of 2 different frames from the GPU as the screen displays the buffer contents part way through the GPU updating it. With a 580 @ 1920*1080 you WILL get over 60fps in ALL games. V synch solves tearing but locks your GPU to 60Hz and 60FPS.

With a 120Hz screen you can display upto 120 frame per second without any issues. So movement will be much much smoother. The percieved improvement is arguably not twice as smooth but clearly noticeable. The issue with 120Hz is older TN panel technology is used to get the speed required for 120Hz and the colours and viewing angles are poor in comparison to other technologies(IPS). And 120Hz limits resolution due to limitations on the connectivity bandwidth (1920*1080 is max for 120Hz at the mo).

The important point is on a 60Hz screen @ 1920*1080 the power of your GPU will be wasted either by v-synch or to give counter-productive tearing. To get benefit your NEED 120Hz or higher res. Either of these will give you a better gaming experience.

Someone else can describe how 3D works!

Great info. Don't worry about 3D, it'd be nice to experience it properly in a game, but it's no something I'd like to have all the time. I'm a bit more conventional that way.

So, 120Hz monitor is something I don't want. The colours and viewing angles would bother me more than any amount of screen tearing. That said, I'm not too keen on screen tearing either, and limiting a 580 to 60fps with v-synch seems like a waste of potential, therefore the only viable way of using a 580 in my case would be to buy a higher resolution monitor.

And using a card that's going to give me a fps that's quite a bit higher than 60 will cause screen tearing on a 60Hz monitor at a lower resolution, right? And that can be countered with v-sync, but limiting a card that's capable of more than 60FPS at 1080p is a waste of that cards potential, and of energy, because the card still requires more power than a 'lesser' card, right?

But using a 580 on a screen that has a resolution higher than 1920x1200 would cancel out any screen tearing without the need of v-sync right? If so, using a 580 at a really high resolution would still only have it running at around 60FPS or so for most games, because that extra power is being used to allow the 580 to play games maxed out, but at a higher resolution. So buying a 580 isn't really getting you better framerates, more so the ability to play on bigger screens at higher resolutions with the same high graphical settings that a 6950 might produce at 1080p.

Am I sort of getting the idea?

 

[Anesthetize]

A 60Hz screen refreshes (draws) the screen 60 times per second. So any frame rate from your GPU over 60 fps is not visible. In fact if the GPU is drawing to the frame buffer over 60 times per second you can get issues with "tearing" where the screen displays part of 2 different frames from the GPU as the screen displays the buffer contents part way through the GPU updating it. With a 580 @ 1920*1080 you WILL get over 60fps in ALL games. V synch solves tearing but locks your GPU to 60Hz and 60FPS.

With a 120Hz screen you can display upto 120 frame per second without any issues. So movement will be much much smoother. The percieved improvement is arguably not twice as smooth but clearly noticeable. The issue with 120Hz is older TN panel technology is used to get the speed required for 120Hz and the colours and viewing angles are poor in comparison to other technologies(IPS). And 120Hz limits resolution due to limitations on the connectivity bandwidth (1920*1080 is max for 120Hz at the mo).

The important point is on a 60Hz screen @ 1920*1080 the power of your GPU will be wasted either by v-synch or to give counter-productive tearing. To get benefit your NEED 120Hz or higher res. Either of these will give you a better gaming experience.

Someone else can describe how 3D works!

Great info. Don't worry about 3D, it'd be nice to experience it properly in a game, but it's no something I'd like to have all the time. I'm a bit more conventional that way.

So, 120Hz monitor is something I don't want. The colours and viewing angles would bother me more than any amount of screen tearing. That said, I'm not too keen on screen tearing either, and limiting a 580 to 60fps with v-synch seems like a waste of potential, therefore the only viable way of using a 580 in my case would be to buy a higher resolution monitor.

And using a card that's going to give me a fps that's quite a bit higher than 60 will cause screen tearing on a 60Hz monitor at a lower resolution, right? And that can be countered with v-sync, but limiting a card that's capable of more than 60FPS at 1080p is a waste of that cards potential, and of energy, because the card still requires more power than a 'lesser' card, right?

But using a 580 on a screen that has a resolution higher than 1920x1200 would cancel out any screen tearing without the need of v-sync right? If so, is using a 580 at a really high resolution like running say, a 6950 at 1080p? Like similar performance, but at a higher resolution?

So like all that power the 580 has is being used to allow the 580 to play games maxed out, but at a higher resolution. So buying a 580 isn't really getting you better framerates, more so the ability to play on bigger screens at higher resolutions with the same high graphical settings that a 6950 might produce at 1080p. Get what I'm saying?

Am I sort of getting the idea?

