Recently I did some computer upgrades. First of all, I had a 22″ & 19″ monitor, but I decided since I’m getting an HD5850 I might as well go for 1920×1200 resolution. So that’s what I did. I now have a 24″ LG and 22″ V7 monitor. If you’re wondering, yes there is a large difference from 1680×1050 and 1920×1200. More screen space generally always means more productivity, and with 2 monitors you have even more space. The next major thing I did was buy a 2TB Hitachi drive, I would have gotten a smaller drive, but the price was right since it runs at 7200rpm. I won’t go lower than that on a hard drive. Next I installed Windows 7 on the 2TB drive.
At first, I thought the HD5850 was going to be bottlenecked by my Q6600, after some in game testing, this doesn’t seem to be the case at all. I’m able to run Crysis at the max settings at 1920×1200, and have very playable frame rates. I tested a few other games and the result was just awesome. I probably got more than 2x the performance of my older card, the HD4850 which I bought when it came out. I don’t plan on upgrading the motherboard/cpu until the next gen cards arrive, such as the HD6850 or something, I’m sure by that point the Q6600 will just be too slow to keep up so a full system upgrade is in store around that time 
If you’re debating about the HD5870 or the HD5850, 10 – 15% more performance just isn’t worth the extra cost in my opinion, just go with the 5850. Right now, it has the best price/performance ratio out there. I didn’t get all into the benchmarks and stuff yet, I might never get to it this time. Usually I always do when I get a new card and go quite insane with overclocking. I guess I’d rather just game than play with the benchmarks
Oh yea, almost forgot.. I’m extremely impressed with Windows 7, it runs great. I’m always on the computer for work or entertainment so having a good setup is pretty important to me. Below is a pic of my current desktop
Nice upgrade. I still keep my 4850 I think it’s still fast enough to run all games on max settings since my res only 1360×768
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.-= Darmawan´s last blog ..Most Anticipated Video Games 2009 =-.
at 1360×768 I think you’ll be good for awhile on the 4850. I ran most games (besides crysis and maybe a few others..) at max on my 4850 at 1680×1050.