Frame rates higher than screen refresh rate

[Coherence]

I'm sure this has been asked before, but I'm going to put it out there, anyway.

As the owner of a DVI-connected LCD monitor, which means I'm stuck at the DVI standard of 60hz, is there a point to increasing my other components to give frame rates above 60fps?

Granted, I'm sure it's good to have a little overhead for those times that a game experiences slowdown due to a high number of objects being drawn, but how much overhead is overkill?

With top-end components yeilding frame rates of 100+fps, is it worth the money to upgrade when the monitor can't really do better than 60fps?

Of course, all these concerns are due to the release of Doom3 today. If I want to run at high-quality, I will have to upgrade to an nVidia 6800 Ultra, but if I'm stuck at 60hz on my LCD, there doesn't seem to be much point in upgrading my CPU.

(I feel like I'm back in the days of Wing Commander dictating when and what to upgrade!)

 

[Viper96720]

vsync off your frame rates will be whatever the video card can output.

 

[Davegod]

Ignore monitor hz when worrying about frame rates, theyve got nothing to do with each other (well, except where vsync is limiting fps).

More FPS is always better, both now and as an indicator the card will "last" for games further into the future, but its always diminishing returns and at some point - by the $numbers anyway - it works out better value to buy cheaper cards more often.. though that might be nearly always needing medium quality settings...

Base your decision on wether the upgrade is worth it, ignoring the refresh rate of your monitor.