 

[Anesthetize]

i have a 2560x1600 monitor and in most cases my GTX570
(yes 70) performs very well in access of 80-100fps on all games at max AA/AF that the games allow
(this is with texture filtering qaulity as high qaulity in nvidia control panel)

the only game i run out of Vram on is GTA IV which i only run out by 30mb but this is a poorly coded game for the pc.

so i would agree with the qoutee

Okay, but if you lowered the resolution a bit, that would allow you to run GTAIV a bit smoother? Because if you're running at that high a resolution with a GTX 570, I guess I really don't need a 580 as I can't see myself gaming at such a resolution myself. Probably 1920x1200 max for me. Higher would be nice, but the mounting screen size would be a bit silly considering my proximity to the monitor (about 2 feet away).

 

[OCPete]

Great info. Don't worry about 3D, it'd be nice to experience it properly in a game, but it's no something I'd like to have all the time. I'm a bit more conventional that way.

So, 120Hz monitor is something I don't want. The colours and viewing angles would bother me more than any amount of screen tearing. That said, I'm not too keen on screen tearing either, and limiting a 580 to 60fps with v-synch seems like a waste of potential, therefore the only viable way of using a 580 in my case would be to buy a higher resolution monitor.

And using a card that's going to give me a fps that's quite a bit higher than 60 will cause screen tearing on a 60Hz monitor at a lower resolution, right? And that can be countered with v-sync, but limiting a card that's capable of more than 60FPS at 1080p is a waste of that cards potential, and of energy, because the card still requires more power than a 'lesser' card, right?

But using a 580 on a screen that has a resolution higher than 1920x1200 would cancel out any screen tearing without the need of v-sync right? If so, is using a 580 at a really high resolution like running say, a 6950 at 1080p? Like similar performance, but at a higher resolution?

So like all that power the 580 has is being used to allow the 580 to play games maxed out, but at a higher resolution. So buying a 580 isn't really getting you better framerates, more so the ability to play on bigger screens at higher resolutions with the same high graphical settings that a 6950 might produce at 1080p. Get what I'm saying?

Am I sort of getting the idea?

AFAIK using v-synch to limit your GPU to the screen refresh rate does not waste power. The GPU simply does not render as fast as possible, just at the required rate. It processes slower as required.

Going to a higher res will reduce fps for otherwise similar settings assuming the game is not CPU limited. In that way it will use more of your GPU power for actual benefit (rather than 60+ fps you will not see). Tearing will still be an issue if the refresh is not limited by v-synch. It will however be reduced as the lower frame rate will be nearer to the screen refresh rate.

A 580 is not an efficient card under high load. It uses more power that a 6970 at max load. But the cards are all clever these days and scale clock speeds to limit wasted power. Power useage is also related to how much processing the card is doing. Its quite complex TBH. Simply put the more work the card is doing the more power it uses. The 580 has more grunt so uses more power. Its design is also less power efficient. The fastest is hardly ever the most efficient of anything!

The advantage of the 6970 is the larger frame buffer but thats for multi-screen only IMO. 1.5GB is fine for most single screen scenarios. If your gaming at a high enough res and settings to need 2GB then your getting into SLi/ xfire territory TBH.

Minimum frame rate is key as well as consistent (average) frame rates.

But your on the right track. Ignoring 120Hz screens as you state the 580 allows you to use higher resolutions at the 60fps you need to maintain with the graphics settings maxed out.

So when ready buy a big high res IPS panel and use v-synch. Max the games out and enjoy! If you see your frame rate dropping below 60 then just pull the AA/AF back a little.

 

[Atavist]

I'd like to offer just a small counterweight to the 'GTX580 for 1080p is overkill' arguments.

IMO saying a particular piece of hardware is overkill doesn't mean much without knowing exactly what the user's requirements and expectations are.

If you expect to play games at high (max for many but not all games) settings and the price difference between (say) a GTX580 and a GTX570 is an amount of money that really means something to you, then, yes, a GTX580 is overkill at 1080p.

On the other hand, if a £100 difference every other year isn't a big deal for you, but you do want to really max out every game currently available, then go for a a GTX580 (or upwards).

I currently game on a 120Hz 1080p monitor with 2 (oc'ed) GTX580s in SLI. If you thought that my fps are pretty much stuck at 120 all the time you'd be very wrong. There are plenty of real world situations in which my fps drop to low 30s or even below 30 (Rift is a particular culprit). That's very noticeable. Of course, my average fps are well in excess of 60. But minfps really matters (to me at least).

I wouldn't recommend a top-of-the-range card from a future proofing perspective. There is more justification for this approach at the moment (since the rate at which games are pushing the performance envelope seems to have slowed down), but it still isn't the best value for money I don't think.

Do buy a top-of-the-range card for its performance now, if (big if) you really want that performance.

