Polling and Graphics: Help Us Help You
by Derek Wilson on January 27, 2009 11:05 PM EST- Posted in
- Dell
Hello everyone. We often get asked questions like: what is the most popular x? how common is y? And sometimes we can guess from what we read on the forums or from general market trends. But nothing beats actually knowing what readers are thinking. So it's about time we asked.
We've brought back the ability to do polls. And polls we shall do.
This is more or less a test run to see how polling works out, but I'm hoping we can answer one really key question and also satisfy a curiosity today. The really important question has to do with display information, while the curiosity has to do with current opinions about graphics hardware.
By knowing what resolutions our reader's displays are capable of, we can help target our testing and articles to better accommodate the average reader. We can look more heavily at graphics solutions that satisfy the needs of more of our readers. We've been doing a lot of high end stuff lately (and we've got one more in the pipe), but we are ready to focus on the more mainstream and value segments and we would love to be able to taylor those articles a bit better.
Also, there are a lot of different monitor options with all the many widescreen and laptop panels. Just pick the one that's closest to yours out of this list. If you really want to be as accurate as possible, you could multiply out the resolutions and see which has the closest number of pixels. But just a close guess is fine too.
Well, there's really no sense in beating around the bush. It's a poll, it's not rocket science. Here it is:
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Martimus - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - link
Only problem is that I have a CRT, so the resolution is whatever I set it at. But I like the idea of finding these things out.If you really are taking requests, I would like to see how the Phenom II does against a C2D Quad when both use the same RAM and aproximately $100-$150 MB, since that is the most common configuration for both systems. (For some reason you use a X48 MB and DDR3 RAM in your review, even though no-one would use that configuration if buying new today; they would buy a Core i7 at that price.)
schwinn8 - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - link
Technically, a CRT can support any of these resolutions... but I chose 1600x1200 since that's where I prefer to run games, if possible. (I don't run many modern ones, so even my low end 7800GS card was fine for this res.Patsoe - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - link
It's definitely Intel for me - I've really come to appreciate how it has become completely effortless to install any free software distro since I bought an (almost) all-Intel system.I know AMD and nVidia have been making a lot of progress in this respect, too, but I guess my money's voting for a product that delivers, not for mere good intentions...
DerekWilson - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - link
i haven't had problem with nvidia or amd hardware with free software / OS installations in a long time... and if you want intel then I assume you only want X windows anyway, right? if you don't need 3d you'll have a super easy time with any hardware vendor ... IME anyway ...strikeback03 - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - link
Apparently VIA chipsets for VIA processors don't necessarily play nice with Linux. Which is rather strange, as with cheaper hardware you would think the likelihood of installing a free OS goes up.I would consider a Larrabee card when they become available if it performs well and fits my budget, but now that Photoshop can take advantage of GPU power I don't think I'll do integrated graphics again.
Patsoe - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - link
IME, indeed simply displaying 2d on the desktop is not a problem with any of the mentioned brands, but there are all kinds of obscure problems with e.g. the display adapter not waking up from resume, or running really hot and draining the laptop battery in no time, or not handling switching between consoles and X properly, things like that.You're absolutely right that 3d performance is poor with Intel, so it's not all roses...
prophet001 - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - link
son....triple SLI on the GTX 295???
i almost put ATI though but the 295 is the sweet sauce :-D
Judguh - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - link
Who could really afford to use triple SLI though with three 295's?? Granted, it would be sweet, but I'd rather get me a 4870 1GB model just because it's price is within reason compared to the amazing ability to render quality graphics.Being that said... definitely chose AMD/ATI for the graphics card and until i build my new computer, I'm using 1280x1024.
DerekWilson - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - link
triple SLI does not work with 295s ... you can only put two of them in a system (which gives you quad sli). three 285s seems to be faster in many cases than two 295s also ...Roland00 - Saturday, January 31, 2009 - link
Just want to echo, while you can only have 2 295s in sli (for a total of 4 gpus) you can have a fifth gpu dedicated soley for physics.