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Originally Posted by spirilis
Good stuff posted here, here's my two cents:
1. A large monitor that is well built--Dell LCD monitors usually are (<3 my Dell 20" widescreen 1680x1050)--is a must. You're going to be staring at this for many many hours, so choose wisely. And Athenian's point about resolution on large monitors is a bit moot--you can drive a large monitor at a lower resolution just fine, might look a little pixellated (assuming you put the LCD in "stretch" mode) but I've never been bothered by that.
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Okay, that's a good point. But my father recently bought me a new computer with an LG 1900x1200 resolution monitor, and games run a lot slower and crash more on it, even though the processor is a Q6600, and the graphics card is nVidia 8800GTX (although it could be due to his installing 32-bit Vista Ultimate). The rectangular shape feels weird, and web pages look way too stretched out so I have to keep tilting my head side-to-side to read anything (the graphics quality is okay, though). Heck, if JJJ builds his computer with good components, I'd be willing to send him that monitor for nothing and put my Samsung 1280x1024 back in, because I prefer it anyway.
If I run it a lower resolution, it's irritating to have the display either letterboxed or distorted... I like 1:1 pixel ratio and no waste.
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2. Quality sound card is a must--it's not so much the bit level of the sound as the quality of the DAC chip onboard. I've never been happy with any onboard sound, but my Creative Labs SoundBlaster Audigy2 ZS is a damned good sound card for listening to music or anything game-related -- very clear sound all the way from bass to treble. Likewise, quality speakers go along with this, though most stuff works well (I'm using a cassette/radio/CD/aux input receiver, set to aux mode, with a pair of large 3-way bookshelf speakers attached--think one of those personal music systems you buy for ~$150 at Best Buy)
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That might be good -- I don't know, I can't tell any difference between anything better than 16-bit sound. Anything less than that and it seems less quality, but more than that and I can't tell. Then again, I'm deaf in one ear.