Polling and Graphics: Help Us Help You
by Derek Wilson on January 27, 2009 11:05 PM EST- Posted in
- Dell
Hello everyone. We often get asked questions like: what is the most popular x? how common is y? And sometimes we can guess from what we read on the forums or from general market trends. But nothing beats actually knowing what readers are thinking. So it's about time we asked.
We've brought back the ability to do polls. And polls we shall do.
This is more or less a test run to see how polling works out, but I'm hoping we can answer one really key question and also satisfy a curiosity today. The really important question has to do with display information, while the curiosity has to do with current opinions about graphics hardware.
By knowing what resolutions our reader's displays are capable of, we can help target our testing and articles to better accommodate the average reader. We can look more heavily at graphics solutions that satisfy the needs of more of our readers. We've been doing a lot of high end stuff lately (and we've got one more in the pipe), but we are ready to focus on the more mainstream and value segments and we would love to be able to taylor those articles a bit better.
Also, there are a lot of different monitor options with all the many widescreen and laptop panels. Just pick the one that's closest to yours out of this list. If you really want to be as accurate as possible, you could multiply out the resolutions and see which has the closest number of pixels. But just a close guess is fine too.
Well, there's really no sense in beating around the bush. It's a poll, it's not rocket science. Here it is:
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icingdeath88 - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - link
i second this. that table is great for a quick estimation, but it would have to be updated constantly to be truly useful. taking new prices, new games, new cards into account. not sayin to update it hourly though, monthly or less even would do just fine.DLimmer - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - link
You can find a Graphics Card Hierarchy Chart at http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-...">http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-...This doesn't spell out exactly what a person would need for a particular resolution, nor the price for that exact performance, but it's a very helpful performance chart.
DLimmer - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - link
You can find a Graphics Card Hierarchy Chart at http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-...">http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-...This doesn't spell out exactly what a person would need for a particular resolution, nor the price for that exact performance, but it's a very helpful performance chart.
PrinceGaz - Thursday, January 29, 2009 - link
Whilst I hesitate to recommend anything at that place, and am scared to even mention visiting something there on most sites; I must admit that their table of graphics card categories is very good indeed. I also admire the fact that they continue to do tests every so often of CPUs and graphics cards which don't just include the latest and greatest, but include those from many years ago so they can show exactly how far things have progressed.Disclaimer: I am not recommending THG as a site to visit generally for reviews, but I do feel they are arguably the best place to visit for a comparison of modern and old CPUs and graphics-cards.
PrinceGaz - Thursday, January 29, 2009 - link
After another look at that graphics-hierarchy list, they should really include another column for integrated-graphics from all providers, as well as Matrox (remember the Parhelia?), S3 (Chrome series). Actually a review of how well those cards from S3 perform (and whether they have drivers stable enough to make them a viable option) would be nice to have here, if they're willing to risk sending a sample to a site which won't pull punches.yyrkoon - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - link
1440x900 ? other "low res" HD options ?chronodekar - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - link
I agree. My home monitor is 1440 x 900And at work I use, .. let me see now.. 1280x1024
Can we opt for more than just 1 option? You know a check-box or the like ?
anonemus - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - link
I also use 1440x990 at home. In the survey, I clicked on the 12x10 reso at its the nearest to 14x9UNHchabo - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - link
I did that too -- both resolutions are around 1.3 megapixels.DerekWilson - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - link
yeah, just pick the nearest option -- sorry about not covering everything. like I said, this is sort of a test of polls in addition to the info gathering effort.