Midlife monitor/GPU refresh: advice please

you should be fine getting any 1080p monitor   dont know if I would throw out the extra cash to get G Synn
My old ds Rig I put and EVGA Gforce 750 TI in it and it runs World Of Warcraft on a 24 inch 180 p monitor hitting 95 to 99 FPS

Thanks very much, guys. bprat22, I remember you from when I first bought this DS machine and you were very helpful then, too!

consider an AMD R9 390X around $400 and get yourself a nice/fast 1440p Freesync monitor (either IPS or TN panel).  as a whole, the AMD price to performance is better.  Nvidia G-sync monitors add an actual physical module to the monitors that support their version of "adaptive sync" and so are priced a couple hundred bucks more than the open source "freesync" tech in AMD-based monitors.  you still pay a little bit more for a monitor with this tech in it, but it's worth it imo.  freesync does the same thing as gsync-syncs the monitor's refresh rate to that of the video card's frequency in a range (the lowest i've seen is 35Hz and the highest is 144Hz) so as to avoid screen tearing and stuttering.  you'll have to check the range on a per monitor case. 

the main difference between the two tech's is how they handle refresh rates outside of the frequency range.  with freesync you get the option of choosing whether it reverts to v-sync (vertical sync) either on or off.  the gsync module on the other hand doesn't do this.  instead when it falls below the range it auto refreshes the screen with each frame being redrawn one extra time to avoid flicker of the pixels and maintain a stuttering/tearing free image.  it's all very technical, but the takeaway is this: they essentially do the same thing-image smoothing.  just make sure you have a gpu that can render frames consistently within the monitor's refresh range at the game settings you desire. 

AMD's cards are the less expensive technology at present.  an R9 390X is better than a GTX 970 and a GTX 980 is priced higher than it.  if you're not married to a particular brand and on a budget, i suggest the AMD vid card and Freesync monitor route over the Nvidia tech.   i, myself, went the high end Nvidia route but now with the monitor market leaning towards the cheaper freesync tech i'm starting to question that choice.  there are more freesync models to choose from than there are gsync simply due to cost.   

The 770 would be best at 1080p.   You could play at 1440p but frames would drop and in game settings lowered.   Depends what makes you happy.

   The size of the screen doesn't matter to the video card, just the resolution.   A 23" at 1080p will give you the same fps as a 42" at 1080p, but the larger the screen the less sharp because the pixels are more spread out.   A 27" at 1080p I guess wouldn't be too bad and still give you more screen.

Here's a link that'll give you an idea with different games and resolutions....

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1037

Edited by bprat22 - 09 Mar 2016 at 2:42am

no insult intended, that's not an expensive monitor.  it's actually fairly old and low-end, tbh.  i know budgets are relative.  a much newer/feature packed monitor for "gamers" and on a "gamer" budget is the BenQ XL2430T.  you get ULMB (motion blur reduction tech), good out of the box color, etc. 

check it out here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M8E0K06/?tag=bom_tomshardware-20&ascsubtag=[site|thaus[cat|[art|[pid|B00M8E0K06[tid|14590258118818282[bbc|LEPRIX

I don't have a ds system, but I do have that very same monitor (the xl monitor from BENQ). I owned it for about 4 month now?   It has been absolutely amazing.

The blue reduction technology definitely makes your eyes work less, and 1m react time plus 144hz make the screen so much more responsive.

I don't know about others, but i personally highly recommend it.

Edited by mike13531 - 28 Mar 2016 at 9:48pm