ATI Plus Dell FTW! I Think?

(Geekery follows. If that offends or bores you then move along, move along. This isn't the post you're looking for.)

So Rick posted about the 30" monitor that Dell is selling. Basically competition for the Apple 30" monitor. He mentioned that it's resolution was 2560x1600 and I wondered if my current video card could even support that resolution. Not to mention the price tag of the monitor. It turns out that no, my current video card would not work with this monitor. I poised the same question to Rick.

Dell 30 - $2199"

Apple 30 - $2499"

So I'm thinking there is no way I would need to have the top of the line card to use this monitor. I must just need to research this more. But wtf, to my surprise Rick's statement is pretty much spot on. At least if you stick with ATI. I did a brief search of the Nvidia offerings and the 7800GTX looks like it will support it and Dell's site backs that up as well, but the cost of the 7800 is pretty friggin' huge. In fact the only card solutions Dell is recommending are Nvidia solutions. Nvidia lost favor with me a while back for various reasons and I've switched to ATI. I'd rather not have to go back to Nvidia. At least not right now.

So what are my options Ken? Well I'm glad you asked Ken. Here's what I came up with initially.

The X1600XT, around $160 + tax, looks like it will support the resolution of the display. At least with a single card as far as I can determine, but this card is not at the high end as far as performance so bummer. Now it is Crossfire capable, which means you can put two in one computer, but I didn't find any benchmarks to say how much that would help. Plus you'd have to have a board that supports Crossfire. There was another variation of the X1600, the PRO version, but with that one the memory looks to be clocked at about half the speed of the XT so it's even further from being worthy.

Now the next card up is the X1800XL. Way better performance than the X1600 due to the fact that the actual chip is more high-end on the inside. By a bunch in fact. You can see a comparison of the chips here. In fact it's the same chip as what's on the next model up, the X1800XT. The only difference I can see between the two is that the XT is running faster, both core and memory, and has 512MB memory instead of 256MB. Now these cards are running from ~$400 for the XL to ~$500 for the XT. Is the performance difference worth the extra $100? I don't know. To some I'm sure it is. If I had to pick one card right now though and at the current prices I would go with the XL. I'm not good enough to probably even need the XL let alone the XT so that's where I would save a couple bucks.

There is also a new chip out from ATI, the X1900, that as far as gaming performance goes even beats Nvidia's latest greatest, the 7800GTX, which had held the crown as of late. Apparently the X1900 has taken the crown back. What is interesting though is that during my digging it seems the X1900 has taken a step backward and can't support resolutions higher than 2048x1536? What the hell? I thought as you moved up in the chain you got everything that the previous old models had and more. Apparently not the case here. I must be misinterpreting something somewhere. (Please advise if you can. Thx.)

So Mr. Rick it seems you were right sir. If you want to run that new monitor that both you and now I are drooling over you will also have to spend another $400 bucks, minimum, plus tax on a new video card. That's in addition to the $2199 for the monitor itself.

Looking some other places though makes me doubt the above research a bit. I've seen a couple of reports that say some of the older cards, i.e. the X850XT, will support the monitor. I've also not seen exactly what makes a card support this monitor. I realize it has to do with TMDS and DVI-I(Dual Link), but man I just haven't come totally to grips with all of the requirements yet. I guess the most surefire way of guaranteeing the monitor will work with any card is to actually contact the card maker and Dell. Yikes!

But Ken, you ask, even if you figure out which card you need why could you possibly need that monitor? When it comes to this shit it has nothing to do with what I need dammit. It's all about what I want. Oi! Sheesh now that I think about it though that sucker would almost be as big as my TV. I'd probably have to reinforce my desk just to the hold the sucker up.

Edit(2/3/2006): Rick had mentioned an article to me regarding the new ATI video cards and a reference that was made to the high resolution monitors. I took a look at the article, but still had questions so I emailed the author. Here's his reply. The following is from Tim Smalley at Bit-Tech and I think it pretty much clears up which ATI cards support the new monitors for basic 2D use.

Hi Ken,

Thanks for taking the time to email me.

The Radeon X1000-series cards all have support for two dual link DVI connectors, meaning that both of the DVI ports are capable of running at 2560x1600. What I was saying in regard to gaming on a Dell 30" monitor was that you'd get the most out of the monitor if you've got a CrossFire setup.

With only one Radeon X1900, you're going to be forced to lower details, or run at a non-native resolution. With two cards together in CrossFire, you're going to have more of a chance of running at the monitor's native resolution with a good level of in-game detail too.

I hope that makes sense to you. Any problems, let me know.

Cheers,

Tim Smalley
Technical Editor
bit-tech.net