It's time to build a new system. Recommend a monitor and graphics card.

[Rob94hawk]

My son has been playing Trainz since the 1st one. We built a PIII/440BBX/nvidia 8 MB, then a socket 939/ATI X800XT and now a cheap store bought AMD E350 laptop. It's time to get up to date here. I did build a socket 775/nvidia GT6800 but that's my daughters rig. I'd like to upgrade to a better monitor from the old 20" LCD.

As for graphics cards I'm looking for enough power to run everything at max settings on a decently size single monitor. ATI or nvidia? I'm not partial to either one.

Believe me, this crossed my mind: http://hardocp.com/article/2013/02/21/nvidia_geforce_gtx_titan_video_card_review/1#.UTygC9azca8
but I have to think clearly here and not break the bank like I did when the ATI X800XT PE came out back in 2004.

I appreciate the direction! Thanx

 

[drchoi21]

How much do you have? I think you could pay a visit to my budget configurations and this site microcenter.com
http://w11.zetaboards.com/Trainz_Commuter_Rail/topic/7960223/1/

 

[johnwhelan]

Monitor http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236205 is worth looking at. However at 1920 x 1080 it is a little demanding on the computer and video card in Trainz, a 1400 by 900 monitor has fewer pixels to support.

Nothing will run everything at max settings. There is a 500,000 poly building on the DLS that is quite capable of killing any machine and some sketchup ones that aren't performance friendly either.

Video card http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html Watch the Max. TDP, the Radeon HD 7870 LE is one to compare to and you should just about get away with a 550 watt power supply.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151098, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151122, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371016 the new high efficiency power supplies don't work well with some of the new APC UPSes so Cyberpower http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842102070 should work well and protect the machines from brown outs that can cause hard disk corruption.

CPU http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106.html

SSDs are still fairly expensive, but a 240 gig one for the operating system is nice to have, Samsung 840 have a good reputation.

Cheerio John

 

[Rob94hawk]

Just got my hands on a EVGA Geforce GTX 780. So the finished rig will consist of this:

i7 3770k, Swiftech H220, MSI Z77A-GD65, Team Vulcan DDR3 1600, 9-9-9-24, Samsung 840 pro 256GB, EVGA GTX 780, Corsair 850W

I'd still like to get my hands on a Dell 27" @ 2560x1440 resolution if the GTX can handle it.