Why choose a 1680x1050 over a 1920x1080?

[Guest]

Looking to get a new monitor for my new rig. It has a AMD 955 and a 5770 gpu. Why would i get the 1650? Cant i just buy a 1920 monitor but game in a lower resolution like 1650, or are there scaling issues?

 

[jaguarskx]

There will be scaling issues. The quality will decrease a little bit, and it varies from model to model due to whatever electronics manufacturers decides to put into each model or product line.

The best advice I can give is go to a store and play around with the desktop resolution to see the impact of using less than native res. If non of the monitors are actually connected to a PC that you can mess with, then check it out on a laptop.

You can look for a monitor that has 1:1 pixel mapping capabilities which means only the exact number of pixels will be used. Therefore, if you buy a 1920 x 1200 monitor, set 1:1 pixel mapping to on, and game at 1680 x 1050, then the gaming area will be surrounded by a black boarder. This ability can be called different things from brand to brand. For example, on a NEC it is referred to as "Expansion".

I believe nVidia cards will let you set custom resolution which mimics 1:1 pixel mapping. Radeon display drivers doesn't seem to offer this ability unless I'm not looking hard enough.