A/V Gateway 21" Widescreen Flat-Panel LCD Monitor - Help

The 6600GT should have no problem outputting the resolution it needs. I can't know how well it scales to non-native resolutions, but if my Dell is anything to go by, pretty well. I don't know quite what you mean regarding browsing and photoshop... they have nothing to do with the GPU, as they're entirely 2d. The space gained by the higher resolution is awesome, though, if that's what you mean (especially in photoshop).

Hard to know exactly what you want to know, but the 6600gt should have no problems, nor should the LCD. The monitor WILL run at lower resolutions, I just have no idea how good it will look. It certainly won't be as sharp as the native 1680x1050, but it should be pretty good.

Think of it this way: take a 3x5" photo and enlarge to 8x10". It works fine, but won't look quite as crisp as the original. That's basically what you'll get running games at 1024x768 (or whatever) on this, or any, LCD. As far as compatibility, it will work fine. Computers are basically "if it fits there, it should work", and monitors are no exception.

 

If I scaled the resolution to like 1280x1024, since the monitor is widescreen, what would it look like?

 

It would probably either have black bars down the side, or stretched out horizontally. I have no way of knowing without actually seeing/using the monitor. With my dell, I can set it to any of three modes:
1:1 - black bars around everything so it keeps it's exact pixel dimensions (in effect, the same as using "center" for a desktop background that's smaller than your screen resolution)
Aspect - keeping the same aspect ratio, stretches to fill as much of the screen as possible. Black bars down the side for whatever isn't filled
Fill - fills the entire screen, distorting the aspect of the original (desktop background: stretch)

I'd suggest you go into that best buy and play around with the settings in the menu, and you should be able to figure out. For me, the choice is in "image settings". If you can't find anything, it'll do whatever it's showing at the time (unless you just can't find it but it's still in there) - chances are their fifteen-monitor spreads are showing a 1024x768 source image or lower.

Some googling seemed to show that it'll do the black bars.

Also, on the gateway specs page, it indeed says it only includes a VGA cable, no DVI. DVI is definately much better, but it's up to you if you want to fork out the extra cash.

User reviews definately give mixed results, some loved it, some hated it, some thought it was OK but the quirks weren't those you could get used to over time.