Monitor and Card recommendations?

F

Flapper

Well-known member
RF is my primary "game". Also need a monitor with good color reproduction for photography. Looking for "good", does not have to be best in class. Currently running a Samsung SyncMaster 226BW on a Nvidia 8800GTX. The Samsung is starting to flicker, probably due to bad power supply caps.
Of course, bigger is better, and having the equivalent of 2 monitors would be high on the list. I'd like to explore 3D, especially in RF.
Any recommendations as to what would be a good combo? Would like to keep total expenses in the $500 to $700 range, but could go up to $1K if absolutely have to....
 
I would and have listened to OpJose in regards to these decisions in this forum. I think that you might get good advice in other "games" with a lot more users that are on-line. I would also pick the brains of some guys at best buy... act like you want to buy in-store, then grab it from an on-line retailer like NewEgg.

Two monitors with Real Flight is a waste of money. Remember the plane flies in the center of the screen... if you want super wide.. it will have to be three monitors. I know, I have two monitors.
 
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For a video card, I would purchase a 970 for around $350.00. It should have enough power to run dual monitors but I would rather purchase a 27-32" single screen. 1440p resolution should be adequate.

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-970-vs-Nvidia-GeForce-8800-GTX/2577vsm9271

This site compared both cards performance and the 970 is 1,161% faster than the 8800. It's more efficient so your power supply may be enough to handle it. You might have to make sure you have enough processor power to run the card effectively.
 
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In further searching, it sounds like 3D is not such a much anymore.
Used dual monitors at work for years, but since retirement, there's not much need to have code on one screen while the other displays results, or to do word and spreadsheets at the same time, etc. So overall real estate seems to be the way to go...
Good point about RF and dual monitors.
 
"In further searching, it sounds like 3D is not such a much anymore."

That is not true. Realflight and many many programs require the 3D processing power. Some 2D programs utilize the 3D GPU for other purposes.

What has happened, is that 3D performance of even the more lowly integrated chipsets is starting to catch up with Realflight's 3D requirements.

However expect that to change in the future. Having more 3D horsepower will be something you'll want.

That said, any card that can hold it's own with good 3D performance, usually can drive two or more monitors well.

The 970 that csgill75 mentioned is a good way to avoid obsolescence in the near future.
 
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I just bought a factory overclocked 970 from EVGA to finally replace the EVGA 285gtx in my main Realflight PC. Tons more performance.
 
Just installed a GTX 960. On the old 1050 monitor, fps with everything maxed out is now 140 (used to be 30-40 on the 8800 GTX, slightly dialed back)!! Yikes! Now we'll see what happens when the 1440p monitor arrives in a day or two......
Thanks all for the comments and help!
 
I'm looking for a new graphics card for good performance in RF7. How much do I have to spend?
My computer is getting old (it's from 2009) but is performing okay. I´m gonna upgrade but what card do I need? I don't play games, mainly use it for photographs (Adobe Lightroom).
I am only using one monitor 1920x1200.
Do I have use of the 970 or is it overkill for me? I find it too expensive. Will the 950 be good enough for me? Would I be fine with an even simpler card such as the 610??
 
rufus said:
I'm looking for a new graphics card for good performance in RF7. How much do I have to spend?
My computer is getting old (it's from 2009) but is performing okay. I´m gonna upgrade but what card do I need? I don't play games, mainly use it for photographs (Adobe Lightroom).
I am only using one monitor 1920x1200.
Do I have use of the 970 or is it overkill for me? I find it too expensive. Will the 950 be good enough for me? Would I be fine with an even simpler card such as the 610??
Click to expand...

A 950 should be good enough for your needs. I wouldn't go much lower end since Realflight is a pretty demanding software for your graphics card. If you can swing a 960, even better. Best bang for the buck though has to be the 970 as 300 for a video card isn't a lot of money. If you are thinking about upgrading to Realflight 8 in the future, it may even be more demanding that the current software so keep this in mind.

