Please expain resolutions over 1920x1080

ussff

ussff

ussff

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My flat screen monitor is a few years old - Neovo F-419 running at a max 1280x1024 and I'm gaming! It looks ok... It's not a new rig, infact its being decommisioned as the mobo is showing faults and the CPU is outdated... its an AMD 939, 4800+.

The GPU's are ok (I thought), I have two GSO 9600xxx in SLI - now I know I wasn't going to Conquer the world with them... but thought they would hold up untill I could afford to replace them.

When I commented in the GPU section that I was running 1280x1024 with SLI I suddenly felt like a rejected stray dog... with comments like "I'm sorry, I can't read that" so educate me... I was thinking that the SLI option was a little bit overkill when I put it together - my mind set was on raw power = results; much in the same way as CPU's.

Now it seems that after briefly looking at Res and AA there are benefits for multi GPU's at higher resolutions... so at 1280x1024 it was the wrong approach for my gaming pc? Is that right? I nedd to undersand this as my next mobo is multi GPU (Asrock Z77 Extreme4) and was planning on scaleing its lifespan by looking at crossfire / SLI, in its support.

My problem with that is that IF resolution is the key, why benchmark a game over 1920x1080 (HD resolution) as some reviews go upto 2560x1600 which in theory maked my 50" HD 3D Plasma in the lounge, pretty obsolete too!

Why ask? - cos I'm thinking that my new i5 pc deserves a new monitor so I look to OCUK to show me the future and its HD at 1920x1080... Cos I've looked at most of the monitors you sell, and they are HD.

GPU's now come wth HDMI ports (its all adding up niceley); :D I'm planning on buying a 22" Asus LED with HDMI (on special this week) and when the cash arrives a HD7850 to drive the monitor... and yet it will produce a whopping 2560x1600 which again will SLAUGHTER what my HD monitor will reproduce :confused:

I just don't get it? :eek: I will be a luddite again, cos when i buy a second HD7850 to boost performance I will be bottlenecked by a HD monitor... (that's irony, in one dimension...) :D

LESSON REQUIRED! Before I buy a OCUK monitor and a GPU's please :p
 
Azza, Ta very much - lots of reading and all the right stuff!

I noticed your in Buckley... would that be the same Buckley just down the road from Connah's Quay?
 
For running a SLI setup at a low resolution - you will get a framerate benefit over a single card and you will be able to turn up settings while maintaining good framerates.

However, (at least how I read that thread) most people were making the point that it seemed strange that you were considering buying such expensive PC hardware, but not changing the low-resolution screen (at least initially).

As for SLI, I didn't see many comments specifically decrying using an SLI setup for your resolution - and those that did most likely didn't make notice that you are using Nvidia 9600 cards - which means your system is pretty old. Obviously if you were running a pair of more modern graphics card in SLI then a 1280x1024 resolution would be crazy (as you could basically max out every game with just a single card while the other card is wasted), but that isn't the case. As you say, these days people mainly buy SLI/CF graphics setups so they can play games at high resolutions or extremely high settings - since even a single mid-level graphics card (like a HD 7850 2GB) can easily handle pretty much all games at 1080p and make them look great.

As for benchmarking games over 1080p, I probably should highlight that quite a few gamers have monitors that support resolutions much higher than 1080p. As Azza pointed out, 27in 2560x1440 resolution monitors are becoming much more widely used - since their prices are coming down. The Hazro HZ27WC (which is a nice gaming monitor) has the same resolution and at one point cost £350, though it usually costs ~£400. Also, many gamers are now starting to use multiple-monitor setups to play games (for example AMD eyefinity and Nvidia Surround gaming). With these setups people often use three 1080p monitors - giving a total gaming resolution of 5760x1080, so for these users they will want to know how games run on different graphics cards at very high resolutions.

If you are buying a whole new gaming setup then I would striongly recommend you don't cheap out on the monitor - as it is effectively the primary output for everything you are doing with your system. Therefore, I would strongly recommend you either invest in a 120Hz TN panel monitor or a 60Hz IPS panel monitor (one which is good for gaming - like a Dell, ASUS or hazro).
 
