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    screen res and video card

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by CoolnessItself, Oct 26, 2009.

  1. CoolnessItself

    CoolnessItself Newbie

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    Hi all,
    So this question is about buying a laptop, but I think it fits better in this forum since it's more of a hardware question than a which to buy question. I have a hard $1200 (incl tax) cap on price, and in trying to get the best bang for the buck, I'm down to two choices. They're both similar, but they differ in graphics and screen resolution.
    Choice A (dell studio 15 with i7 core): 15.6" 1080p screen, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 ( 512mb)
    Choice B (hp dv6t with i7): 15.6" "High Definition LED HP Brightview Widescreen Display ( 1366x768)", 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 230M

    I underlined good and bolded bad.
    Now, since everything else is the same, this should just be up to personal choice between gfx card and display, but I don't really know what 1366x768 even looks like. I own a 17" that goes up to 1920x1200. If I shrink down the res on that, everything is huge and fuzzy. But what would it look like on a smaller screen? With a 15.6" screen would it look about the same? It's hard to tell which is worse - a small ati mobility card or a bad resolution.
    Also, in most games, I feel like graphics cards are more important than resolution, since I won't be playing a game at 1920x1200. But in desktop environments I don't really know how it would look...
    Can someone familiar with resolutions comment on this?
    Furthermore, if I attach an external display, does the max LCD screen resolution set a limit on the external resolution, or is that the gfx card?
     
    CoolnessItself, Oct 26, 2009
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  2. Wiz33

    Wiz33 Notebook Deity

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    LCD screen size have nothign to do with external resolution. Both laptop should not have problem displaying 1920x1200 on any external display.

    As for the fuzziness. That pretty happens anytime an LCD is used in it's non-native resolution but you should not have that problem when running in native. I personally thinks that 1680x1050 is the best fit for a 15.6" anything higher will be hard to read with the small fonts.

    As for the GPU, the GT 230M should be faster than the HD5470 but a good margin so I would take that.
     
    Wiz33, Oct 27, 2009
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