The 610 is not suitable for Realflight and is really meant to give computers the ability to run dual monitors in a work environment. It will run solitaire but will fail while running Realflight. Checking gpuboss.com shows that the 610 has just a fraction of the performance of my old 285gtx which I just replaced. Depending on what your currently running, it may be a downgrade for you.
 
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Check you motherboard manufacturer first, though (or forums that discuss systems building). There's a risk your bios can't support the higher # nvidia cards. BTW, for Nvidia, the first number is the "family" and the second two are the relative "speed". If your board can't support a 9xx series, you will probably find that something like a 660 (or 670, etc.) will still be a huge improvement, and work with the older bios. Newegg.com had a rebuilt one a couple of weeks ago for $69, for example. The general advice I got on various nvidia and systems sites was always to go with an x60 or higher series, no matter what "family" you decide to go into. Of course 9xx is faster than 6xx, but if you have to compromise...
 
Flapper said:
Check you motherboard manufacturer first, though (or forums that discuss systems building). There's a risk your bios can't support the higher # nvidia cards. BTW, for Nvidia, the first number is the "family" and the second two are the relative "speed". If your board can't support a 9xx series, you will probably find that something like a 660 (or 670, etc.) will still be a huge improvement, and work with the older bios. Newegg.com had a rebuilt one a couple of weeks ago for $69, for example. The general advice I got on various nvidia and systems sites was always to go with an x60 or higher series, no matter what "family" you decide to go into. Of course 9xx is faster than 6xx, but if you have to compromise...
Click to expand...

You are probably talking about the new UEFI bios and compatibility with new video cards with the older legacy bios. Some of the new cards have a switch to allow older system compatibility, others will switch to the older system when you first install the card, others have to be on the UEFI bios only.

The video card I purchased was a EVGA 970 SSC. I installed it in a 6 year old computer. It took about 20 seconds for it to post on first start up but then started working normally. The next cold start was normal so the card switched itself to work with my legacy bios.
 
True, csgill75, and some boards may just need a bios update to run (mine did). Easiest way to research may be to do a google search on motherboard model (or computer model) + GTX 970 (or whatever nvidia card is of interest). Likely there are a bunch of people with the same question, and you can find out whether it worked for them, before making the plunge.
 
Thanks for good advice. Since my computer is quite old I will have to change my motherboard, CPU, RAM and video card. It will cost a lot of money and I don't want to spend more on the card than I have to. However I don't want to spend money on an upgrade and not get satisfied. Today I run a ATI Radeon HD 4670.
 
On an older machine you can get by with a GeForce 950. It has pretty low power requirements.

However given that your computer is "quite old" I would not be putting money into it.

Consider getting a new machine instead and put a 960 or 970 into that.

There is a world of difference between the computer you have now and the newer machines with SSD (and HDD) drives, latest i7 processors, and gobs of memory.

Six seconds boot ups are a thing to behold!
 
I am planning an major update and get a new motherboard, CPU, Video card and RAM.
I hope I can use my old cabinet and my disks 2x SSD and 2x HDD to save some money.

If it was just the card I could maybe afford a 970 but I also need money for the other parts. I am thinking of an i5 maybe 6500 or 4690K. i7 seems too expensive and I don't have much use of it in Adobe Lightroom which is my primary program.
 
An i5 would be fine as long as you get the four core version.

You could also step down to the Geforce 950 to get started and upgrade later. You can actually use it as a second PhysX card too.

How old are the SSD's and who makes both the SSD's and HDD's?

I hope the SSD's are not made by OCZ!!!

I just upgraded 100 perfectly running i7 machines to Windows 10.

Within a week of the upgrade the OCZ drives started failing.

After three weeks not a one survived. It appears that a bug in the drive firmware is causing Win10 to brick the drives!

Don't scrimp on the power supply, and try to look for a Motherboard where you can upgrade the process to an i7 later, and bump up the ram.

You should start with at LEAST 8gb of RAM or 16 if possible.
 
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