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cmndr_andi said:
For running a SLI setup at a low resolution - you will get a framerate benefit over a single card and you will be able to turn up settings while maintaining good framerates.
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That was my understanding, although when my rig went togeher initially with my monitor, I wouldn't have called it low resolution as the GSO's were not the start point, it has evolved to where it is now. I was getting to turn up all the games settings with the SLI and play smoothly. I'm not a prolific gamer and some games I play are not topshelf either, cos I'm not desperate on release date to have it, I wait until the game drops in price.

I'd just finished FEAR2 and the kind hearted Mrs bought FEAR3 for me at Christmas, a lovely surprise; especially when I flipped the game over and read the spec! Its still in the wrapper as the recommended specs were way out of my league. That spurred me back into the upgrade arena and trying to ask the right questions, because all my gear is pretty dated.

I have two pc's;The 'Admin' pc I surf and do my work on (word, excel etc) is full of handed down bits from the slighty higher spec 'gaming' pc - both of which run on the same monitor, keyboard and mouse on my desk via a belkin kvm.

Even I don't even think that I want to try running a newer monitor via a KVM with a higher spec GPU on my Z77... So the whole setup is starting to head towards costing a small fortune - that I don't have. :(

I've budget gamed on a PC since I sold my Amiga and built a 486DX pc, since then I've never shop bought a pc. I have never spent top dollar on them either. The Fatality 939 mobo was no where near the top of the tree when I picked it up with 4Gb of RAM; That sparked a need to get off XP, so I bought two sets of Win7 64bit and I'm still surfing on XP on the 'Admin' PC :rolleyes:

The Z77 setup will be by my previous standards is a luxury item that I would like to think having splashed the cash, will take an upgrade or 2 and give it a reasonable life span. i.e. start with a mid range CPU, single GPU and then as Ivybridge matures, put in the top spec CPU in say 12/18 months and I'd view SLI or Crossfire as a way of extending the life of the PC.

All of that will need a better monitor, as My current Neovo is prob the oldest bit of Tech I have in my little office space. It doesn't seem dated, but I'm sure I will be blown away by a new one! :p
 
If you are looking for a new monitor then I'd recommend:

Under 27" 1080p
27" or above really needs to be 2560x1440 or 2560x1600

You sit closer to your monitor then your TV, 1080p on a large monitor looks hideous because the pixels are quite big and have more spacing between them. Do bare in mind though, the higher the resolution, the more graphic power you need. With modern cards anything under 1080p doesn't require SLI, it is best to get 1 card for now, then in the future you have the option if needed.
 
no_1_dave said:
With modern cards anything under 1080p doesn't require SLI, it is best to get 1 card for now, then in the future you have the option if needed.
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To be fair a single card (single GPU) can run 2560x1440 quite well, I have an AMD 7950 and besides The Witcher II (which would need a quad set up :P) I seem to be able to max every game out.
 
Axeia said:
To be fair a single card (single GPU) can run 2560x1440 quite well, I have an AMD 7950 and besides The Witcher II (which would need a quad set up :P) I seem to be able to max every game out.
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Try Nexuiz beta lol ;)
My 470s in SLI struggle to maintain 45fps with max settings. The average is around 30. 2 680s in SLI averages 58fps according to people on the Nvidia forums.
 
I'm a little off forum topic now, but we have migrated over the thread! :D so I appologise, but feel the expertise is here to help...

I will look at HD re monitors; I have my eye on the Asus on special... but tech has moved on since I last built a system SO MUCH, that's for sure!

As I'm growing more awear of the options... I like the eyefinity option that could display 3x 22" LED panels in Portrait, if I'm future proofing my rig... so Hd 7850? Will that handle 3x 22"monitors at a reasonable res?

