Quote Originally Posted by GoldenTiger View Post
2560x1600 is not some mythical unicorn that no one runs with on modern games. It's 100% a good resolution to test in especially since it pushes the GPU and not the CPU in a test. Hardly biased since most people with these kinds of cards would be running it regardless. Battlefield Bad Company 2, which I didn't have issues with my 5870 with, was running pretty well (45-50fps most of the time) at 2560x1600 4x AA. A 20%-25% boost on that from a 480 would put it into the nicely playable territory (57-63fps). It's a brand new DX11 game we're talking about as well: same thing with games like Warhammer Online (another current MMO) where it's close to being playable but just dips and is a bit too low on average to really enjoy. Need For Speed Shift, same story really... 45-50fps on the 5870 when not encountering the issues from hitting other objects...

In short, if the 470 is 10% faster at those settings, then we can probably safely say a 480 would be 25%, and thus extremely attractive to high-end gamers. I disagree with you that 2560x1600 would be a rarity for people buying one to two $500 videocards. I'd think most people dropping that much cash on cards ($500-1k or so for a setup) would definitely have already bought the $750-1000 monitor to really show them off with since monitors last several years generally whereas a top-end card lasts 6-8 months as high-end.

I got my Dell 30" widescreen 3007WFP-HC 2560x1600 LCD for $750 shipped (refurb, pristine condition) with a 5-year warranty from them. You can find similar ones new for $1100-1200. What you describe is like buying a super-highend projector and then using it at 40" screen with a measly $100 home theatre in box setup: no one does it. They run 75-100" or more screens and get nice bookshelf or tower speakers to make the setup actually shine. There's little-to-no point in buying crossfire 5870's, a 5970, SLI 470's or 480's just to run them at 1920x1080 or 1680x1050, and I doubt most people do. It's overkill.
You *completely* missed my point...

I clearly said it isn't realistic to expect to run 2560x1600 fluently with a single video card. It is multi gpu grounds. I also said the majoirty of people who do shell out the cash on a displays like this are likely going to do it justice with a adequte system ( assuming it is being used for gaming purposes ). No where did I say 30" LCDs are rare, merely that expecting to tame games at 2560x1600 with reasonable IQ is unrealistic. A single 4870 didn't even last a year running stuff at 1920x1200. I don't expect the 5870 to be any different ( I already find its performance to be lacking in some games, even without anti aliasing ) I suppose it does depends on ones defintion of playability but in my eyes most things aren't playable at 2560x1600 with the currently available single gpu cards (and before you comment I've put a 5870, 5970 and GTX295 through their paces on a 30" display). The fact remains 30" LCDs are the ultra high end. I'm willing to bet more multi gpu users run 22-24" 1080/1200 displays for that matter...