Max playable res for Radeon 4850

[hans]

I have a 4850 that works well on my 22" 1680x1050 LCD. I've been wanting to upgrade to a 24" but am tempted by the 27" and 30" Dell's on sale now. Since the GPU is a couple years old, I haven't seen it benched against current games like MOH & COD. Is anyone playing recent games with this card on a large LCD without issue? Turning quality settings way down or getting stutter?

Confirming that I have to spend $250 for a 460 or 6870 might be enough to smack some sense into me and wait for a 24" deal. When I think about how many hours I clock working at the computer, the 27" seems easily justifiable. Except that maybe the small dot pitch would be tough on my 20/400 vision.

[morphine]

Yes, your 4850 will still handle mosts games at high/very high settings, give or take, provided you go easy on the AA.

However, if you do score a 24" or 27" monitor, then you're looking at a graphics card upgrade. Having said that, I always advise people to spoil themselves when buying a monitor. It's probably the single most important interface between you and the whole of computing (be it work or games), and I yet to meet a single soul that has regretted buying a big/good monitor.

[JustAnEngineer]

The UltraSharp U3011 is on sale for $1012 + tax.
http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2398757

[hans]

I think similarly. Grips/seat/shorts on my bike. Keyboard/mouse/monitor on the computer. $740 for the 27" + $250 for a new card is a bit of a spoil. Versus $200 to add another 22" or maybe $300 for a 24" when I find a deal.

I currently have a 19" 4:3 1280x1024 at each side of the 22" and it works nicely. For my line of work (web ops), more screens or display area definitely pays off. Having some video playing off on one monitor while working on the other 2 makes those 18-hour days go by a lot smoother.

And yes, tempted by the 30". The pixel pitch on the 27" seems quite small and given my preference for the larger pitch on my current 22", I'd probably end up zooming in a lot more, reconfiguring my SSH sessions for larger text size, etc. Seems a lot of hassle that might not be present on smaller or larger LCDs.

[mmmmmdonuts21]

I got a 4850 512mb version with a 24' 1920x1200 monitor and it runs pretty much anything I throw at it. Granted typically I can't crank up the AA or some of the other settings to the max but it plays great regardless.