7800's, hell, even a single, or even the X1900 (I think... I've given up on ATI) would be all you'd need. If you're running an LCD monitor, I will agree with you that games look like crap due to the monitor running out of it's native resolution. If it's on a tube though, I honestly cannot agree. Sure, higher resolution = cleaner looking graphics, but I'll stick by my statement of this software being one or two hardware cycles ahead of it's time, and selling a videocard that's more than capable of doing the job over one game is trivial. It happened with Deus Ex, and it happened with Doom 3 when it first came out before the patching, for ATI users, and it's happening with FEAR. The only games I've seen render beautifully out of the box with lower end hardware have been Unreal Tournament 2003/4, and a lot of the indie game engines such as Cauldron and GRIN's motors.
It's true that there are games with system requirements (not necessarily graphical quality) ahead of their time, but if possible I would rather play them now than wait a year. I think it's also worth upgrading just to be able to play older games at high settings. What I generally like to do is play a game around when it comes out and then go through it again a year or two later at much higher settings on some newer hardware.
I'm used to 2048x1536 in almost everything and when a game uses 1024x768 (FSO occasionally starts up like this by accident due to the launcher resolution bug), it really sticks out and looks pretty nasty to me in comparison. I use low resolutions mainly in old DOS-era games that don't support anything higher, where 320x240 and 640x480 look strangely appropriate.
this is where CRT's have LCD's beat, look, if you're like me and have a cavity in your desk meant for a CRT monitor(and don't go to lan parties for that matter), then grab a 22" diamondview or something, if not, go nuts with an LCD, both have their pros and cons of course, but lately, i noticed that when i got my new CRT monitor, the LCD's at the local school here started to look a little crappy due to their low native resolution. LCD's, are , tho, really easy on the eyes, and don't cause all that much in the way of eyestrain, sometimes with CRT monitors, their refresh rates are set too low and they flicker, mind you, they still haven't got a way to get LCD's to show "true black" yet like the CRT's do. it's basically all up to how much you want to spend.. on the upside, with the new cards out and with SLI or Crossfire, you can not only have dual monitor setups, but quad monitor setups. particularly with that dual chipped 7800gtx from asus in SLI mode (yes, they have SLI'd it).
The 22" Superbright Diamondtrons are awesome.
You can't do any better than a 2070SB or one of its clones. And yeah, the lack of real blacks on consumer LCDs is the main reason I don't like them. You can't really notice it in the daytime but I play games almost exclusively at night in a dark room and the poor contrast sticks out badly in dark games. I actually find LCDs to have more eyestrain as well due to their excessive brightness and screen door effects in Windows, but that's probably because I would use them in the dark a lot. CRTs are okay for me as long as the refresh rates are at least 100hz in windows and 85hz in games. There are LCDs out there with good image quality, but they are geared towards the professional graphics market and the prices are through the roof, well over $5000 in many cases.
That Asus card is really just a novelty item though. It costs $820 or something (compared to $520 for an equivalent pair of reference GTs) and you have to use Asus's own drivers with it, which reportedly crash a lot and are incompatible with various current games. Also, SLI doesn't work with multiple monitors; you can enable/disable SLI quickly for multiple monitors in windows, but it won't work in games, although it doesn't really matter to me.
II'm still running my good ol' 17" Sony Trinitron I purchased over 8 years ago. I've taken great care of it over the years and it's hasn't failed me yet. Unfortunately, I'm probably going to have to buy a 19" Samsung MagicBright cause I can NOT find a brand new-decently priced Apeture grille monitor out anywhere, a 19" that is. I honestly couldnt' do with at 22, 19 would be perfect for me. The 19" MB monitors are quite good for a shadow-mask style monitor. Apeture grille monitor tubes though are the best. I missed out on my chance to get the 19" Diamondtrons before they were replaced with the shadow-mask models. Total garbage.. But yes, this is where CRT's shine over LCD's. Freedom of resolution, unless you have a ****ty Viewsonic A90 model apeture grille which goes fuzzier than hell at anything over 1024X768.
The 19" Mitsubishi 930SB was unfortunately discontinued quite early on and is very hard to find, although you can occasionally find the 22" version (which is arguably the best monitor out there) off ebay. And yeah, the cheap shadow masks you can get these days are crap compared to the old high end aperture grills, especially the final generation extended brightness ones.
The 24" widescreen Sony FW900 is probably the best deal in CRTs right now; despite being a somewhat older monitor, you simply can't beat the bang for the buck at the prices it goes for on ebay, and the widescreen is a great feature for games that work with it.
