I currently use my PC for gaming (Company of Heroes) and watching DVD's on a small 18" monitor, but now I am looking to move up the scale to a 27" or even 30" High Defintion monitor with a good response time and high referesh rate.

I am looking to upgrade my graphics card to achive this (money no object), but not sure how high up the scale I can go with my existing CPU becoming a bottle-neck. I favour Sapphire's range of cards (because they are quiet) and a Samsung 27" montior, but would be open to any combination that you think will work best.

If anyone can suggest a PC TV card as well, I might get one those two.

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Fractal Design Define R2 case
Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 motherboard
Phenom II 965 Quad Core 3.4 GHz Black Edition processor
Thermaltake ISGC-200 cooler
4x2GB Corsair DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz with Black Edition Memory Profile
Sapphire Vapor-X HD5750 1GB GDDR5 PCIE graphics card
Xigmatek 700W NRP-PC702 Silent power supply

Well if money is no object than i would say This one or the 7970.

As for bottlenecking, the 965 should't bottle- neck this card too much, two of them yeah, but one your OK

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2x1GB 5850's (On their last lags)
Corsair HX850W (Awsome)
NZXT Phantom case (too ***** big)

Agreed, but before you buy a 30" monitor, sit down at a desk with one and note how big it really is.
Some people find big monitors uncomfortable and force them to sit back from the screen which isn't always ideal.

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Spider: Phenom II 955, Antec Kuhler 920, GA-MA790FX-DS5 (F8g), ASUS 5870/V2, ASUS Xonar D2X pcie,
OCZ2N1066SR2GK (4x1gig @800), Antec Truepower New 750, Fractal Design's Arc Midi Case.
#2: A64 X2 4200+, ASUS A8V-D, SAPPHIRE AGP 1950PRO

if your just playing company of hereo's and not any newer games your curent card will run it at 2560x1600

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Core I7-3930k -- MSI GTX670 Quad SLI -- ASUS Rampage Extreme IV -- 4x4gb Muskin Redline DDR3 1866 -- 128gb SSD -- Windows 7 Ultimate
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Thanks to everyone for the advice, you have been really helpful

"Money no object" was a bit of an exaggeration, but I followed your advice to some extent. I have just purchased an earlier version of the Sapphire HD 7970 as suggested. The price of latest graphics cards are much higher in the UK, so I have taken advantage of the price cut for this model.

As regards monitor, my current card won't support high resolution gaming at 2560 x 1600, alas. Company of Heroes is a very graphics hungry game, so even when I play with all the bells and whistles (e.g high-def shadow effects) turned down, playing this game with high graphics detail for this game translates into lower frame rates.

My understanding is that there seems to be a four way trade off with the choice of screen for gaming, because it is not possible to get a decent frame rate if one of the following parameters places too much strain on the GPU:
* Screen size;
* Screen resolution;
* Refresh rate;
* Graphic detail.

For example, I would guess that you would probably need crossfire rig built with two HD 7970 or better in order to run Crysis on a 30-inch screen at 2560 x 1600 with a refresh rate above 100MHz in full graphic detail. This sort of set up would look gorgeous, put a lot of preasure on any computer system if you wanted high frame rate as well.

I am not sure what the sweet spot is for my new GPU, but I am guessing again that I want a screen something along the following lines:
* 27-inches screen
* 1920 x 1080 pixels
* 75 Hz or better refresh rate
* Graphic detail dependent on what of frame rate the GPU can achieve.

I am thinking of getting a screen along the lines of the Samsung S27A750D 27" 120Hz 3D 1920 x 1080 so I can play games and watch Blu-Ray films in High Def. Samsung also do a high resolution monitor (2560 x 1600), but at a lower referesh rate.

I am not sure which is more important, higher resolution (2560 x 1600), or high referesh rate (120 Hz). This is a very complex choice for me, so any comments or criticism on these ideas would be most welcome.

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Fractal Design Define R2 case
Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 motherboard
Phenom II 965 Quad Core 3.4 GHz Black Edition processor
Thermaltake ISGC-200 cooler
4x2GB Corsair DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz with Black Edition Memory Profile
Sapphire Vapor-X HD5750 1GB GDDR5 PCIE graphics card
Xigmatek 700W NRP-PC702 Silent power supply

Edited: 07/30/2012 at 12:00 PM by I_Claudius

I fully Agreed. But before you buy a 30" monitor, sit down at a desk with one and note how big it really is. Number of people find big monitors and force them to sit back from the screen which isn't always possible.

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online store software review

You are quite right, a big screen is more demanding on the eyes, and trying out such a large monitor at your local store before you buy it is recomended.

Since my first post, I have bought for a 27 inch Samsung, and when you sit close to it, the pixels are slightly visible than compared to a small screen if used for reading or writing text. If reading or writing forum posts is your only interest, then I would recomened getting a 24 inch screen. However, if you like watching movies on your PC, then the larger screen is better.

As regards gaming, the jury is still out. Games such as Company of Heroes look really good on the big screen. However, there is a downside: with a larger screen, you have to work harder to follow the action because the amount of detail is much greater, and also it takes more time toget your mouse from one side of the screen to the other. I am not sure if this problem applies to FPS games as well, but does anyone else find that you can miss key events on a big screen if your eye misses some action in one corner of the screen while you are focused (killing your enemy, say) on the other side of the screen?


I am thinking that if a 27 inch screen is hard work, it must be very hard work to keep a track of all the game action if you have an Eyeinfinity monitor setup.

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Fractal Design Define R2 case
Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 motherboard
Phenom II 965 Quad Core 3.4 GHz Black Edition processor
Thermaltake ISGC-200 cooler
4x2GB Corsair DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz with Black Edition Memory Profile
Sapphire Vapor-X HD5750 1GB GDDR5 PCIE graphics card
Xigmatek 700W NRP-PC702 Silent power supply

Edited: 09/21/2012 at 06:05 AM by I_Claudius

I have a BenQ FP241VW monitor - 24", 1920x1200. I love it. It's not grainy if I look at it from a couple feet away, with it on my desk and me sitting in my computer chair. I've had it for 4 years now. I originally bought it because it uses a S-PVA panel, which is capable of natively displaying 16.7 million colors, whereas many monitors on the market use TN panels, which can only display 262,000 colors natively, but use a process called dithering to make it seem like they can natively display 16.2 million colors. I highly recommend a monitor that uses an 8-bit panel over a TN monitor. This includes S-PVA, IPS, and several other types.

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