Crashman said:
You're right! The problem is trying to test a whole bunch of different resolutions. 1920x1200 is almost right in the middle between 1680x1050 and 2560x1600, so hopefully most people can figure out "about" where that resolution would fall on the charts.
Is it time to get rid of 1024x768? I'm in favor of ditching that resolution and picking a different one.
I know is far more work doing another resolution on top of the 3 you are already doing. You are doing 33% more testing and that will translate into doing dozens of more hour of work (and thus dozens of more hours delay on this article as well as others for an article that you were planning for September.) I understand and symptahize.
It is just my belief that 24" monitors are becoming more of a "sweet spot" in the market due to prices going down due to technology and overproduction in a time when demand isn't so hot (I mean it is crazy you can find good 19 inch monitors for $99 to $129 now. And Frys had a 22inch Samsung for $179 last week). It is now possible to get a 1200p or 1080p monitor for the mid $200s to $300s when last year you were talking $500 to $600 for the same monitor.
And yes I can guess where 1920x1200 will end up with, but the problem is we are seeing geometric growth after 1680x1050
224% more pixels going from 1024x768 to 1680x1050.
232% more pixels going from 1680x1050 to 2560x1600
30% more pixels going from 1680x1050 to 1920x1200
Yet we see this performance increase of adding a second crossfire card
3% High 1024x768 p45
19% High 1680x1050 p45
93% High 2560x1600 p45
Jumping from 19% to 93% is a big jump, yet you don't get that jump from 1024 to 1680.
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If it is only a marginal 25 to 30% jump in speeds it may be better just to save up on a next generation card instead of buying a second one. The 3850 to 4850 jump was much bigger than 30% as well as the 8600 to 9600. (Though the 8800gt to gtx260 wasn't that big of a jump)
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In full disclosure I don't even game at 1920x1200 instead I game at 1920x1080 using a HDTV as my monitor. Yet people like my younger brother is considering building a computer, and the decision to get a 4850 512 vs a 4850 1gb makes a difference for while they have small differences due to memory in normal games, there is a good difference in crossfire between the two due to the 1gb having twice the memory bandwidth and having to store twice the amount of data due to a non shared memory buffer.
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Thank you for the article though, I just had a small complaint but overall it was very helpful.
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