PC Gamer Seeks Video advice

Seth_Aaron64

Hello EVERYONE!!! I read PA all the time It didnt dawn on me to ask for help here untill today. I built my own PC about a year or two ago. Its still extrememly beefy and I really only play world of warcraft. I am currently looking at a DELL UltraSharp 3007WFP-HC 30-inch WideScreen Monitor.

Linky:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=222-7175


Yes the monitor costs a freaking mint but fuckit I dont care.

"To fully utilize your new 3007WFP-HC monitor and enjoy the ultra-high resolution settings, your PC must have a dual-link DVI-D graphics card that supports 2560x1600 resolution."

I am currently running a GeForce 7950 GT which does not support the dual link DVI.

Linky #2:

http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce_7950.html

I see that the GeForce 7950 GX2 does.

Are there any other options available to me?

HELP!!!

RMH03

I don't know if this is a complete list but a 1 second google turned up this

http://www.nvidia.com/page/technology_extreme_hd_gpu.html

robaal

Do you need such a high resolution? If you only want a large display then you could look at HDTVs supporting 1080p (1080p = 1920x1080).
I believe some of them have VGA or DVI inputs, and even if not, HDMI is basically just a different plug for the same signals DVI transmits - you'd only need an adapter to hook up your PC to a TV with HDMI.

I vaguely remember that not all HDTVs are good for gaming, as additional image processing makes the picture lag slightly, so look out for that if you decide on doing that.


Anyway, it looks like you could actually play most games at that ridiculous resolution with a single GeForce 8800GTX, but you'll probably need to keep upgrading the video card to a high-end one if you want to play future games at a comfortable framerate.
You could try playing at resolutions lower than native, but I believe it tends to look bad.


btw. the very big LCD monitors have no OSD menu :?

Seth_Aaron64

They have no on screen dsplay menu? How do you adjust anything then?:) Thanks for rue responces btw....Keep em comming!

RMH03: Odd that they didnt mention that on the link from Nvidia that I mentioned before. It will probably be slow, but just knowing that the 7950 can do it owns! I was a bit curious since I know it has two DV ports.

Now If I run a monitor with the two DVI ports, and drop another lesser card into my machine, (case is fucking enormous), can I sun dual monitors again?

Basically if the one takes up two ports I can use another crad for my secondary monitor yes?

Turner

Seth_Aaron64 wrote: »

Basically if the one takes up two ports I can use another crad for my secondary monitor yes?

From what I can tell, you are asking if you can run a second video card in your machine to power a separate monitor?

As far as I know, you need to have two similar cards if you are using SLI or Crossfire. As in, you can't just use two random cards thrown together.

Just for clarity, I have no idea how SLI/Crossfire works with dual monitors. I would assume it is just like normal (when you have a single video card), but I have no idea if you can run a monitor from each individual card.

robaal

Seth_Aaron64 wrote: »

They have no on screen dsplay menu? How do you adjust anything then?:)

You can usually do contrast/gamma adjustments in the video card drivers and you can change the brightness directly on the monitor. Supposedly, the very high resolutions use so much data that no present chips used for adjustments can handle it.
Now that I think about it, that couldalso mean that lower resolutions won't be stretched by the monitor (it can sometimes be done by the video card drivers) so a lower-than-native full-screen application would be displayed on only the central part of the screen, surrounded by a black frame.
Xbitlabs mentions this in their review of the 30" LCDs from Samsung and Dell.

Now If I run a monitor with the two DVI ports, and drop another lesser card into my machine, (case is fucking enormous), can I run dual monitors again?

Basically if the one takes up two ports I can use another card for my secondary monitor yes?

I'm fairly sure that, regardless what the name suggests, dual-link DVI uses a single port. So you can - in theory - run two 30" displays with a single 7950GT.


And yes you can hook up even more monitors by adding some random PCI card to your system (or PCI-E if you have another PCI-E x16 slot on your motherboard). In fact SLI doesn't work with more than one monitor (IIRC you can hook up a second one, but it will be blank when gaming), though you could have 2 cards in an SLI motherboard and not run them in SLI.
I have no idea about crossfire.

Seth_Aaron64

Okay so,

1) if I have two separate cards and they are different I can run two monitors.

and

2) if a monitor is dual-link DVI it uses only one port.

Coool!

Daemonion

Honestly, 30'' screens are over-rated.

I'd recommend a 24.'' Text is still comfortable to read at 1920x1200, but not so much 2560x1600.

Perhaps if you were using ProTools/ZBrush and only games, then it might be worth it, but for regular internet and word use ...

Seth_Aaron64

I would expect thigns would get kinda difficult to read. That would be why I am trying to figure out how I can still run dual monitors.

My geforce 7950 GT apparently DOES support Dual-Link DVI, however I don't know if it can handle what I have in mind.

I currently have a 20 inch widescreen from dell and a 19 inch analog (with an adapter for the dvi port) as my second monitor.

Both are connected to the geforce.

I wonder if the graffics card can handle having a 30 inch monitor running at 2560x1600 and a second monitor running at 1680 x 1050....

Any thawts?

Also, If I were to buy another graffics card it would not be for SLI. It would be either to support a secondary monitor or to take over as my main graffics card.

Keep the ideas rolling in:) Thanks again!