 

[Anesthetize]

AFAIK using v-synch to limit your GPU to the screen refresh rate does not waste power. The GPU simply does not render as fast as possible, just at the required rate. It processes slower as required.

So running a game with v-sync on will use less power (energy/electricity/wattage) than running a game without it, and having the framerates up in the 90s? So the wattage it uses scales with how much of the cards power is being used? So playing something like Battlefield 1942 will require less wattage going to the card to play than Battlefield 2 would for example?

Going to a higher res will reduce fps for otherwise similar settings assuming the game is not CPU limited. In that way it will use more of your GPU power for actual benefit (rather than 60+ fps you will not see). Tearing will still be an issue if the refresh is not limited by v-synch. It will however be reduced as the lower frame rate will be nearer to the screen refresh rate.

Okay, first off, bare with me. I'm still learning about PC hardware and monitors and stuff.

So, when v-sync is enabled, and the framerate gets locked, does that mean it can't exceed 60 FPS, but can still dip under when things get crazy? Meaning, ideally, I need a card that isn't ridiculously overpowered for the resolution I'm using so that when v-sync is enabled, I'm not under-utilising
too much, right?

As for the rest of it, you have me feeling (more so than just being told by everyone else) that I might be better off with something like a 6950/6970/480/570 as when I think about it, I'd probably be better off due to my proximity to my current monitor, with a 24inch or so screen of which the max resolution (according to someone's reply in this thread) is 1920x1200, which is what I'll play at. Otherwise I'm sat face to facce with a screen much bigger than I need, or I'm buying a smaller 120Hz monitor, of which by the sounds of it is something I also don't really want.

All in all, that should not only save me a bit on money, but makes me feel better about choosing a different card too.

Cheers

 

[Nodiggidy123]

snip.
.

this is pretty much my argument. although my screen is small, even with my crossfire 6950's i still get dips of 30fps in some games. my main consideration for running thses cards was to improve my min fps. of course most of the time i get 80+ fps but i didnt buy the cards for that.

 

[Anesthetize]

I'd like to offer just a small counterweight to the 'GTX580 for 1080p is overkill' arguments.

IMO saying a particular piece of hardware is overkill doesn't mean much without knowing exactly what the user's requirements and expectations are.

If you expect to play games at high (max for many but not all games) settings and the price difference between (say) a GTX580 and a GTX570 is an amount of money that really means something to you, then, yes, a GTX580 is overkill at 1080p.

On the other hand, if a £100 difference every other year isn't a big deal for you, but you do want to really max out every game currently available, then go for a a GTX580 (or upwards).

I currently game on a 120Hz 1080p monitor with 2 (oc'ed) GTX580s in SLI. If you thought that my fps are pretty much stuck at 120 all the time you'd be very wrong. There are plenty of real world situations in which my fps drop to low 30s or even below 30 (Rift is a particular culprit). That's very noticeable. Of course, my average fps are well in excess of 60. But minfps really matters (to me at least).

I wouldn't recommend a top-of-the-range card from a future proofing perspective. There is more justification for this approach at the moment (since the rate at which games are pushing the performance envelope seems to have slowed down), but it still isn't the best value for money I don't think.

Do buy a top-of-the-range card for its performance now, if (big if) you really want that performance.

The extra money is already saved, so it's not the problem right now. And sure, I'd love the performance, but if I can get similar results with the resolution I think I'm going to be gaming on out of another card that's £100+ cheaper, that's definately worth considering.

My biggest concern at this point is Battlefield 3. I know a 580 would be the safest bet for that game if I were to build my PC soon, but if playing at my intended resolution will have a 570 yield similar results, that extra money saved can go toward a new monitor.

Gonna have to wait and see what the official system requirements are though. Hopefully I find out at the start of June (E3) as that's when I intend to build.

 

[Anesthetize]

this is pretty much my argument. although my screen is small, even with my crossfire 6950's i still get dips of 30fps in some games. my main consideration for running thses cards was to improve my min fps. of course most of the time i get 80+ fps but i didnt buy the cards for that.

That's my main concern beyond my average FPS. I'm not looking to push boundaries and be like 'woah, I hit a max FPS of 120' or anything. MinFPS is the thing I'm most concerned about, followed by average FPS.

 

[OCPete]

So running a game with v-sync on will use less power (energy/electricity/wattage) than running a game without it, and having the framerates up in the 90s? So the wattage it uses scales with how much of the cards power is being used? So playing something like Battlefield 1942 will require less wattage going to the card to play than Battlefield 2 would for example?

YES


Okay, first off, bare with me. I'm still learning about PC hardware and monitors and stuff.

So, when v-sync is enabled, and the framerate gets locked, does that mean it can't exceed 60 FPS, but can still dip under when things get crazy?