So that leads me to Ivybridge and PCIe 3.0 Crossfire... I have a Z77 mobo waiting but by all accounts an Ivy bridge with PCIe 3.0 is no real boost? So I'm buying a sandybridge... as big as I can afford - and get a second 7850 in crossfire to boost performance...

Right move?
 
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Eyefinity is nice, but please be aware that even with a HD 7850 you will need to turn settings down quite a bit in many intensive games (like BF3) to maintain good framerates - since a 5760x1080 resolution really hammers modern graphics cards. Hence, if you are going down this road I would personally invest in either two 7850s immediately or a single HD 7970.

When looking for monitors, please be aware that most cheaper 22in monitors don't have a stand that rotates to portrait mode and many also don't even have a VESA mounting system (which allows you to use a third-party stand/mount/arm). Also, TN panels inherently have very poor vertical viewing angles (much worse than their not-great horizontal viewing angles) - if you use TN panel monitors in portrait mode then the vertical viewing angles become the horizontal viewing angles. This can be very annoying- since if you shift your head slightly the colours all shift.

If you are going to run monitors in portrait mode then I would personally opt for some IPS type panel monitors which do well with gaming. IPS panels give you much wider viewing angles - so you won't have the same issues with colour shifting when in portrait mode. Also, a good IPS monitor like this 23in Dell even comes with a stand that rotates to portrait mode.

As for which CPU to go for - I personally would go for an Ivy Bridge CPU. As you say it will give you PCIE 3.0 - this doesn't matter much for a single card in a Z77 board. However, for running dual graphics cards (depending on which model Z77 board you have) Z77 boards split the 16 PCIE lanes coming from the CPU to give a x8 lane to each graphics card. If this link is PCIE gen2 (which is the best sandy bridge can do) then this can slightly bottleneck performance on a fast card like a HD 7850, however since PCIE gen3 has twice the bandwidth per lane then each of the PCIE gen3 x8 links is as fast as a full speed PCIE gen2 x16 link, so no bottleneck. For this reason alone I would go with Ivy Bridge - and then when you consider that Ivy Bridge is a bit faster per-clock and only costs £174 for an i5 3570K - then it makes a lot of sense.
 
I'm Z77 Asrock extreme 4 which will support PCIe3... which needs ivy to make it come to life - this much I know!

The monitor I've picked is VESA mount... so I get to mount and arrange as I desire.

Pretty much thought I'd be crossfire once I bought monitors 2 and 3 :D

7850's in crossfire or a 7970 will run the show... a second will future proof it! Now I have a benchmark for cost!

Ask the right question and... get a top answer cmndr andi :D
 
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Excellent, nice board you have there.

As you say, it will make full use of Ivy Bridge's PCIE gen3 controller and is generally great for CPU overclocking.

Considering the ~£13 price difference between an i5 2500K and i5 3570K then yes I would go for the Ivy (both for the increased upgradability due to PCIE gen3 and the extra bit of CPU performance). But if you would rather spend that £13 on something else - then fair enough. You will still get an excellent gaming PC with an i5 2500K.
 
cmndr_andi said:
Excellent, nice board you have there.

As you say, it will make full use of Ivy Bridge's PCIE gen3 controller and is generally great for CPU overclocking.

Considering the ~£13 price difference between an i5 2500K and i5 3570K then yes I would go for the Ivy (both for the increased upgradability due to PCIE gen3 and the extra bit of CPU performance). But if you would rather spend that £13 on something else - then fair enough. You will still get an excellent gaming PC with an i5 2500K.
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...so on balance - "nuffin in it" :D how about if I was to OC? Seems to me that I'd like second hand i5 2500k now and an extreme Ivy in 12+ months time :cool:
 
ussff said:
Seems to me that I'd like second hand i5 2500k now and an extreme Ivy in 12+ months time :cool:
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Do you mean Ivy Bridge-E?

That'll be LGA2011 not LGA1155 (it won't fit in the same motherboards as Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge).

Edit:

Could you gve your sig a little tweak please.

From the FAQ re signatures:
Do not pad out your text lines with blanks lines.
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