Upgrade from 5850 to a 480

coupe69 · 24 Aug 2011 at 23:01

Adster3000 said:
I'm surprised by the fact that no one here shares my opinion on liking to play games with maximum quality over a slightly better display.

The problem is maximum quality for most people on here doesn't come in the form of a 4:3 1280x1024 monitor

It's barely any better than X-Box 360 or PS3 quality! Better res = better quality, besides which your 5850 will perform perfectly well at 1080p anyway. I'd much rather have a higher res and perhaps turn some of the settings down, stuff like anti-aliasing for example doesn't need to be turned up to the max when running @ 1080p.

daveash · 24 Aug 2011 at 23:03

easyrider said:
The point is you wont see much of an improvement making a 480 push such a low res

The OP has acknowledged he needs (or wants, depending on your POV) both a monitor and a GPU. Whichever way round he does it is up to him. I upgraded to 480 before I bought a 1080p monitor for the same reasons he did, I didn't want to spend £100+ on something that made my games run slower.

Adster3000 · 24 Aug 2011 at 23:04

easyrider said:
The point is you wont see much of an improvement making a 480 push such a low res

And it's a very fair point. I will be spending a lot of time with BF3 and Skyrim. I'm very sure my 5850 won't handle them too well. I wouldn't like to have to wait for next gen. Especially when we don't know when they'll hit. If they come sooner rather than later, **** happens, right?

Any body on the BF3 alpha? I understand that they don't represent what the final release will be like but it'll give a base guideline, right? I'll look up some other threads and maybe some Youtube videos.

coupe69 · 24 Aug 2011 at 23:05

daveash said:
I upgraded to 480 before I bought a 1080p monitor for the same reasons he did, I didn't want to spend £100+ on something that made my games run slower.

The thing is the OP has a perfectly good GPU as it is, or are you saying a 5850 isn't up to the task at 1080p?

Adster3000 · 24 Aug 2011 at 23:10

coupe69 said:
The problem is maximum quality for most people on here doesn't come in the form of a 4:3 1280x1024 monitor It's barely any better than X-Box 360 or PS3 quality! Better res = better quality, besides which your 5850 will perform perfectly well at 1080p anyway. I'd much rather have a higher res and perhaps turn some of the settings down, stuff like anti-aliasing for example doesn't need to be turned up to the max when running @ 1080p.

I see. Never really thought of it like that. I guess I'm different then.

Adster3000 · 24 Aug 2011 at 23:11

coupe69 said:
The thing is the OP has a perfectly good GPU as it is, or are you saying a 5850 isn't up to the task at 1080p?

It's up to the task, just fine for a lot of people it seems. Just not as well as I'd like it to.

eddyr · 24 Aug 2011 at 23:26

Higher res on a bigger screen does go some way to imoproving visuals, by virtue of there being more pixels/finer detail, granted you may take a fps or settings hit from having to render them all. More of a 2 steps back and 1 forward type deal with a switch to 1920x1080. Also take into account in some games max settings offer very little graphical improvement at a disproportionate performance/fps cost over marginally lower settings.
But I do understand where you are coming from, no judgment either way from me, just a few other things to take into consideration.

Adster3000 · 24 Aug 2011 at 23:44

eddyr said:
Higher res on a bigger screen does go some way to imoproving visuals, by virtue of there being more pixels/finer detail, granted you may take a fps or settings hit from having to render them all. More of a 2 steps back and 1 forward type deal with a switch to 1920x1080. Also take into account in some games max settings offer very little graphical improvement at a disproportionate performance/fps cost over marginally lower settings.
But I do understand where you are coming from, no judgment either way from me, just a few other things to take into consideration.

Thank you for your input. I agree with everything you pointed out. I could sacrifice 8xAA for 2x, for example.

Marine-RX179 · 24 Aug 2011 at 23:45

Adster3000 said:
And it's a very fair point. I will be spending a lot of time with BF3 and Skyrim. I'm very sure my 5850 won't handle them too well.

If 5850 won't handle PC games at 1280x1024, then people should stop wasting money and stop PC gaming altogether right now...

If there's anything holding back the frame rate at that res, it would most likely be the CPU rather than the 5850. It doesn't matter if a 5850 is capable of delivering 100fps, if the CPU is holding back the frame rate at 30fps.

easyrider · 24 Aug 2011 at 23:50

I agree

OP post your PC specs

You better not be running a Celeron

Adster3000 · 24 Aug 2011 at 23:53

easyrider said:
I agree

OP post your PC specs

You better not be running a Celeron

6th post.

coupe69 · 24 Aug 2011 at 23:54

easyrider said:
I agree

OP post your PC specs

You better not be running a Celeron

He already has

Adster3000 said:
Phenom 965 @ 4GHz
Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H
4GB 1600MHz Corsair RAM
300GB hard drive.
700W OCZ Stealth XStream PSU.

easyrider · 24 Aug 2011 at 23:55

I see, Missed it

I still don't understand how you can game in 4.3 ratio and not 16.9 widescreen

Adster3000 · 24 Aug 2011 at 23:58

easyrider said:
I see, Missed it

I still don't understand how you can game in 4.3 ratio and not 16.9 widescreen

I'm not entirely sure what benefits I'm missing? :confused:

If any?

Enlighten me.

I have played temporarily on my 720p Samsung TV. Didn't seem like I was missing out on a whole bunch to be honest.

Res is awful though, it's old.

easyrider · 25 Aug 2011 at 00:01

720p is 1280×720

Your monitor is 1280×1024

Hardly a massive difference

coupe69 · 25 Aug 2011 at 00:01

Adster3000 said:
I'm not entirely sure what benefits I'm missing? If any?

Enlighten me.

I have played temporarily on my 720p Samsung TV. Didn't seem like I was missing out on a whole bunch to be honest. Res is awful though, it's old.

720P is a worse res than your current 4:3 monitor, it's no wonder you thought it was a bit pap

Come round and have a game on my 27" Dell you'll soon be convinced

Adster3000 · 25 Aug 2011 at 00:01

easyrider said:
720p is 1280×720

Your monitor is 1280×1024

Hardly a massive difference

For a 32" TV, it is.

easyrider · 25 Aug 2011 at 00:05

Anyway

You're talking BS as a 5850 is fine for your res.

A 480 at that res will not make a lot of difference.

The mere fact you want the games to look the best and you have a crap monitor is a nonsense quite frankly.

Adster3000 · 25 Aug 2011 at 00:12

easyrider said:
Anyway

You're talking BS as a 5850 is fine for your res.

A 480 at that res will not make a lot of difference.

The mere fact you want the games to look the best and you have a crap monitor is a nonsense quite frankly.

Sorry, I'm sticking by the fact that it will feel like a downgrade if I purchase a monitor with this card.
I play BC2 a lot and it runs ALMOST perfectly. A new monitor will hinder that even further. I run it with 2xAA with HBAO off, if anyone's wondering.

coupe69 · 25 Aug 2011 at 00:18

easyrider said:
The mere fact you want the games to look the best and you have a crap monitor is a nonsense quite frankly.

Agreed.

Adster3000 said:
Sorry, I'm sticking by the fact that it will feel like a downgrade if I purchase a monitor with this card.
I play BC2 a lot and it runs ALMOST perfectly. A new monitor will hinder that even further. I run it with 2xAA with HBAO off, if anyone's wondering.

How can it be a downgrade? If you're a graphics whore then getting a better resolution monitor will make games look so much better, more pixels = better looking graphics.