YES

Meaning, ideally, I need a card that isn't ridiculously overpowered for the resolution I'm using so that when v-sync is enabled, I'm not under-utilising
too much, right?

You need to ensure at the res and settings you are using the GPU keeps its min frame rate above the refesh rate so you will get stable 60fps (or 120fps)

As for the rest of it, you have me feeling (more so than just being told by everyone else) that I might be better off with something like a 6950/6970/480/570 as when I think about it, I'd probably be better off due to my proximity to my current monitor, with a 24inch or so screen of which the max resolution (according to someone's reply in this thread) is 1920x1200, which is what I'll play at. Otherwise I'm sat face to facce with a screen much bigger than I need, or I'm buying a smaller 120Hz monitor, of which by the sounds of it is something I also don't really want.

IMO bigger screans are GREAT if the resolution is also big enough to keep the pixel pitch (size) reasonable (ie not too big) and your PC & GPU can handle driving them at 60+ fps. Sitting near a screen is no issue with LCD and larger is more immersize IMO. If you have decided on only 24inch max then 1920*1200 is probably your max resolution. You have already stated you want a 60Hz high imagine quality (IPS) screen. At that res in many but not all games on max settings the 580 will be under-utilised. So yes you could go for a 570, 6970 or 6950. BUT some games will already really stretch the 580. Metro2033 for example. It depends on if you want to max out ALL games (get a 580), or most games (those other cards will do fine). If you are interested in value for money buying the fastest single GPU card on the market is never a good idea!

 

[TheGedi]

I'd like to offer just a small counterweight to the 'GTX580 for 1080p is overkill' arguments.

IMO saying a particular piece of hardware is overkill doesn't mean much without knowing exactly what the user's requirements and expectations are.

If you expect to play games at high (max for many but not all games) settings and the price difference between (say) a GTX580 and a GTX570 is an amount of money that really means something to you, then, yes, a GTX580 is overkill at 1080p.

On the other hand, if a £100 difference every other year isn't a big deal for you, but you do want to really max out every game currently available, then go for a a GTX580 (or upwards).

I currently game on a 120Hz 1080p monitor with 2 (oc'ed) GTX580s in SLI. If you thought that my fps are pretty much stuck at 120 all the time you'd be very wrong. There are plenty of real world situations in which my fps drop to low 30s or even below 30 (Rift is a particular culprit). That's very noticeable. Of course, my average fps are well in excess of 60. But minfps really matters (to me at least).

I wouldn't recommend a top-of-the-range card from a future proofing perspective. There is more justification for this approach at the moment (since the rate at which games are pushing the performance envelope seems to have slowed down), but it still isn't the best value for money I don't think.

Do buy a top-of-the-range card for its performance now, if (big if) you really want that performance.

I have heard that GTX 580's dont really stretch their wings till they get above 1080p.
I also heard rift wasn't the best Optimized.

 

[xBLiNG]

buying a top end card just for future proofing isn't really worth it tbh

instead of spending £400-500 on a gpu that u wont make full use of for a few years.
you can spend £200 that will do everything you need, then in a few years time, spend another £200 and u'll end up with something far better than the top end card u would have got.

a 480 can handle everything fine at 1080p

This. Spend the extra money later, or on something that is more future proof than a GPU, such as a second monitor, nice M+KB ect.

 

[Luke_Bowman]

Overkill more than bottlenecking, but very futureproof

 

[Luke_Bowman]

Also, can i get any opinions on 1200p monitors, much better than 1080p?

 

[Anesthetize]

You need to ensure at the res and settings you are using the GPU keeps its min frame rate above the refesh rate so you will get stable 60fps (or 120fps)

Yeah, that's what I was trying to explain. Okay cool.

IMO bigger screans are GREAT if the resolution is also big enough to keep the pixel pitch (size) reasonable (ie not too big) and your PC & GPU can handle driving them at 60+ fps. Sitting near a screen is no issue with LCD and larger is more immersize IMO. If you have decided on only 24inch max then 1920*1200 is probably your max resolution. You have already stated you want a 60Hz high imagine quality (IPS) screen. At that res in many but not all games on max settings the 580 will be under-utilised. So yes you could go for a 570, 6970 or 6950. BUT some games will already really stretch the 580. Metro2033 for example. It depends on if you want to max out ALL games (get a 580), or most games (those other cards will do fine). If you are interested in value for money buying the fastest single GPU card on the market is never a good idea!

I decided that a 24inch would be a nice size, but I'd be willing to go bigger. Definately prefere 60Hz monitor, but here's another question, what's IPS?

As for the 580, I'm on the fence. I think I'd be better suited to something like a 6950/6970/570, but I'll make a decision based on the funds I have at the point I decide to buy, I may even just wait longer and see what new cards AMD/Nvidia put out in the next few months/towards the end of the year and decide then.

Thanks again.