Trying to select a new monitor for a new build.

[KJ_A]

I have a parts list for a new build that I am pretty much set on but trying to decide which monitor to get has been giving me fits. The one I have as a place holder on my list right now is LG Electronics new W2453V-PF. The problem is that though I can find the official specs for that monitor it is so new that I have yet to find any comprehensive reviews of it. The other monitor that I had recommended to me the Acer P243W appears to no longer be available. I have heard that Dell has a new one out that has gotten good reviews but I can not remember the number of that one. I would appreciate any help on how to select a monitor that you could provide.

For your information the build I am looking at will have an i7 920 CPU with a GTX285 graphics card. The primary uses will be Gaming and web browsing/text reading. Watching movies on it would be a secondary function but one I will use from time to time.

Edit:I am now Looking at a GTX275 or SLI GTX260's in place of the GTX285.

[MixedPower]

If you can stretch your budget a bit, HP's LP2475w is great monitor at a bargain price. There's a quick review of it in the blogs section.

[KJ_A]

If you can stretch your budget a bit, HP's LP2475w is great monitor at a bargain price. There's a quick review of it in the blogs section.

That is a bit out of my budget range but thanks for the suggestion. I forgot to mention that I have a budget limit for my monitor of $350 USD.

[JustAnEngineer]

You should probably trim back just a bit on some of the extravagances in your build to make room in the budget for a good monitor.

[MixedPower]

I agree with JAE. You can save $50-$80 on your motherboard alone and never notice a difference. You'll notice the difference between monitors every time you use your computer.

[holophrastic]

You haven't mentioned a budget, so I'll assume that yours is the same as mine.

NEC MultiSync LCD3090WQXi.

So good, I wrote my own review:
http://www.holophrasticenterprises.com/NEC_LCD3090WQXi

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ok, I see your budget now. It won't cover this guy. But I can honestly say that working and playing is a different world with four million pixels.

[KJ_A]

I just updated my parts list on the other thread. If I take the total I have there and subtract my monitor from it the build comes down to $2033.80 leaving me with $466.20 of my $2500 total budget to use on a monitor. That limit is not a hard one and I might be able to afford to go up another hundred or so if I can justify it.

[KJ_A]

Ok I think I have my build fairly well nailed down over on the other thread. If I remove the $299.99 place holder monitor from my revised list I have about $700 free in my budget that I could put towards a monitor. This has been the item that has proved the most difficult for me to decide on. I have already had the HP LP2475w, which is now in my new price range, recommended here. I would like to start reviewing a number of alternant possibilities, if any, within the new $700 price range. Any suggestions?

[edh]

The HP LP2475W is the very best monitor in its price class by a very large margin; however, it is not a perfect monitor. The panel it uses is an H-IPS design optimized for accurate color reproduction, making it an ideal monitor for tasks like photo editing and web design. However, it has a bit more lag and a slower response than monitors that target the gaming enthusiasts.

If you are looking for a monitor with top quality image and color reproduction, you can't do better without spending nearly double the money (and that's still only getting you a 24" wide screen monitor - one of the high-end Eizo, HP, NEC or Samsung models costing $1K and up). If you are looking for a gaming monitor, You are probably better off spending about $150-200 less and going with the BenQ G2400WD.

Probably the very best place on the entire internet to begin your monitor education is the LCD thread over on AnandTech.com.

Edited to add: One of the really nice things about the LCD thread is that it includes links to just about every reputable monitor resource and review site on the internet -- in addition to the volumes of information within the thread itself.

[MrJP]

I'd also recommend the reviews and advice at http://www.tftcentral.co.uk.

[holophrastic]

You know, that was my big fear when I was buying a monitor -- getting a good one, that wasn't too laggy for gaming.

In the end, I figured I'd just get a very good one -- you know, for not gaming -- and suffer the poor gaming performance, since games are fun even if I'm not the best. In any event, I figured games need nothing more than a crappy monitor, and I could always buy a second monitor for gaming at $200 for a 22" piece of crap that's also fast -- sicne games don't need colour, resolution, or accuracy.

