Dual screen enquiry

[Lepasconnu]

Hello everyone, I am soon to move to a new flat, and as my dear partner has had enough of me playing on our TV, I am thinking of setting up a proper desktop so she can watch as much Mean Girls as she wants.
My idea would be to set up a dual screen, I like having my game on one screen and youtube on an other (a tablet currently).

Would my current PC do the trick? Or would I be better off with a GTX 1060?
(I am mostly playing Guild Wars 2 and soon Skyrim... again...)

Here are my current specs:

Case
BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX Case (Black)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-6600 (3.3GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® Z170I PRO GAMING: Mini-ITX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB HyperX FURY DDR4 2133MHz (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 960 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP - 3D Vision Ready
1st Hard Disk
1TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 450W VS SERIES™ VS-450 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
PCS FrostFlow 40 Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT + WIRELESS 802.11 A/B/G/N/AC
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
DVD Recovery Media
Windows 10 (64-bit) Home DVD with paper sleeve


And here are the products I would like to buy to upgrade/set up my desktop. Is the GPU necessary?

GTX 1060
2 x AOC 21.5" E2270SWDN Monitor
Total: £391.00 inc. VAT

Thank you for you help.

Lepasconnu

 

[Frank100]

Hi,

From some Youtube clips I've seen it looks like the new Skyrim will be quite graphically intensive, although I haven't actually seen the specs. The GTX960 is a decent card and is a real bargain now but the GTX1060 is in a different league and is likely to keep up with new games for quite some time. The GTX960 might represent a false economy if after 18 months you decide to upgrade it. A lot of this comes down to how high you want your graphic settings. When games have such amazing graphics I think you naturally want to see it at its best.

Dual screen should be fine. Having games in windowed mode rather than full screen requires more GPU power and so having the game on one monitor and something else on the other could place more demands on the graphics card. This again makes the argument for the GTX1060.

In terms of RAM the downside to a mini ITX machine is you only get two slots. Having 2x4GB means having to throw away RAM when you want to upgrade. Opting for 16GB now might be affordable or is there an option for 1x8GB stick now? Whilst the processor supports dual channel RAM you can run it single channel with one stick for not much performance loss.

I'm not the best person to advise on monitors. I would be thinking however that you might prefer slightly bigger screens.

Frank100

 

[Oussebon]

I would be thinking however that you might prefer slightly bigger screens.

This. I'd suggest 23-24" screens, as the extra space is quite nice both for gaming and also when you're looking at documents/programs side by side or what have you. If you're using two screens, IPS might be the way to go as the viewing angles are better and you might be a bit off centre with one or both of them. The AOC i2369vm is a good budget IPS screen and has decent colour reproduction for the budget. I use the i2352vh, its immediate ancestor, and like the way my Skyrim looks on it.

Would my current PC do the trick? Or would I be better off with a GTX 1060?

From some Youtube clips I've seen it looks like the new Skyrim will be quite graphically intensive

Compared to the original, it is. It will run my GTX 970 well into 70% usage in some areas and that's without mods - with mods it can go to 100%. You'll definitely want to slap some texture and environment/weather/lighting mods in, and use a reshade and probably an ENB. If you have the budget for a GTX 1060 6gb then it will let you appreciate the new Skyrim much more than the GTX 960. You can certainly run it with a 960, but you'll be missing out on the 'best bits' visually.