Wahey! Look what arrived today!

So, after about 5 months of saving, and as a bit of a birthday treat to myself, I bought one of these badboys:

http://cern.ch/frazier/stupidStuff/newMonitor.jpg

To give you a clue, the monitor on the right is a 20" one :)

I've gotta say, I'm well impressed. 2560*1600 resolution is the new sex, basically.

Build qualiity is just awesome. Absolutely zero dead pixels to boot! It has massively exceed expectation, despite the sizable price tag. :embarrassed:

Better still, being about £150 cheaper than I initially saved for, I've got a bit of spare cash to contemplate a graphics card upgrade.

So... the question I've got for you guys is this:

Which do you think is the better option: ATI HD4870, or an Nvidia GT260?

From the reviews, it would seem that the smaller frame-buffer on the ATI card has no real consequence at 2560*1600... which makes me wonder why the Nvidia cards have got 800 Megs+ on them. Even my current 8800 GTS 640 has a bigger frame-buffer on. Can anyone explain this frame-buffer size business to me? I've heard that new anti-aliasing techniques means that the newer cards don't actually need as much frame-buffer on as times of yore, but I don't know how true that is.

I'd go for the HD4870. Seems to out perform the GT260 most of the time and is still a bit cheaper even though nvidia have slashed the prices already. I wondering wether the 9800GX2 would be better though, given the resolution.

Just out of interest.. what is the montor? :embarrassed:

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Originally Posted by staffsMike

Just out of interest.. what is the montor? :embarrassed:

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A Dell 3008WFP. Got it from the PCBuyIt forum offer. Great company, and really really good service. :bowdown:

Oh, looks a bit different to what I remember.. oops lol

A very good choice :)

I think a GX2 is a bit out of my price range... ~£200 is about all I'm willing to spend.

I'm leaning almost entirely towards the 4870, but some of the good points about the GT260 are its much lower idle power consumption and the upcoming CUDA-base video encoding...

I don't get the chance to play games as much as I'd like these days... but I leave my computer on a lot to do World Community Grid crunching... so idle power is of some importance to me. I wonder if the 4870 idle power is lower than my current card?

what did you pay if you don't mind me asking?

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Originally Posted by Jay

what did you pay if you don't mind me asking?

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£1000

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Originally Posted by Fraz

£1000

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Wow, that's alot for a monitor:)

Since I have the 8800GTS 640mb, how is it handling that res in games?

I bet its not!

I knew I had seen at least one cheap
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...)%20-%20Retail

Idle power will no doubt be much higher though lol

shame its from the place it is.

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Originally Posted by staffsMike

Since I have the 8800GTS 640mb, how is it handling that res in games?

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It does Team Fortress 2 absolutely fine. Surprisingly Bioshock is nearly ok..., but I decided to run it at 1920*1200 in the end. I haven't tried anything else yet. I expect Command & Conquer 3 to run just fine... I'll try it shortly.

One thing to bear in mind for your comparison is that I've got a 10% factory overclocked 8800GTS 640.

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Originally Posted by staffsMike

I knew I had seen at least one cheap
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...)%20-%20Retail

Idle power will no doubt be much higher though lol

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Interesting... but I agree with Jay.

It's probably second hand anyway lol

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Originally Posted by Blackmage

Wow, that's alot for a monitor:)

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Yeah, true... although I reckon monitors right now are a really good investment in general. They last for years, and are just as good in 5 years as they are when you initially buy them - unlike, say a graphics card or CPU.

Plus... I regularly work from home, and I spend a lot of time at this desk. So, I figure I deserve to spend some money on what is essentially the best kit I can afford. I did the same when I started my PhD several years back - bought pretty much the best laptop on the market. Considering how many hours I used that thing for, it was a sound investment, and I never regretting the crippling £1600 I paid for it at the time.

It makes my daily life and job just that bit easier/better. Plus it's really amazing how many terminal windows you can fit on a 30" montior :)

I completely agree with you Fraz, some things may be expensive but are great investments: if you work with many applications a lot then getting a big monitor is well worth the money as they make your life easier and they last unlike components.