So I got my big fancy 30" NEC. Turns out the lag isn't noticable in-game. But I get the ful resolution -- 4 megapixels -- perfect colour, glorious viewing angles, and it's big.

Don't fret about the speed. My NEC is also an H-IPS -- which is what you want for actual colour and picture and quality.

Unless you're a pro-gamer who gets paid to play games. Then you need something faster, and a corded mouse, and a corded keyboard, and a fast network card.

The lag on even the slowest monitors is about 4 frames -- and that's nuts huge slow. But a ping of 65ms is much worse. So it's a significance thing. If you don't care about your ping within 20ms, then the monitor isn't going to be a problem for you.

[KJ_A]

I will check out those sites that you listed. I did not mention it on this thread before, but my experience with LCD's is almost zero. I have used a 19in Samsung SyncMaster 950b CRT for the last five years and various CRT's before that. My only experience with an LCD in my parents old Dell E179FPT. As such much of the language that is used in reviewing modern screens goes over my head. That is why it has been so frustrating trying to determine what is good for my needs. All of the numbers that are thrown around the review sites that I have so far read(although I liked how DigitalVersus compares and contrast things)are complete abstracts. I am not sure how to directly relate them to my practical experience with my present system.

OK after that rant I guess I should provide something a little more constructive. I do not do professional level photo/video editing or graphics design. I am a Library & Information Science (LIS) graduate student. That means that as far as professional activities go I do a lot of reading and word processing. As such I need something that renders text and web pages well. I would like to say an far as my gaming goes I have yet to play a modern game online. As such I play only games that have a significant single player aspect to them, flight/navel simulators, space shooters, FPS's, RPG's, and Adventure games. My present system when it was built was meant to max out the games that were available at the time it was created in 04. I do not really know what I want out of a modern screen in this area other than that new games be as playable as possible wile looking good. As for watching movies I only care that the viewing quality matches what my CRT shows when I run a standard definition DVD on it.

Not sure if that is reasonable or have I completely lost it?

[JustAnEngineer]

I also game on a 30" 2560x1600 IPS monitor (Dell UltraSharp 3007WFP).
http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/12678

Have you seen one of these things? This, people, is why God invented credit cards....

The HP LP2475w 24" 1920x1200 monitor is a good choice in your price range. 1920x1200 is the ideal resolution to match with the ubiquitous 1920x1080 media that we will encounter in the next decade.

[KJ_A]

The lag on even the slowest monitors is about 4 frames -- and that's nuts huge slow. But a ping of 65ms is much worse. So it's a significance thing. If you don't care about your ping within 20ms, then the monitor isn't going to be a problem for you.

Could you elaborate on what exactly this means? I have next to no experience with LCD's just CRT's with analog cables. And then only in a practical not a technical way. My last system was built by a local computer products company with the instruction to basically build me a system that can play any thing out there at the moment and they selected the components. I did minimal research compared to what I am doing on this new one. Guess I know what I am using my spare time for this week. Now if only there was a site dedicated to comparing & contrasting modern screens with circa 2003 CRT's rather than other LCD's

[KJ_A]

I also game on a 30" 2560x1600 IPS monitor (Dell UltraSharp 3007WFP).
http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/12678

Have you seen one of these things? This, people, is why God invented credit cards....

The HP LP2475w 24" 1920x1200 monitor is a good choice in your price range. 1920x1200 is the ideal resolution to match with the ubiquitous 1920x1080 media that we will encounter in the next decade.

Everyone seems to be pushing for that HP LP2475w. I wish I could try one out in a store. Unfortunately I am about a hundred miles outside of Detroit in a rural area. The nearest places so see any LCD monitors(30 miles away) are Bestbuy, ABC Warehouse, and Staples. I think I need to get together a list of say three to five monitors that meet my criteria. Then do a search to see who in the Detroit metropolitan area has them is stock and take a special trip just to get some hands on experience with them.

