Where to put the bang for the buck

[t-dog]

I have built all four of my pc over the last 7 yrs but its been a little over two yrs since last time and lots have changed. My question is i want to play games like bad company 2 I have cod-mw2 here still unopened and mass effect. I see all the charts and I not sure what I had played at but my Asus 21.6 lcd is at 1280x768. and I want to go up to a 25' lcd soon.

I lik amd chips for price and performance but I keep seeing they are heating up in reviews. will I need another coolier or should I go intel



2. ati 5770 gpu unless someone can help me here. go bigger?

3. Can I hook pc to my 42 lcd hdtv and play games or will they look bad





1280-768

 

[Crashman]

I lik amd chips for price and performance but I keep seeing they are heating up in reviews. will I need another coolier or should I go intel

2. ati 5770 gpu unless someone can help me here. go bigger?

3. Can I hook pc to my 42 lcd hdtv and play games or will they look bad

1280-768

CPU Info:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i3-gaming,2588-6.html

GPU Info:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5830,2564-6.html

 

[randomkid]

3. Can I hook pc to my 42 lcd hdtv and play games or will they look bad

1280-768

Yes, you can and No, it won't look bad. It will look just fine. I used to play my games in a 32" LCDTV running at 1366x768 resolution when I only have a 9500GT video card and they look just like fine. I since upgraded to an HD4890 and set my resolution to 1920x1080 ( native ) and now it looks even better.
If you try to hook up your TV via HDMI port and it does not look good, don't despair. Just use the RGB input instead.

 

[Crashman]

Yes, you can and No, it won't look bad. It will look just fine. I used to play my games in a 32" LCDTV running at 1366x768 resolution when I only have a 9500GT video card and they look just like fine. I since upgraded to an HD4890 and set my resolution to 1920x1080 ( native ) and now it looks even better.
If you try to hook up your TV via HDMI port and it does not look good, don't despair. Just use the RGB input instead.

Er, no. You can still use the HDMI input. If you see ghosting, there's a setting that can be changed either on the TV or on the PC to fix it, take time to figure out what that setting is rather than seeking lower-quality connections.

 

[batuchka]

AMD chips overheating was back in the Duron days circa year 2000 so old news ^^ It really depends: if u have no real need for CPU intensive tasks/power outside games an AthlonII X3 440 with a slightly overkill GPU for your gaming resolution is all u need At 1280 x 768 or 1366 x 768 and at the rate h/w depreciates/moves along a simple HD 4770/GTS250/HD 4770 especially if u can nab them under the $90 mark via combos, etc is more than fine 80+ certified PSU with active PFC for peace of mind 24/7 ops

 

[randomkid]

Er, no. You can still use the HDMI input. If you see ghosting, there's a setting that can be changed either on the TV or on the PC to fix it, take time to figure out what that setting is rather than seeking lower-quality connections.

Have you tried it yourself?

 

[Crashman]

Have you tried it yourself?

Yes, that's why I said that. It's a pain. It's an even bigger pain with NVIDIA drivers.

 

[randomkid]

Yes, that's why I said that. It's a pain. It's an even bigger pain with NVIDIA drivers.

Good you got yours working. I gave up with mine. By the way, it is not ghosting that is the problem. In my case, the pixels seems to stand by itself and there is no smoothing of the edges. I set the TV to "Just" or justified which matches the graphics card output pixel by pixel. Someone in this forum got what I meant since he experienced it himself with another brand of LCD TV.
I just mentioned it to the OP here that it is possible he may experience what we did so to save trouble he can just use the RGB input which is pretty much plug & play.

 

[Crashman]

Good you got yours working. I gave up with mine. By the way, it is not ghosting that is the problem. In my case, the pixels seems to stand by itself and there is no smoothing of the edges. I set the TV to "Just" or justified which matches the graphics card output pixel by pixel. Someone in this forum got what I meant since he experienced it himself with another brand of LCD TV.
I just mentioned it to the OP here that it is possible he may experience what we did so to save trouble he can just use the RGB input which is pretty much plug & play.

