is 1080p monitor good for 720p gaming?

[vishalbh_89]

I need some help here people.
I'm trying to make a bare minimum gaming/ multimedia budget build (for now without a discrete GPU, plan to add 1 later on, mayb 15-18 months from now).

These are the components I have shortlisted for my build.
MoBo - Gigabyte GA-F2A88X-D3H (rev. 3.0) or GA-F2A88XM-DS2 (rev. 3.x)
INR 4000 ($65)
RAM - Kingston HyperX Fury 2x4GB DDR3 at 1866 Mhz (Savage not yet available in India)
INR 5000 ($82)
APU - AMD A8-7600 or A8-6600k (no plans for overclocking though)
INR 7500/ INR 6500 ($120)/ ($105)
PSU - Antec VP450P
INR 2400 ($40)
Monitor - Dell S2240L I
NR 8000 ($130)
Case - Antec X1-E or X1-T
INR 2600 ($42)
HDD - WD Caviar blue 1TB
INR 3300 ($55)
Keyboard - Circle Rude (local - Indian)
INR 650 (~$11)
http://www.circlect.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=214
Mouse - TAG Gaming 007 (local - Indian)
INR 500 (~$9)
http://www.flipkart.com/tag-7-mouse/p/itmdq5egrzqubvbg?pid=ACCDQ5EGXHNGUNSZ&icmpid=reco_pp_same_computeraccessory_mouse_2&ppid=ACCDZTSXFGAVN5HS
Will go for Logitech G300 when I get a GPU.

15/18 months from now, I might go with a Sapphire R7 265 to avoid any bottleneck.

My questions :
1. How good is the 720p gaming experience on this 1080p monitor? If m looking at awkward gameplay resoutions, shall I go with Dell E2014H (900p, 19.5", TN panel) which is around $33 or INR 2000 cheaper?
I will be watching a lot of movies too, that is the reason m going for 1080p monitor.
2. Which of the 2 APUs should I select? Pls suggest any Better options around the same budget if they do not look good according to u.
3. Also, If I should go with the A8-6600k, should I increase the wattage to 500W (Antec vp500pc or corsair cx500)
4. I'll be playing mostly FPS games, and some NFS too. Would love to play GTA 4 too, and GTA 5 if possible. Will I be able to play CoD - black ops 2 and ghosts at playable framerates (35 would be good enough)?
5. What kind of frame rates m looking at with BF 3 at medium/ high settings at 720p/768p/900p/1080p with the stock APU?

Need to build it with a maxed out budget of $600.
Not looking for a total upgrade for at least 3-4 yrs. So I'm not much concerned about upgradability.
Thanks every1 for reading such a big-a&& post and helping me out.

P.S. - Not going for a discrete gpu NOW bcoz if my dad knows that I'm getting the machine to game, then I'm not getting anything
Yeah, sounds lame I know

 

[BigBadBeef]

720p gaming on a 1080p monitor is like playing a minecraft mod of any game you usually play. Nuff said.

 

[vishalbh_89]

720p gaming on a 1080p monitor is like playing a minecraft mod of any game you usually play. Nuff said.

I'm sorry I still didn't get it. Is it bad? Never played minecraft though
Do u mean the "box stuff", I mean is there more of pixellation?

 

[BigBadBeef]

Terrible, TERRIBLE pixelation and aliasing. If you really need to buy 1080p monitor make sure its as small as possible.

 

[tmacg55]

Seeing that 1280x720 resolution monitors don't exist, the closest you can get is a monitor with 1366x768. A 1080p will be just fine. Just know anything that is not displaying at a native resolution will not have a sharp look and will have visible jaggy edges.

 

[RobCrezz]

Terrible, TERRIBLE pixelation and aliasing. If you really need to buy 1080p monitor make sure its as small as possible.

You must have seen some really bad screens, because most 1080p monitors will upscale 720p and look fine (as good as 720p looks at least).

 

[BigBadBeef]

You must have seen some really bad screens, because most 1080p monitors will upscale 720p and look fine (as good as 720p looks at least).

I have a 26" monitor, it was barely running 720p games on my old computer. Not just any monitor, a monitor that was at the time (1 year ago) top of the line 1080p monitor with all the bells and whistles and it didn't help.

"Never again" became my motto, since first time since I was buying pc's I forked over 1 and 1/2 salaries for the PC i've got now.

Now its paradise. Real time rendering, high resolution streaming, smooth server, sometimes playing 2 games at the time, none ever dropping below 60fps, and most importantly: NO ALIASING!!!

When you've sat at both edges of the extreme and really could see the difference, then you can come and smartass back at me, but until then, bye bye!

 

[RobCrezz]

You must have seen some really bad screens, because most 1080p monitors will upscale 720p and look fine (as good as 720p looks at least).

I have a 26" monitor, it was barely running 720p games on my old computer. Not just any monitor, a monitor that was at the time (1 year ago) top of the line 1080p monitor with all the bells and whistles and it didn't help.

"Never again" became my motto, since first time since I was buying pc's I forked over 1 and 1/2 salaries for the PC i've got now.

Now its paradise. Real time rendering, high resolution streaming, smooth server, sometimes playing 2 games at the time, none ever dropping below 60fps, and most importantly: NO ALIASING!!!

When you've sat at both edges of the extreme and really could see the difference, then you can come and smartass back at me, but until then, bye bye!

I have played things at 720p on 1080p screens, and 1080p stuff on 1440p screen. I know what it looks like on good monitors, its as good as 720p is natively.

 

[vishalbh_89]

well, the monitor I'm going to pick is a 22". That's the smallest one in 1080p. I guess that shouldn't be a problem then.

 

[Abhraneel Roy]

I would suggest you to get the 1366x768 or the 1360x768 resoloution if you are playing 720p games

 

[razamatraz]

I would take the A8-7600 over the 6600K. It has ~50% more GPU power with 50% more cores and better optimization, mantle use etc. The lower CPU clockspeed is made up for by the IPC of the 7XXX chips. Realistically I would use it at 1080p and low settings in most games over 720p and better settings; it can handle it; these things can even play BF4 alright (not awesome but playable).

If you can afford it, the A10-7850K can pretty much play anything with 512 GPU cores but if you plan to get a discrete GPU anyways that's a tossup on $60 extra.

The other upgrade that makes a big difference on these APUs is ram Speed; if you can get DDR3 2133 it makes quite a difference too as the GPU portions of APUs are usually squeezed for memory bandwidth.

I will point out that you cannot use dual graphics with an R7 265 when you get it (only R7 240 and 250 can do that and the 250 might not even work with this APU); the GPU in the APU will be no longer used and thus wasted...so it might be a better option to get an Athlon x4 860 and discrete graphics from the start. The price difference doesn't get you much for a discrete GPU but you can sell it later when you get a new one.



An old review but: http://techreport.com/review/25908/amd-a8-7600-kaveri-processor-reviewed/6

 

[Divyanshu Sah]

Buy a 720p gaming monitor with small size. You will enjoy great graphics.
Or you can go for 1080p resolution if you want everything blurred.

 

[mohit9206]

I would recommend getting the Dell E2014H as i own it and its quite decent and playing games at 720p looks just fine. However of you can spare the extra cash i would recommend the Dell S2240L or BenQ GW2255. But only choose between these three as they're the best in the 6000-8000 price range.

 

[ahmy598]

please remember what happens when you go from 720p to 1080p ..one pixel is taken over by two sub pixels..DETAIL INCREASES
DETAil is directly proportional to Resolution.. what will happen if you do the reverse ..pixellation increase i suggest dontBuy a 1080p scree if you are gonna use 720p Xd