Spec me: 20" Widescreen

swinnie

swinnie

swinnie

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Hey Guys,

I have a 256MB ATI Radeon X1200PRO in my current PC. And I believe a 300 or 400W Power Supply.

I want to get a new 20" Widescreen, but want to take advantage of the resolution for it.

So, could you spec me a 20" Widescreen LCD, max £150, and if required a new Graphics Card.

Thanks In Advance.
 
I don't game. However, I do use Photoshop/Illustrator a fare bit though. Is 512MB Really needed?

I will be looking at going Vista on my main machine soon as well though.
 
Yes, 512mb would be required for that resolution. 256mb is only good for really small monitor sizes (15'')

A 4670 would definately suit your needs if you don't game, it would handle photoshop and everything else with ease. I believe the HIS 4670 is on 'This week Only' aswell. :)

Hope this helps.
 
Thanks. Would my current power supply be ok for it?

Any ideas on the monitor?

It will be running alongside a 19" Dell Monitor at 1280x1024.
 
swinnie said:
Thanks. Would my current power supply be ok for it?

Any ideas on the monitor?

It will be running alongside a 19" Dell Monitor at 1280x1024.
Click to expand...

Yeah the 4670 has a pretty low power draw of about 65w. So your current psu should be fine.

Havn't really got a clue on the monitor, sorry mate.
 
Sorry to hijack - but why do you need loads of megs on the gfx card just to have a big monitor?

is it that you need a high spec one to keep it performing well, as opposed to actuall working?

I ask this because I own a mac and am about to rig it up with a big screen (once I've bought it.)
 
You don't need 512Mb card for that sort of monitor unless your gaming or doing serious 3D modelling.

Before you splash out on a new GFX card buy the monitor and try it with your current card. I think you'll find that it will work perfectly well.

Hav
 
well for purely 2d display you can technically run 1600*1200 on an EIGHT MB card in 32bit colour mode. (1600*1200*32/8/1024/1024 = 7.32mb frame buffer size)

there are 2 reasons you wont be however.
small cards are always OLD cards.
OLD cards usually dont have a man enough ramdac to push that many pixels most of the time, though running 60hz isnt so much of an issue for tft's as it was crt's old cards also rarely have DVI and almost always have horrible vga output quality. (exceptions being ati r200 series/ pvr kyro / matrox cards).

old cards almost certainly dont have duallink dvi as needed for the highest res tft's and probably dont support multi monitors should you decide to go this way some day.

your existing X1200 is almost certainly fully capable of driving a 20" lcd and only the most recent photoshop beta has any real gfx card acceleration (using pixel shaders to assist filters)
the 2d acceleration of most gfx cards from the last 5 years or more has been far in excess of whats ever really needed - the last time i wanted for more, for example, was using an old compaq laptop. with 512kb gfx ram, 8mb system ram and a 486 dx25 cpu.

i got on the TWO a few weeks ago a dell 2009W screen (£150). its a very nice screen but be aware it is a tn film (not so great viewing angles) 6bit (not true 16.7m colours just 16.7 interpolated from ~260k, but this display has EXCELENT interpolation) screen with enhanced gamult (rgb green is very very different to the green you get on this display. i have a iiyama VM pro 450 as a 2nd screen and things on that look lime green compaired to the tft showing a deep vibrant mid green, or the tft looks almost blue by comparison to the crt - however they do look a LOT more like the colours of things in the real world on the tft!) - the screen is good, in my oppinion however.
 
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Thanks for that information.

I will be using my existing 19" Dell LCD as a secondary screen, could I get a new GFX Card for my new monitor and run the two together? Would I need an SLI Compatible mobo?
 
check your existing card. if you have 2 video outputs your probably ok.

if you want to get a new card, if its for purely 2d work then you dont need sli/crossfire compatibility in the motherboard. you will need a suitable slot for the new card however (be is a spare pci slot or a 2nd pcie slot or whatever) - best to try out 2 screen output from your current card first, see how it goes (borrow a screen from a friend) and get a cheeeeap pci card if you need it.
 
Well, I have 2 screens on my current card, 1 19" at 1080 x 1024 and a 17" at 1152 x 864. I will be removing the 17" when adding the 20" widescreen.

However, the only resolution options I see for my monitors in "Display Properties" are 800 x 600, 1024 x 768, 1152 x 864, 1280 x 720, 1280 x 768, 1280 x 800, 1280 x 1024.

Will the options change by plugging the new screen in?
 
they indeed should.
if you have any issues ati Control Center can force update that list by using manually selected limits (under monitor aributes)
 
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