Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hi folks. After quite a few years, I have finally built a new gaming PC recently and I am pretty interested in the 21:9 experience after doing some initial reading. First off, I have a small form factor cube PC (Corsair Air 240) with an R9 390 8G card in it and an i5 6600k, and it looks like I won't have the option for a future upgrade to a Crossfire setup due to limited space. So I will be limited to single card upgrades.

I am waiting a bit to see how the upcoming 34" 21:0 Freesync monitors recently announced turn out to be before diving in. I hear some thoughts on both sides of that feature, but it sounds like Freesync is the way I want to go. The current 34" FS monitor from Acer looks pretty good on paper, but seems to be getting divided reviews with some persistent common issues.

Anyways, one of the main things I am wondering about is how well games downscale to 2560x1080 on a 3440x1440 monitor? Ideally I would love to run all games at 1440, but I am guessing that sometimes that amount of pixels might be a little too much for a single card setup? Anyone have a similar single card setup and care to share how well things are running at full resolution? My current monitor right now is a 27" 1080p so it is handling everything I throw at it very well so far.

I guess there is an option of going with a native 2560x1080 monitor, but I also do software development and I would really like the extra vertical real estate when working in windows. I played around a 3440 screen at the store and it will easily take over for my dual monitor setup.

Thanks for the info!!
Rob

This article should give you an idea of what to expect: http://www.tweaktown.com/tweakipedia/10 ... index.html

There shouldn't be any need to run games at 2560x1080, a single 390 holds up fine at 3440x1440.

Definitely a good idea to wait for the new 3440x1440 freesync monitors to come out, if only to drive prices down.

I'm running a R9 290 and the only games that have experienced occasional sub-30 fps at 3440x1440 so far are Crysis 2 and the Metro Redux games (with graphics at or near max settings).

I've got a GeForce 970 and a 34 inch 3440x1440 monitor, in my experience it breaks down like this:

Web browsing, multitasking, normal usage: I love having the 3440x1440 space it feels like I've got a lot of room

Easy to run games 21:9 games (Rocket League, XCOM): I run it on 3440x1440 and have no problem

Intensive games (Dragon Age Inquisition, Tomb Raider, Arkham Knight): I knock the resolution down to 2560x1080 the upscaling works super well and the frame rate is only a little worse than 1920x1080.

Games that don't support 21:9: I run 2560x1440 in the middle of the screen and at least I have a 27 inch QHD image to console me and make me forget about the black bars.

I'm definitely happy with 3440x1440 and your 390 should be able to use it well pretty often. Plus single GPUs that can handle 3440x1440 are coming soon with all the excitement around 4K and the die shrinks coming this year.

Thanks for the responses guys. I am definitely set on the 3440x1440 now. Just have to wait for the next wave of upcoming freesync 34"ers to come out!
Cheers!