EDITED TO ADD UPON GETTING THE ANSWER:
QUESTION:
Would I benefit from updating my video card, if all I'm looking to do is improve the quality of movies and TV shows?
SPECS:
My video card is 6-7 years old (NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT). It was a good card for the time with no frills (around $80). It had 2 DVI outputs, but no HDMI outputs. It had 512MB VRAM.
My new LG monitor is 1080 HD (LG 27EA33).
Running Windows 7 with 16GB mid-tier ram, and a slightly better than average AMD FX chip and ASUS mobo.
ANSWER (Paraphrased from K1114's replies):
No, you would not benefit at all by upgrading your video card.
My concern was that my new 27" HD monitor didn't look as awesome as my brother's 40" HDTV. Not even by a long shot. It seems that this is easily explained by simply sitting only a few feet away from a smaller TV when you were sitting 6 feet away from a larger TV.
Here's the answer that k1114 wrote:
Hdmi and dvi can use different color space but this does not affect the monitors capabilities and it will still show the same color range assuming they're both 8 bit. Vram is irrelevant. The feeling is a combination of the larger size and distance. You'd easily notice any blocking, artifacts or even the pixels themselves from sitting closer. Being closer to the display may fill more of your vision area but you also realize (even if unconsciously) that the smaller screen will show people smaller and less life sized. I do know what you are talking about and I notice similar if I watch a movie from my pc monitor or if I change to my tv.
Feel free to read the rest of the email. You might have had other related questions that were answered below, but this is the main idea. It seems the bottom line is that HD Video is old hat for video cards that are even 6 or 7 years old. Unless you're a gamer or into video editing, you don't even need to consider buying a new video card when building an upgrade as long as it fits your new board and has a DVI output.
Thanks k1114!
Original post:
I know it's now a discontinued product and it was on the lower end cost-wise, but my new 27" LG monitor is by far the nicest computer monitor I've ever owned before. Model: LG 27EA33
My brother's 42" HDTV blew my mind when I first saw everything as clear as it shows on there. A 720 movie rip i brought on a thumb drive looked crystal clear on his TV... it was like watching a completely different movie than on my older 720 TV. I was naively thinking that I would be getting the same experience now, but even BluRay rips don't look that good on my computer.
I'm hoping the problem is that I didn't upgrade my video card when I put together a new computer. I'm rockin' a NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT that can't be a day younger than 6 years old by now.
Here's the specs: http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-9600-gt/specifications
Basically, the card has only 512mb and only two DVI connections with no HDMI.
I don't remember the exact specs of the rest of the computer, but I'm running a quad core AMD FX processor on a decently priced ASUS board with 16GB (4x4) sticks of memory and Windows 7. I can find the exact model numbers if anyone really thinks that they're relevant, but I believe these components to be new enough and high quality enough that they're not causing any bottlenecks.
My question is, would it be worth it for me to upgrade the card? It seems like a lot of the cards on the market today would only cost me 30-40 bucks and would have 1gb VRAM and an HDMI port, but I don't even want to waste that money if people here think that my card should be good enough from the job.
Don't get me wrong, the video doesn't skip or anything and the picture is nice.... it's just not what I expected. After seeing what my bro's new TV can do with 720 rips of movies, I'm quite let down that a full bluray movie doesn't look as good on mine.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!
QUESTION:
Would I benefit from updating my video card, if all I'm looking to do is improve the quality of movies and TV shows?
SPECS:
My video card is 6-7 years old (NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT). It was a good card for the time with no frills (around $80). It had 2 DVI outputs, but no HDMI outputs. It had 512MB VRAM.
My new LG monitor is 1080 HD (LG 27EA33).
Running Windows 7 with 16GB mid-tier ram, and a slightly better than average AMD FX chip and ASUS mobo.
ANSWER (Paraphrased from K1114's replies):
No, you would not benefit at all by upgrading your video card.
My concern was that my new 27" HD monitor didn't look as awesome as my brother's 40" HDTV. Not even by a long shot. It seems that this is easily explained by simply sitting only a few feet away from a smaller TV when you were sitting 6 feet away from a larger TV.
Here's the answer that k1114 wrote:
Hdmi and dvi can use different color space but this does not affect the monitors capabilities and it will still show the same color range assuming they're both 8 bit. Vram is irrelevant. The feeling is a combination of the larger size and distance. You'd easily notice any blocking, artifacts or even the pixels themselves from sitting closer. Being closer to the display may fill more of your vision area but you also realize (even if unconsciously) that the smaller screen will show people smaller and less life sized. I do know what you are talking about and I notice similar if I watch a movie from my pc monitor or if I change to my tv.
Feel free to read the rest of the email. You might have had other related questions that were answered below, but this is the main idea. It seems the bottom line is that HD Video is old hat for video cards that are even 6 or 7 years old. Unless you're a gamer or into video editing, you don't even need to consider buying a new video card when building an upgrade as long as it fits your new board and has a DVI output.
Thanks k1114!
Original post:
I know it's now a discontinued product and it was on the lower end cost-wise, but my new 27" LG monitor is by far the nicest computer monitor I've ever owned before. Model: LG 27EA33
My brother's 42" HDTV blew my mind when I first saw everything as clear as it shows on there. A 720 movie rip i brought on a thumb drive looked crystal clear on his TV... it was like watching a completely different movie than on my older 720 TV. I was naively thinking that I would be getting the same experience now, but even BluRay rips don't look that good on my computer.
I'm hoping the problem is that I didn't upgrade my video card when I put together a new computer. I'm rockin' a NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT that can't be a day younger than 6 years old by now.
Here's the specs: http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-9600-gt/specifications
Basically, the card has only 512mb and only two DVI connections with no HDMI.
I don't remember the exact specs of the rest of the computer, but I'm running a quad core AMD FX processor on a decently priced ASUS board with 16GB (4x4) sticks of memory and Windows 7. I can find the exact model numbers if anyone really thinks that they're relevant, but I believe these components to be new enough and high quality enough that they're not causing any bottlenecks.
My question is, would it be worth it for me to upgrade the card? It seems like a lot of the cards on the market today would only cost me 30-40 bucks and would have 1gb VRAM and an HDMI port, but I don't even want to waste that money if people here think that my card should be good enough from the job.
Don't get me wrong, the video doesn't skip or anything and the picture is nice.... it's just not what I expected. After seeing what my bro's new TV can do with 720 rips of movies, I'm quite let down that a full bluray movie doesn't look as good on mine.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!