Replacing dead monitor for older system

[Musicalls]

Hi,

My system is as follows:
ASUS P4PE Mobo
NVidia GeForce4 MX440 graphics with AGP8X
80GB HDD
512 MBRAM
Thermaltake PSU
Philips 17" Flatscreen Monitor

OK so my monitor has bit the dust. I dont want to upgrade any of my computer components because its too old. About 9.5 yrs. I want an LCD monitor thats going to overlap from now until I buy a complete new system. I dont want to buy a monitor that will be underspec'd for the new system. Im not very knowledgeable on their resolutions and whats not compatible or why, nor about aspect ratios and compatibility.

Question:
- My Video Card has a max resolution 1024x768 pix . Can I use a 16.9 and the standard resolutions of today?

Thanks for any help.

 

[hood6558]

You can use any monitor with any graphics card, with 2 caveats; must have compatible ports (DVI,VGA,HDMI,DisplayPort) or use an adapter, and your resolution will be limited to the component with the smaller value (your card's 1024x768). So until you build the new system, it will display the same size as your old one, with a wide black bar on either side (but should look better anyway). The sweet spot these days is 23" widescreen (less than $150), 24" under $200, and 27" start at $250. I have an Acer 23" and it's big enough for me. Remember, though, when you have a bigger monitor it will run at lower frame rates with a given video card, so keep that in mind when spec'ing the new system. Until 3 months ago I was where you are (Pentium 4 3.4 GHz). I gradually upgraded my parts until I ended up with this;

Asus P8Z77-V, Intel i5-3570K@4.3 GHz, Kingston HyperX CL9-1600@1866 MHz, EVGA GTX 550 Ti Superclocked@981 MHZ/2257 MHz, Corsair H100 liquid cooling, Ultra X4 750w, Corsair Carbide 400R, 2 x WDC Green 2TB, 1 x WDC Blue 500GB, 1 x Hitachi 400 GB, 1 x Hitachi 1TB external, LG M-Disc Super Multi DVD, 6 x 120mm case fans, Acer 23" LCD@1920x1080, Microsoft Wireless Desktop 3000, Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

I've got about $1400 total in it (plus many months of research and list-making, which was half the fun) and it's so much faster I can hardly believe it, even without an SSD (soon!). So you can get a monitor now, then find a case you like and move into it, get your fans set up the way you want, then one day get a Z77 mobo and i5-3570K and switch everything over. You'll need a new hard drive, your old one is IDE and the new mobos are SATA. Later you can get a decent video card, faster RAM, an SSD, etc. BTW, the integrated Intel HD 4000 video on the 3570K is awesome, I used it for a week just to try it out, and it played most of my games okay. I envy you - for you, the fun is just beginning. New hardware aimed at the enthusiast market is a multi-billion dollar business now, so competition is fierce, prices are low, and great new stuff comes out almost daily. Do the research, read the reviews, and have fun.

 

[Musicalls]

Hey Hood, thankyou so much for your reply. It has really helped. Hope your new rig cracks along nicely when you get it all up and running! Im a lady and I wont be building the system myself, but would do what I did with this system. Get the store to build a system for me with chosen parts. Id do my research at the time and choose suitable componentry. I'd be OK with seating RAM and I'd give a few other things a go, but Id need tuition to place power cables and stuff.Id be nervous around that PSU too which is probably just as well....

Forgot to put on my spec list Processor is Pent4 2.4GHZ. Yes IDE is getting realllllllly old these days. The PC still goes like the clappers. I use a few common sense approaches like house cleaning, making sure I have enough elbow room on system drive etc. I only use PC mainly for internet and a bit of Wordprocessing. Im not into gaming, but hubby likes the V8 Supercars. Must admit system struggles a bit with that. Probably RAM, but not worth upgrading now. Anyway, the CD Drive has also spat the dummy.

Im going to be in almost the same predicament with My Power Mac G4 Dually (1.4GHZ). Same basic deal as PC, 9.5yrs ago, much the same architecture wise, like PCI voltage and standards.I run mostly LogicPro 8 on that as well as do some video editing. Maxed out RAM to 2GIG ...use 2 HDD (Yes IDE) and things are 'doable' if youre careful. If youre not you get kernel panics. With this system, I'll be waiting on Apple to get their butts into gear and come up with a decent tower refresh instead of the insult they offered this year. Thats another story. Meantime Ive nicked the monitor off of that and using it now on PC. The Mac gives me a few more options resolution wise but cant remember what they are.

Thanks also for those prices. Will be different for me in NZ though. Been doing lots of reading on SSD's and that sure is a step up.

Musicalls

Forgot to ask....
"Remember, though, when you have a bigger monitor it will run at lower frame rates with a given video card, so keep that in mind when spec'ing the new system."

