1080P resolution on 22 inch monitors etc? Isn't that crazy?????

Hey dudes,

Just a quick question. In the world of PC gaming, you get 30 inch monitors with 2560x1600 resolution, and like 1920x1200 resolution on much smaller monitors.

In the world of home cinema, the common wisdom seems to be "don't bother with 1080p resolution on anything less than a 50 inch TV". Most people say there's absolutely no point, because there are no benefits of resolution of 1920x1080 on anything less than a 40/50 inch TV. You just can't see the detail.

I know that people sit much closer to their computer monitors than TVs, but can you really appreciate 2560x1600 on a 30 inch monitor. Can you appreciate 1920x1080 on a 20 inch monitor?

Because on benchmarks, people often rate games FPS at resolution like 1920x1200 or whatever.

I'm just wondering, if you have all setting set to "high" or "ultra" and anti aliasing set to max etc, do you actually need such a high resolution? Or is your graphics card wasting all it's power on making loads of extra pixels that you can't even see??? Is it better to play at low resolution and just max all the other settings?

I don't know much about computers at all, but I'm just wondering if I could actually play Crysis etc at awesome FPS and super rich detail, AA etc, but low resolution, and it would still look amazing? As in, the extra resolution is a total waste of time because it doesn't actually contribute to image quality at all... ? Just a marketing gimmick or something, when such high resolutions are just a total waste of computing power?

I use a mac laptop actually, lol, but I quite want to build/buy a pc for gaming.

Also total side note, but PCI-e 3.0, is that gonna make a big difference? What I want to know is will it's benefits work on existing graphics cards, or will you need to buy a new graphics card when PCI-e 3.0 comes out to take advantage of it? Sorry if that's not an quick question to answer, as I said I really don't know much bout computers..

Thanks very much guys, and sorry for taking about 10 hours to ask a question that cuda been said in like 2 sentences, I always do that, sorry!

Cheers,

Jake