With ATI drivers and my current TV, I could set it to native at the TV or adjust the video card output to TV mode! NVIDIA makes it tougher for certain.

 

[randomkid]

With ATI drivers and my current TV, I could set it to native at the TV or adjust the video card output to TV mode! NVIDIA makes it tougher for certain.

I see. Let me try my HDMI input again. It may yet be another good lesson I learn for today. Thanks!

 

[crabtek]

I game on my 46" HDTV at 1920x1080 and it's wonderful. Start by setting the aspect ratio on your TV to 16:9. Do not use justified or any of the other auto-configure settings. I have an ATi graphics card so I'm using catalyst to adjust most of my picture settings. After this is done I do minor adjustments to brightness, contrast and I choose an appropriate color/display preset: Cool, Warm, High, etc... I connect the computer to the television using a DVI to HDMI cable I purchased off of amazon. I do have to tweak font settings as I'm farther away from the display than I would be in a normal desktop setting.

The ATi 5770 looks powerful enough to run your HDTV. I have 2 4870s crossfired and I'm playing BC2 at 1920x1080 on medium settings to keep my average frame rate up. I've just started to run FRAPS so I'm going to do some further testing. The HDTV has a 4ms response time and I believe the refresh rate caps at 60. You will want to verify that your TV's capabilities are comparable to this or better. I think newer HDTVs have refresh rates at 120 or 240 now but I could be mistaken.

 

[Crashman]

I game on my 46" HDTV at 1920x1080 and it's wonderful. Start by setting the aspect ratio on your TV to 16:9. Do not use justified or any of the other auto-configure settings. I have an ATi graphics card so I'm using catalyst to adjust most of my picture settings. After this is done I do minor adjustments to brightness, contrast and I choose an appropriate color/display preset: Cool, Warm, High, etc... I connect the computer to the television using a DVI to HDMI cable I purchased off of amazon. I do have to tweak font settings as I'm farther away from the display than I would be in a normal desktop setting.

The ATi 5770 looks powerful enough to run your HDTV. I have 2 4870s crossfired and I'm playing BC2 at 1920x1080 on medium settings to keep my average frame rate up. I've just started to run FRAPS so I'm going to do some further testing. The HDTV has a 4ms response time and I believe the refresh rate caps at 60. You will want to verify that your TV's capabilities are comparable to this or better. I think newer HDTVs have refresh rates at 120 or 240 now but I could be mistaken.

Premium TV's have 120Hz refresh, but cheap ones still use 60Hz.

 

[fastx21]

1. Heating up in what sense? reviewers are clueless without actual use. Mine works just mine and is sitting at an 28-29c idle right now (with aftermarket HSF + extra fan)

2. 5770 can handle up to 2560 x 1600 res but that's max and so it won't be too happy trying to push games at that rez. But it will work just fine at 1920x1050. Ad mid-level settings ofcourse

3. Yes but what is your 42" tv rez? if 1080p then yes it'll be fine. And certainly it will look good but not as good as a good normal pc monitor/

 

[Crashman]

Yes but what is your 42" tv rez? if 1080p then yes it'll be fine. And certainly it will look good but not as good as a good normal pc monitor/

Er, d00d, 1080p is the HIGHEST setting for consumer HDTV. 1080p is 1920x1080. The other common progressive setting is 720p, which is 1280x720.

 

[crabtek]

Premium TV's have 120Hz refresh, but cheap ones still use 60Hz.

I have a 2yr old Samsung 6 series HDTV and purchased mine as the response time was solid and the advertised refresh rate was 120hz. What I missed back then was this was specific to the auto-motion feature and didn't translate to the pc-tv signal. Looking at the specs for the new samsung LEDs you can see a listed refresh rates of 60hz for the 4-5 series, 120hz for the 6 series and 240hz for 7 and above. Also, these are advertised as TRUE refresh rates so you should be able to hit listed on a PC. I did some poking around and it appears that they have a 2ms response time. Things are looking better and better!

Bottom line it took a lot of research to find the right TV and then even more to tweak the settings to get it to where it is now, awesome to game on!