Cant decide..
 

Ok heres my dilema.. ive been saving for some time now to pick up a new vid card. I have about $500 to spend. The main idea was to blow all the money on a kick ass vid card... but i dont want to do that now :p I decided to pick up a Ati Radeon x800 XL PCI-E wich is around $300. So i walk into the store and i notice the shiney new LCD monitors sitting next to the vid cards. I notice theres some real nice monitors around $400-$600 that i can afford. So thats my problem i dont know if to buy the vid card or just go ahead and spend all the cash on a nice 19" LCD monitor..

Im using a 5 year old 17" CRT monitor with a Radeon x600XT 256mb. The vid card plays all my games.. well nothing spectacular but it does the job. Any ideas? Which would improve my gaming experience the most?

Thx!

Well the X800 will certainly improve the actual performance of the games more, so personally I would go for that. As for LCDs, you don't need to splash out to get the best, often its the less noticable things that you pay for, like refresh rates higher than you'd notice and your graphics card can't reach with the framerate. Go for a 19" with a 16ms or faster response time, and that will be fine.

hm x800xl is fine but one or two things to lcds
look for pixel that are damaged up to 7 pixel in the middle of your lcd are okay now guaranty
and the second is that most factorys arent giving u the exact ms of the lcd most time its the best value they can efford most likely completly in white or black so unplayable

Thx for the replies guys :D

Im kinda starting to go the vid card way :p Im sure my lil crt will hold a couple more months :D

I think ill have to test out the vid card to see how much of a driffrence I see in my games :cool: If not much Ill return the sucka!

O I would get the video card...is your monitor that bad that you need to get a new one. The X800 will be your bast bet for the performance. And you can always get a monitor down the road for cheaper :D

-Dan

I would go Vid card now too.. It's worth it to see these new crop of games in their full glory.

Whats the rest of your comp? if its good too then these games will fly on that card. i have an x800 pro which isnt as good as the xl and it tears half life up. definatly the card, i think there will be further sharp drops in monitor prices in the next three years or so but the top cards are always aboult the same. (here in scotland they are even creeping up a bit! :eek: )

Card, no question.

Having said that can your monitor do 1600x1200?

As that is a must if you get that card. i really think games look old and grainy at any lower rez. and i cant stress that enough. once you try high rez for a while you wont want to go back

This is a very nice monitor for your money http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/c...=19&l=en&s=dhs.

Truly future proof way beond the life of your potential video card. it looks so great its crazy!

Widescreen Gaming

I had to pay £440 about $800 for mine two weeks ago :(


Both? ;)

I would go with the x800 and get a 21" CRT monitor (i'd get Samsung or MAG, for >$200). I prefer CRT for gaming, I like the brightness and you get great refresh rates at high resolutions. Although now-a-days, LCDs can pretty much give the same preformance, the price of a good CRT would be a few $100 less than the same quality in LCD

just my opinion though.

Picked up the vid card!
 

So i decided to go for the vid card :D

I ran the 3d mark demo and it scored me at 10349 :p heh anyway Havent tried o/c yet :p

Thx all for helpin me out! :D

Something weird i noticed is that when installing the drivers i got an error msg (zero display service error) Any Ideas? The vid card seems to be working fine.. still kinda bothers me.