Could you elaborate on that please? Is frame rate to do with 'screen refresh rate'? Im looking at the refresh rate under nvidia's settings and it says 85HZ as the highest... .....if Im understanding this right, the question to ask is what's the maximum sized monitor I could have?.

Also Im looking at the connections at the back of computer where the CRT monitor Im using now is placed. Is that the VGA connection? ... it is a plug with 3 rows of 5 holes (Im looking at the daughter connection) and its about a 1.5 cm wide (one side a tad longer than the other).

Thanks for any further comments

 

[hood6558]

Hey Hood, thankyou so much for your reply. It has really helped. Hope your new rig cracks along nicely when you get it all up and running! Im a lady and I wont be building the system myself, but would do what I did with this system. Get the store to build a system for me with chosen parts. Id do my research at the time and choose suitable componentry. I'd be OK with seating RAM and I'd give a few other things a go, but Id need tuition to place power cables and stuff.Id be nervous around that PSU too which is probably just as well....

Forgot to put on my spec list Processor is Pent4 2.4GHZ. Yes IDE is getting realllllllly old these days. The PC still goes like the clappers. I use a few common sense approaches like house cleaning, making sure I have enough elbow room on system drive etc. I only use PC mainly for internet and a bit of Wordprocessing. Im not into gaming, but hubby likes the V8 Supercars. Must admit system struggles a bit with that. Probably RAM, but not worth upgrading now. Anyway, the CD Drive has also spat the dummy.

Im going to be in almost the same predicament with My Power Mac G4 Dually (1.4GHZ). Same basic deal as PC, 9.5yrs ago, much the same architecture wise, like PCI voltage and standards.I run mostly LogicPro 8 on that as well as do some video editing. Maxed out RAM to 2GIG ...use 2 HDD (Yes IDE) and things are 'doable' if youre careful. If youre not you get kernel panics. With this system, I'll be waiting on Apple to get their butts into gear and come up with a decent tower refresh instead of the insult they offered this year. Thats another story. Meantime Ive nicked the monitor off of that and using it now on PC. The Mac gives me a few more options resolution wise but cant remember what they are.

Thanks also for those prices. Will be different for me in NZ though. Been doing lots of reading on SSD's and that sure is a step up.

Musicalls

Forgot to ask....
"Remember, though, when you have a bigger monitor it will run at lower frame rates with a given video card, so keep that in mind when spec'ing the new system."

Could you elaborate on that please? Is frame rate to do with 'screen refresh rate'? Im looking at the refresh rate under nvidia's settings and it says 85HZ as the highest... .....if Im understanding this right, the question to ask is what's the maximum sized monitor I could have?.

Also Im looking at the connections at the back of computer where the CRT monitor Im using now is placed. Is that the VGA connection? ... it is a plug with 3 rows of 5 holes (Im looking at the daughter connection) and its about a 1.5 cm wide (one side a tad longer than the other).

Thanks for any further comments

Frame rate is just how many frames (still pictures) per second are rendered by the video card to create the illusion of motion. Below 30 fps it looks increasingly "choppy" (stuttering), 30 fps is considered minimum, 60 fps and over is ideal. The refresh rate (most commonly the "vertical refresh rate", "vertical scan rate" for CRTs) is the number of times in a second that a display hardware draws the data. This is distinct from the measure of frame rate in that the refresh rate includes the repeated drawing of identical frames, while frame rate measures how often a video source can feed an entire frame of new data to a display. Can you tell that I cribbed that last bit from Wikipedia? Cheating, I know, but they said it better than I could. Yes, the connector you describe is the VGA . The screen resolution I'm using on my Acer 23" LCD is 1920 x 1080, which is the recommended resolution for this size monitor, and also it's max resolution. My video card, however, suppots resolutions up to 2560x1600 (digital) & 2048x1536 (analog), which would be a 30" monitor. Very nice for multi-tasking and CAD, but expensive ($1200 to $3000). So my $130 GTX 550 Ti would fill the 30" screen, but my frame rates would suffer accordingly, and I'd need to buy a better video card if I wanted to keep the 60 fps frame rates I enjoy now. Probably at least a $300 GTX 660 Ti to stay at 60 fps on a 30" monitor, plus another $100 for a power supply that could handle the extra power draw of the card. As you can see the cost goes up very quickly to have a large screen with good performance. Does that make anything clearer?

 

[Musicalls]

Yes that has helped plenty, compliments of you and wikipedia Lol. Now to find my frame rate that my card supports. Would you have any idea what my cards frame rate would be or likely to be, and the biggest size to maintain clarity. That said I dont need a big monitor. Id be happy with something a tad bigger than my 17" CRT. I know its deceiving with wide screen monitors because the extra width means you need a bigger screen size than you think ....(if that makes sense)