Samsung widescreen 22" & Evga 7950GT KO

[CrazyIrishman]

In about a week I plan on retiring my CRT and try out a LCD for the first time. Most likely the monitor will be the Samsung 226BW 22" widescreen.

The question that I have is will the Evga 7950GT KO card work with this monitor & native resolution? Later on I plan on upgrading the video card but I'm unable to do it at the moment. I don't know if it matters but my OS is WinXP Pro SP2. As for upgrading the video card, my PSU is an OCZ 700 watt Game-X-stream so I should have enough juice.


THX
CI

[catacon]

That card should be fine.

[liambl]

The 7950GT is quite a fast graphics card. Unless you are serious about gaming it should do fine for a few years.

[CrazyIrishman]

I do want to get more into games later on down the road. Right now I'm getting into flight sims.

The reason I was comcerned about the monitor working with the 7950 is because when I clicked on the icon and went to screen resolution, the max resolution shown is 1280 x 800 and the Samsung 226BW 22" is 1680 x 1050.

Am I missing something here?

Considering how fast one generation of video card is replaced by the next one, what "current" card has Direct x10 ,is the nVidia GeForce 8 series, and at a minimum is roughly the equivalent of what I have. I can't afford the biggest & baddest card, but at least any card I look at won't be lower in performamce vs. the 7950.


THX
CI

[Jim Baxter]

The resolution is set my the monitor. I had a similar situation changing from a 19" to the 22"
Before you buy the Samsung, go to Bestbuy or Circuit city and look at the HP2207.

[glc]

The video driver will not let you choose a resolution that's not supported by the currently installed and detected monitor. The 7950 is capable of resolutions far above what any sane person would buy.

[CrazyIrishman]

I thought that I was only reading 1280 x 800 max resolution when going to the Nvidia icon because of the monitor I'm using at the moment. This monitor is an Envision EN775-e 17" . After reading the manual for it (pdf.), it says the max is 1280 x 1024.

Maybe I'm misreading something here. Are there other adjustments that can be made to get 1680 x 1050 for the LCD? The new monitor is supposed to arrive tomorrow made by Samsung. Its an early Christmas present that is a complete surprise! I wasn't expecting a monitor at all!


THX
CI

[hitchface]

Your card will be fine. It will detect the monitor's capable resolutions. It has to fill up the screen, and a resolution on a 17" monitor that has a 16:10 ratio will be almost unusable. Don't worry, you'll see. ;)

[jgis19]

I have the same card & monitor. It come with an installation cd, which has a driver on it ,after you you install the driver you can set the resolution to 1680x1080.

[CrazyIrishman]

I got my SAMSUNG 226BW 22" Widescreen TODAY!

Man, talk about the difference between my old 17" CRT and this critter! I don't know where to start.

So far all I did was hook-up the cables using the DVI for the video card and the new power cord then turned it on. So far so good.

I didn't use the CD that came with it yet. I set the resolution using the nVidia icon for the video card. Regarding the CD, do I really need to use it or is it personal preference? Considering what the CD provides, is it worth it?

Some of what I've read on feedback has mentioned complaints after using the disc. I don't know what to think about it. Some of the complaints I read about has to do with the back-lit power button sice some people thought it was annoying.

Its not a big deal to me, however, I've already thought of a solution. take a piece of black rubber or plastic or whatever color you like, drill a pinhole in it so the hole lets a pinpoint of blue light show through, then attach with double sided tape. Depending on how its done it may or may not look tacky, but now its only a speck of blue to worry about! lol

Over the next couple of days I'll be checking this monitor out and then afterwards leave a review.



THX
CI


PS: Hi Hitchface, I'm probably gonna get the aftermarket monitor stand. This one isn't terrible but a bit of heighth adjustment sure would be nice.

[hitchface]

I included some details about the CD in my review of this model. No complaints here. The tools are handy to give a little more rich editing of the picture you see. Sorta useless after the initial setup, but the apps certainly caused no problems

[glc]

If you are getting full resolution and a display that's acceptable to you, there's no reason to run the CD.

[Brown Hornet]

i have that same monitor and up untill yesterday i ran 2 7950gt. the monitor is the best i have had so far. and i chose not to run the CD, no problem's here. enjoy the monitor

[CrazyIrishman]

I think that problems with the CD were due to the user not knowing what they were doing than the disc being at fault.

To read some of the posts in feedback about this monitor makes me laugh. In the eleven or so hours that I've had to peruse this monitor and check out a few functions with the resoluition being one of them, I find that I'm quite happy with it .

So far, three things that were meant as complaints by posters, are IMO, a non-issue.

1) gloss black trim (actually looks rather nice IMO)
2) stand not fully adjustable (ErgoTron single monitor stand available for $29.99 if u need it)
3) and that pesky blue light! LOL

There aren't any apparent issues with:

Ghosting.......no demons or goblins either!
Dead Pixels.....no dead pixels or elves (I meant pixies)
No Bleeding

I'll repost on the monitor in few days and see what happens.



HTH
CI

[Brown Hornet]

just wait till you game on it. have fun!!