I wish that the stores would hook up their display monitors to a system a customer could actually use so that we could try them out in somewhat realistic conditions. They do it with gaming consoles. Instead they just play continuous loops of video. That may be fine for TV's but monitors are used differently.

[Dashak]

I might be a little late to the party, but I think this ranking of monitors would help you or anyone else looking to use a monitor for either multimedia, gaming, or office work.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview ... id=2049206

[KJ_A]

I'd also recommend the reviews and advice at http://www.tftcentral.co.uk.

Thanks for the link. I just got a chance to look over the site and it has explained a lot of the things that have been baffling me.

[Flying Fox]

I actually think for your stated purposes for the computer you *may* get away with a good TN panel 24"+ 1920x1200 monitor. However, I am of the opinion that monitor is really a longer term buy so spend more on it.

[morphine]

Also check out the monitor reviews at behardware.com .

[stoydgen]

I'm specced with a LP2475W at work, and it really is an excellent monitor for just about anything you can throw at it. One afternoon I fired up a copy of quake III on the thing, and IMO i couldnt notice any lag so in terms of gaming. I would recommend it if you have the cash, or alternatively if colour accuracy isnt a huge issue, then just buy two 22" TN monitors (such as the 1920*1080 BenQ E2200HD) and revel in dual screen goodness for substantially less.

[KJ_A]

I'm specced with a LP2475W at work, and it really is an excellent monitor for just about anything you can throw at it. One afternoon I fired up a copy of quake III on the thing, and IMO i couldnt notice any lag so in terms of gaming. I would recommend it if you have the cash, or alternatively if colour accuracy isnt a huge issue, then just buy two 22" TN monitors (such as the 1920*1080 BenQ E2200HD) and revel in dual screen goodness for substantially less.

That response time is something that I have been wary of. Hardcore gamers make it out to be like a visible slow down on screen but even playing Rainbow Six 3 and Vietcong on my parents computer with its 5 year old 17inch LCD and on board graphics I never noticed any obvious kind of motion blur. According to something I just read at TFT Central it is not much of an issue in modern monitors when you get to the 5ms rang. Still I think I am going to have to see with my own eyes before I buy. As for two monitors, I think that is a bit much for my needs. Thanks for the suggestion though.

[holophrastic]

Here's the deal with lcd vs crt. ctr is better, every time, for everything. crt's become crappy when they get old and start to blur. crts take up a lot of space. crts don't get as big. crts don't exist anymore. crts have much better colour in every way. crts give you real-life anti-aliasing for free so pixels don't have corners. crts are better. crts are more expensive to manufacture. crts don't exist.

in the world of lcds, you get square pixels. that's bad. but good for text -- once you get used to it.

lcds come in three flavours these days -- tn, mva (or pva), and ips. tn is cheaper, faster, crap colour, crap viewing angles. gamers love them. *va have bad dark in the middle, great viewing angles, and are generally best in the consumer market. ips are slow, excellent colour, excellent quality, excellent angles, graphics pros love them.

