lachesis
Member
I've had a quite depressing day at local compusa looking for some minor upgrading that I was going to do on my aging PC.
What I have at home for myself is nothing too go gaga about.
P4 2.0ghz
GeForce4 Ti 4600 with TV out + DVD, 128MB, AGP
512MB PC800 RD Ram
19 inch Iiyama CRT monitor
Win XP home edition
What I'm trying to do, is buying a new flatscreen LCD monitor so that I could free up some room on my desktop. (freaking monitor is taking about 1/3 of entire space, although I had this monitor for almost 7 years and very satisfied with it - but my wife is determined to get rid of it.
)
Anyhow, as I'm getting a new monitor, I was thinking of spending some extra money to get something larger. So, I was initially thinking of getting new Apple Cinema Display with DVI support, which they say, it's PC compatible. (most likely 20 inch, or 23 inch.)
The problem is, although I have DVI connection, I don't think my graphic card would be able to support it by resolution wise. I mean, I just couldn't find the wide screen resolution matching it, and when I asked around the guys at Compusa, they had absolutely no idea of what graphic card would be able to support.
To quote the stats in apple site it says:
I have no idea what "full single link digital bandwith and VESA DDC standard" is, nor "dual-link capability" for 30 inch model is. One of the guy at compusa said that he heard it requires 2 DVI output, which I do not really know what the relevance might be.
cinema display link
Anyhow... while looking at apple cinema display, while gorgeous looking, but it didnt' have much inputs except DVI... so I started to look around.
Then I saw a Dell widescreen monitor. while not as sexy as apple machine, it supports DVI, component, and s-video input as well as VGA. Only thing is that they are saying not all videocards are compatible, and the ones should be able to display WSXGA resolution.
dell lcd widescreen monitor link
Whatever WSXGA might be (Wide Screen XGA?) I would figure I might have to change my videocard anyhow... so I started looking around, and as being a computer hardware illiterate (pretty much), I figured ATI 9800 series might be able to handle WSXGA... but the price range is a bit higher than what I hope it would be.
I mean, I am willing to spend some more money for larger one (for dell, I might even go for 24 inch one with full 1920x1200 res), but as for my CPU, I am planning to get or try to build a new one in about a year or two at the max, so I was hoping to have a videocard around mid 100's or less with full WSXGA or even apple cinema display monitor compatible.
Am I dreaming too much? I mean, I think for 2.0 ghz old P4 and new ATI 9800 might be a bit too much... If anyone could recommend a good, reliable graphics card in 100-200 dollar range with compatibility with above monitors, please give me an advice.
Sorry for the long story, but anyhow, my trip to compusa was pretty much non-eventful. I was quite let down and overwhelmed by whole thing going out of proportion, it really did ruin my day. I was trying to buy some more RAM as well, and I realized two things about Rambus ram. Expensive, and compusa didn't carry them. So my 2nd question arises - any good online RAM dealers you know of?
Any info would be greatly appreciated...
thanks!
lachesis
What I have at home for myself is nothing too go gaga about.
P4 2.0ghz
GeForce4 Ti 4600 with TV out + DVD, 128MB, AGP
512MB PC800 RD Ram
19 inch Iiyama CRT monitor
Win XP home edition
What I'm trying to do, is buying a new flatscreen LCD monitor so that I could free up some room on my desktop. (freaking monitor is taking about 1/3 of entire space, although I had this monitor for almost 7 years and very satisfied with it - but my wife is determined to get rid of it.
)Anyhow, as I'm getting a new monitor, I was thinking of spending some extra money to get something larger. So, I was initially thinking of getting new Apple Cinema Display with DVI support, which they say, it's PC compatible. (most likely 20 inch, or 23 inch.)
The problem is, although I have DVI connection, I don't think my graphic card would be able to support it by resolution wise. I mean, I just couldn't find the wide screen resolution matching it, and when I asked around the guys at Compusa, they had absolutely no idea of what graphic card would be able to support.
To quote the stats in apple site it says:
I have no idea what "full single link digital bandwith and VESA DDC standard" is, nor "dual-link capability" for 30 inch model is. One of the guy at compusa said that he heard it requires 2 DVI output, which I do not really know what the relevance might be.
cinema display link
Anyhow... while looking at apple cinema display, while gorgeous looking, but it didnt' have much inputs except DVI... so I started to look around.
Then I saw a Dell widescreen monitor. while not as sexy as apple machine, it supports DVI, component, and s-video input as well as VGA. Only thing is that they are saying not all videocards are compatible, and the ones should be able to display WSXGA resolution.
dell lcd widescreen monitor link
Whatever WSXGA might be (Wide Screen XGA?) I would figure I might have to change my videocard anyhow... so I started looking around, and as being a computer hardware illiterate (pretty much), I figured ATI 9800 series might be able to handle WSXGA... but the price range is a bit higher than what I hope it would be.
I mean, I am willing to spend some more money for larger one (for dell, I might even go for 24 inch one with full 1920x1200 res), but as for my CPU, I am planning to get or try to build a new one in about a year or two at the max, so I was hoping to have a videocard around mid 100's or less with full WSXGA or even apple cinema display monitor compatible.
Am I dreaming too much? I mean, I think for 2.0 ghz old P4 and new ATI 9800 might be a bit too much... If anyone could recommend a good, reliable graphics card in 100-200 dollar range with compatibility with above monitors, please give me an advice.
Sorry for the long story, but anyhow, my trip to compusa was pretty much non-eventful. I was quite let down and overwhelmed by whole thing going out of proportion, it really did ruin my day.
I was trying to buy some more RAM as well, and I realized two things about Rambus ram. Expensive, and compusa didn't carry them. So my 2nd question arises - any good online RAM dealers you know of? Any info would be greatly appreciated...
thanks!
lachesis