Dell S3220 DFG monitor...can I run it???

Jack Stand · Feb 8, 2021

I've an old rig. intel i5K2500 Sandy Bridge @3.9, Saphire AMD 7850HD, Gskill 16Gb., Asus Z68.MB. Been using our Samsung TV 50" plasma. Basically just for AC and PC2. Benchmarks average around 110fps in CM/CSP at current settings.
I've been looking at this Dell monitor but not sure I have the power to run it. Upgrading my old potato is not an option at this time. Just not sure if I will see much of an improvement or not???

Dell S3220DGF Gaming Monitor Review: High-Performance Work and Play

A 32-incher fit for office work and speedy gaming.

www.tomshardware.com

Any input would be appreciated.

Jeremy Ford · Feb 8, 2021

This higher resolution monitor will hit your framerate. I don't have this GPU so can't answer exactly what that means in performance.

If your AMD card supports AMD Virtual Super Resolution then you can render the image at a higher resolution and get an idea of the framerate. But I don't know if you'll be able to upsample the image to the exact target resolution of this monitor for an exact test but worth trying.

Jack Stand · Feb 8, 2021

Jeremy, thank you for your reply.
I did try the AMD Super Reso and ran benchmarks in CSP. I was surprised that the fps hit was only a about 6% drop, however I assumed that was at 60hz (??). I was wondering if i.e. 1440@120hz would be possible. I'll check again in AMD and see if I can get that to work.

Jack Stand · Feb 8, 2021

My original posted tests were a bit off...brainfade...So I re did the tests...at my standard res of 1929x1080p/60hz benchmarks at 135fps...with the super resolution it benchmarks at 100 fps... might be too much of hit? Especially considering its at 60hz and not 120hz which would be preferable for the new monitor.
Any thoughts?

Jeremy Ford · Feb 8, 2021

If 100fps is an accurate assessment that carries over to that new monitor, then 100fps is still a fair noticeable increase in smoothness for your eyeballs. Another benefit is input lag, a monitor is always superior to a TV so that will be an improvement also.

Jack Stand · Feb 8, 2021

Thanks so much for your input. I think this has helped me to lean more toward getting this monitor.
My eyes are getting older (73) and hopefully this will help me to see that up coming corner a bit better..LOL
Again I appreciate you taking the time and your input.
-js

Case_ · Feb 9, 2021

Your maximum framerate drops to close to 50% of 1080p performance going up to 1440p, provided there are no other factors involved, because 1440p has almost double the pixels of 1080p.

Also bear in mind that while high average framerate is nice and means you will still have OK-ish average performance in 1440p, what you should really be looking at is the lower end of your framerate range. Because even with an average framerate of 130 fps (which is honestly pretty impressive on such an old system), giving you an average of say 80-90 in 1440p (so still fine), you may easily have not-so-infrequent drops to say 70-80 fps (or maybe even lower) at times, and in that case, you'll drop to 40-50 in 1440p, which is less than fine.

I recently went from 1200p (16:10) monitor to 1440p, and while my performance in 1200p was perfectly fine with my setup, I more or less resorted to gaming in 1080p (which has its own issues and doesn't look as good too due to scaling), because while I still get OK-ish average framerate, I just can't stand the drops. I'm still fairly happy with the monitor, because it's bigger and is better for work, but if I was mostly getting a monitor for gaming, I would've stayed in 1080p unless I was planning to upgrade the GPU pretty soon (and with today's insane GPU prices, are there even people planning to upgrade their GPUs soon?

)

Jack Stand · Feb 9, 2021

@CasE...thanks so much for your input. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do to improve or update my old rig( it was a smokin' rig for GTR & GTR2 back in the day when I built it.

. ) I'm thinking I need to take a step back and perhaps start looking at 1080p. However, I'm a bit worried tho' that a 27" 1080p monitor would be a bit of a "culture" shock going from 50".
Thanks for taking the time to respond with your insights.
-js

Turk · Feb 9, 2021

Your PC will be able to use that monitor, you don't have to run it at it's full resolution, I got a 4K monitor and I run most games at 1440 because it runs better.

I was worried when I got the G2 VR headset because it's basically 4K, but I can just run it at a lower resolution and still notice an improvement over the rift headset it replaced..
You would gain a lot of real estate in windows, everything will get smaller giving you more actual screen space.. If your doing other work on the PC that alone can be worth it, but it would be a bit of a waste paying for a 1440 monitor and then running games at 1080.

Jack Stand · Feb 9, 2021

Thanks Turk...

BillyBobSenna · Feb 18, 2021

Not that this helps much but I have triple Dell S3220DGF displays and I am very happy with them. I am using an RTX 2070 to drive them.

Jack Stand · Feb 19, 2021

Thank you BBS...Whoa triples...gotta be a great rig. I appreciate the feedback.

BillyBobSenna · Feb 19, 2021

Jack Stand said:
Thank you BBS...Whoa triples...gotta be a great rig. I appreciate the feedback.

I am enjoying the rig.

Jack Stand · Feb 19, 2021

That is some rig...my wife asks that you do not send me any more pics like this....LOL

Case_ · Feb 19, 2021

Turk said:
you don't have to run it at it's full resolution, I got a 4K monitor and I run most games at 1440 because it runs better

Yes, but it also looks worse. How much worse depends on many factors and the specific configuration of your system, and also on how much you're willing to tolerate. For example I can make 1080p (which is the resolution I mostly have to game on with my GPU) look quite acceptable to me, but I know many would (and do, if you check monitor discussions) consider it completely unwatchable, and my results are not as bad as they can be on some systems/configurations.

It's always sub-optimal when you have to use non-native resolutions on LCD monitors.

(And BTW, with a 4k monitor, you might be better off using 1080p, because 4k is exactly double the horizontal and vertical resolution of 1080p, whereas 1440p is fractional. So you should be able to use the integer scaling with 4k and 1080p, if you're on nVidia at least. Not sure if AMD has it as well.)