Home gaming system upgrade- GPU and montitors budget £1000

[Monk Feast]

Hi guys,

I'm moving house this week and i'm wanting to upgrade my setup from a 42" 1080p tv at the foot of my bed to a living room setup.

My vision is a desk next to my tv in the living room, where i can play games on something like a 22/24" 1080p 144hz monitor with a secondary for youtube/music/multitasking, and then my tv for casual gaming and watching films.

I have a few crappy monitors that can be used for secondary. Besides that i have about £1000 to spend on new monitor(s)/GPU/ etc.

So my questions are:

How would i work a setup like this? 3 monitors at once? HDMI switch?

In your opinion what monitors would i want? I was thinking of buying a smaller 1080p widescreen one- set up vertically so the ratio's are all perfect. any monitors spring to mind?

And of course, what GPU would i want for 1080p 80-144fps gaming that is futureproof.


My current pc is
1 x 8GB (2x4GB) Crucial Ballistix Sport 1600MHz CL9 DDR3 Dual Channel Kit
1 x MSI Z97 GAMING 5 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard
1 x Intel Core i5-4690K 3.50GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor P
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Superclocked (ACX) 2048MB GDDR5 Graphics Card
1 x 600W Corsair Builder Series CX600M 80PLUS Bronze Modular Power Supply
(plus hard drives etc)


I'm struggling with the specific monitors and GPU as much as anything else, any help would be appreciated!

 

[senseijtitus]

The GPU choice would be something like GTX 980 or 980Ti. But the prices may decrease for the 980 once the sales of 980Ti is on full swing. GTX980Ti is better future proof. Your current CPU would be more than enough for your needs. If you plan to try AMD, let us know and we will come up with something that would suite your needs.

 

[Monk Feast]

980 was what i had in mind. how long would i be running 80+ fps @ 1080p on high settings with that?

Any ideas re monitors?

Thanks for your response!

 

[senseijtitus]

If you have any monitors left around with you, that would be okay for a multy monotor setup. Ideally 1080p capable monitors are preferred for ultra settings. That card will be good for at least 2 years. Cants say how long it will be able to play games at ultra in the future. Game developers have a weird way of coding there games for better viewing sensation. What kind of monitors are you looking for, say size, aspect ratio or pixel ratio, connectivity etc...

 

[Monk Feast]

For my main monitor i want a 120+hz 1080p monitor at 24". I don't know much about monitors, i just know id rather upgrade to high frame rate than 1440p or 4k as the 24" will be used for fps games mainly.

Dyou know what the best way of switching between the 24" and the 42" would be? should i have all 3 monitors running at once and just window the game on the monitor i want to play on?

Cheers

 

[senseijtitus]

Well if you are using all of these monitors together, for gaming it would be preferred to have monitors of the same size and dimensions to be set side by side. Better viewing angles and same resolution for all monitors, and you can view the game environment in a much wider angle than you can in a single monitor setup. But then again you can window the game to one monitor but that really kills the fun out of it. Also, higher sized monitors have a tendancy to show up pixels if not place far from your eyes, but really depends on what kind of monitor then again. A 4K Monitor with large size would not have any problem with this. But are expensive.

 

[senseijtitus]

Better a 27 Inch monitor if you do want to increase the size. Try ASUS MX279H 27-Inch Screen LED-Lit LCD Monitor

http://www.amazon.com/MX279H-27-Inch-Screen-LED-Lit-Monitor/dp/B00B17C5KO/ref=sr_1_5?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1434293955&sr=1-5&keywords=aoc+i2757fh

 

[Monk Feast]

would 1080p be ok for a 24" monitor at a desk?

I'm not really interested in gaming on more than one monitor simultaneously

i suppose i want a switch or a splitter so that i can change between the 24 and the 42 when i want to, or display the same picture on both screens and sit in front of the one i am using. (the tv will have a sofa in front of it).

This raises the question, can i output onto a 60hz and a 120hz with a splitter/switch without any technical difficulties (ie the 120hz running at 60hz and/or running at a much lower response time than it would normally)

I can't seem to find any high framerate 24" 1080p monitors on the internet besides benq ones :s

 

[Monk Feast]

I don't mind increasing the size provided it is small enough for me to sit in front of at my desk

 

[senseijtitus]

120hz monitor would be faster than the 60hz monitor the screen refresh rate would be double. I think you may not be able to notice it. You can use a switching cable to switch between. This article may help you up.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/191359/Easily_Switch_Between_External_Displays_in_Windows_7.html

 

[senseijtitus]

I don't mind increasing the size provided it is small enough for me to sit in front of at my desk

the 27 Inch monitor from ASUS I gave the link for would be okay for you. It is also a 60 Hz monitor. But the side Bazle of the monitor is really thin. good for multi monitor setup. When you put multiple monitors of this king in a 85-90-85 Degree angle, it will give an illusion of a single surround display.

 

[Monk Feast]

Oh great that looks useful!

So, final question- Say i'm running 2 displays, probably both directly from my gpu.

if the displays were:
120hz 1ms and
60hz 30ms

would the 120hz 1ms monitor run at 120hz and 1ms?

 

[senseijtitus]

The screen refresh rate is a native process for the monitor. It will refresh at its native rate.

 

[Monk Feast]

Ok great, thanks for your help!

That asus monitor looks great, you've got me thinking about multi-monitor gaming now...

 

[senseijtitus]

Ok great, thanks for your help!

That asus monitor looks great, you've got me thinking about multi-monitor gaming now...

Multi monitor gaming is a very good option to optimize the gaming experience. Just need a Graphic card with more than 2 GB of memory to support the frame rate and resolution for all monitors. And compatible monitors with similar frame refresh rates and resolution and you are good to go.

Great to be of help buddy. Always here to help you guys out.