Upgrade existing system

mart1985

mart1985

mart1985

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Joined
27 Sep 2012
Posts
371
I am looking into purchasing a new monitor to go with my existing 27" DGM. I want to use one for gaming and one for watching sport/movies. My existing set-up includes:

i5-3570K
Gigabyte Z77X-ud3H
AMD Radeon HD 7900

Presumably I should get a new graphics card to run HDMI outputs for the two monitors as my existing card only has one? Would I be better off upgrading my motherboard too?

Also I am unsure on what type of screen to get and whether to keep my DGM for gaming or use that for movies. I don't want anything smaller than the DGM as the second screen and preferably bigger. I might look at running my ps4 off the second monitor too (if that is feasible).

Any help appreciated :)
 
What PSU do you have? I would suggest a new GPU but June will see new cards for AMD/nVidia so you may want to wait.

I think your motherboard will be fine, wait for Skylake if you can.
 
What exact GPU is it that you have now?

Did you have a budget in mind?

What case do you have?

And finally your motherboard will be fine, no need to change it.
 
You can run a monitor from your board directly and have the GFX card running the main gaming screen, then once you load a game it comes up on the main screen.

Or if you card has DVI then use a DVI-HDMI cable to run the 2nd screen.

But with all these options you need to check the maximum resolution and Hz support from either output.
 
snips86x - I have a XFX 850W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Silver'. Happy to wait for June if there is going to be a significant upgrade?

Andreas - CM Storm Stryker Full Tower Gaming Case and no real budget, just within reason!

stulid - I was running an old Dell monitor off the board but it suddenly stopped working and I've never been able to figure out why. I would prefer to run both off the graphics card, although I gather I will have to run most games in windowed mode to be able to watch movies on the other screen at the same time?
 
Well I just tried playing Hobbit battle of five armies at 3440x1440 on one monitor and playing GTAV on a 1080P 144Hz in both borderless and windowed and the film slowed down, and my system is quick.
 
Is that due to running two games at the same time? One and a movie would be fine?

Does anyone have any suggestions on monitors? Would you go for say, a super widescreen for movies and keep the DGM for gaming?
 
It was one game and one movie at the same time, admittedly the film was a 16Gb file coming from a HDD and the game of the main SSD.
 
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