Video Board vs Monitor Size

[aviwil]

Maybe a dumb question for you experts : does a bigger monitor require a more powerful video board ? Specifically a 22" Samsung 226BW LCD and a Nvidia GeForce 8400GS 256MB for Vista - no gaming .

 

[QuixoticOne]

Originally posted by: aviwil
Maybe a dumb question for you experts : does a bigger monitor require a more powerful video board ? Specifically a 22" Samsung 226BW LCD and a Nvidia GeForce 8400GS 256MB for Vista - no gaming .

Well it doesn't REQUIRE a more powerful video board, but even for AERO VISTA
graphics (not gaming, just text / windowing) you might see somewhat improved
text and window effects performance with a faster GPU.

A 22" screen typically runs around 1680x1050 resolution or less.
A 24" screen typically goes to 1900x1200 or less.
A 30" screen might go to 2560x1600 or less maximum native resolution.

VISTA AERO can use the DX9 SM2 GPU processor 'shader processors' to calculate
transparency, text font composition, window dragging, video and similar effects.

As far as I know the 8400GS-256 meets all the VISTA AERO requirements for
it to accelerate and display all the VISTA AERO desktop 2D and 3D effects, and
can do so at any resolution a 22" or 24" or possibly even 30" display can support.

However it is close to the lowest performance level of video cards that *does* support
the 2D text / effects / windows, 2D video playback, and 3D effects accellerations
that VISTA offers. It'll certainly perform "OK" for general computer use.

If you're heavily into having the QUICKEST response of scrolling windows
with lots of detailed text / fonts / graphics, somewhat better
quality high definition video playback in media player (if you care / do that), etc.
then a faster video card like the 8600GT might be a noticable upgrade.

But for simple non-demanding general uses the 8400GS is fine in every respect
and there's nothing much (excepting high performance 3D gaming) you're missing
by going with the 8400GS.

If you have a reasonably fast CPU (dual core or fairly new/fast single core)
and reasonably good amount of RAM (2GB or more) then overall I think you'd
be adequately pleased with the 8400GS.

If you had 1GB RAM, a slower model of CPU, and the 8400GS, it's more likely you'd
start to have things feel sluggish, but it depends on how heavily you use the PC.

Install SP1 when it comes out, it'll fix a lot of problems / bugs and a few of the
slow-downs.

 

[aviwil]

Thanks QuixoticOne for that very professional reply . It will be a Core 2 Duo E6750 processor with 2 GB memory and Intel P35 Dragontail Peak motherboard . If I've understood you , then the 8400GS-256 should be OK here .

 

[QuixoticOne]

Originally posted by: aviwil
Thanks QuixoticOne for that very professional reply . It will be a Core 2 Duo E6750 processor with 2 GB memory and Intel P35 Dragontail Peak motherboard . If I've understood you , then the 8400GS-256 should be OK here .

Indeed.

That's a nice CPU, and a decent bit of memory. It should be fine.

If anything the CPU is so good that it may be often faster / better for VISTA
to use the CPU to do many 2D graphics effects and some of the video playback
processing than use the 8400GS.

In reality it'll probably split the load between the good CPU and moderate graphics
board and give you better overall graphics performance while sparing the CPU
from being overly loaded in the process, and sparing the GPU from overloading,
so you'll have the best of both worlds.

I haven't tried it myself, but I'd certainly give it a shot, it seems good from all I've
read. I'm sure you should find some OfficeMark or other types of benchmarks
on your CPU / 8400GS combination somewhere to see if it's significantly
different than the 8600GT performance would be at that resolution, but my hunch would
be that it'd be very reasonable in performance to cost value.

Using the latest stable NVIDIA drivers from the internet (vs. what comes in the box),
and the VISTA SP1 fixes when they're available will also help stability / performance a lot.

 

[aviwil]

OK - thanks again QuixoticOne .