there are two types of lag when it comes to lcds. crts fire electrons from an electron gun at the speed of light, that impact the phospher on the screen and make it glow. when the gun stops -- or moves -- the phospher stops glowing, pretty much instantly. so a white box moving across a black screen is exactly that. lcds have each pixel (or subpixel really, red,green,blue) as a little door. when the door is open, you can see through to the backlight. when the door is closed, you can't. it takes electricity to open the door for *va, and electricity to close the door in tn and ips. ips is more expensive because it uses two hinges, instead of just one that tn uses per door. the level of control over the door is the degree of colour control, but inversely is the speed of the door. if the door is left open a crack when it shouldn't be, black isn't really black. the speed of the door is the "refresh rate" or the time it takes the pixels to change. it's garbage because sometimes it's measured grey to grey, sometimes black to white to black. tn is a lot faster. ips is a lot slower. if pixels take a long time to change, they take a long time to fade away. so that white box leaves a trail behind it. it's terrible, if you care. a good example is in the movie theatre. moving images seem blurry. but most movies don't have a lot of movement. when the camera pans across a building, you notice. when an actor is talking, you don't. the other lag is input lag. lcds can do a lot of processing to change the image. to control the backlight, to push the pixels harder, all sorts of things. the more work it does, the longer it takes from when the computer sends the signal, to when the output is seen on screen. So if you're playing a game, and you press "fire", you expect your character to fire instantly. instead you get instantly plus the transmission time from keyboard to computer, from computer to game, from game through algorithms, from algorithms to monitor, from monitor doing stuff to screen. that last part can take 2ms, or it can take 12ms. 12ms is like two frames of gameplay. real gamers care. no one else does -- because we use wireless keyboards anyway.

some screens have 'bleed' where the edges don't actually go black. some have backlights that aren't even across the entire screen, so some parts are not as good as others in terms of colour accuracy.

in actuality, you don't care about any of it. you care about the following things only:

- price, because you are paying it
- tn/*va/ips, because they look drastically different. tn can be 6-bit or 8-bit colour. DON'T GET 6-bit COLOUR! it's way cheaper, and way faster, and you can see dithering like in the days of old monitors like 1985 and CGA/EGA/VGA graphics! you have to look realyl hard to find out too. 16.2 million colours is the 6-bit. 16.7 is supposed to be the 8-bit -- or it's them lying. look in up. *va is a preference thing. ips is a colour thing.
- size, because you're looking at it
- resolution, because you're looking at it
- anti-glare. some screen have a shinyness to them. if you use them outdoors, or in a brightly-lit place, it's better. if you don't, it's worse. the shiny is the anti-glare, so you can see what's on the screen instead of the sun. in a normal office environment, you see yourself instead of what's on the screen.

that's it. the good news is that everything else is the same to someone who's using it for not colour accuracy. grab a 24" tn 8-bit or pva panel, and you'll be very happy. you can ignore everything else. keep in mind that store displays show monitors that look good in stores. that means anti-glare, overly bright, really high contrast, cheap tn panels. so ignore what looks good in the store.

you don't want ips, you have no reason to pay for it if you don't want colour and quality. pva is already better than you care, unless it's on sale. just don't get 6-bit tn, make sure it's an 8-bit tn.
PRAD is likely the best site to lookup monitors by model.
http://www.prad.de/en/index.html
trust me. just go to monitor comparison, select a bunch, and see which ones are 16.2 or 16.7 or 6-bit or 8-bit.

[MrJP]

That response time is something that I have been wary of. Hardcore gamers make it out to be like a visible slow down on screen but even playing Rainbow Six 3 and Vietcong on my parents computer with its 5 year old 17inch LCD and on board graphics I never noticed any obvious kind of motion blur. According to something I just read at TFT Central it is not much of an issue in modern monitors when you get to the 5ms rang. Still I think I am going to have to see with my own eyes before I buy. As for two monitors, I think that is a bit much for my needs. Thanks for the suggestion though.

Just for some context, my BenQ has (I believe) worse response time and worse input lag than the HP that everyone's recommending, and I have no problem playing really hectic games like UT3. Perhaps some people are really far more sensitive to these issues, but I can't help thinking that some of these people who insist you need a 2ms respone time are the same sort of people who swear they can tell the difference between 80fps and 120fps (while using a 60hz monitor...).

It's also worth mentioning that manufacturer-quoted response times are little more than works of fiction. Response times for any given technology vary enormously depending on starting and ending pixel colour, and the manufacturers naturally quote the very best case number for their product. It may well be there is far less difference between a TN and IPS screen over a wide range of colour transitions when compared with the bare specification numbers. It's certainly my opinion that the better colour reproduction and hugley better viewing angles of PVA/MVA and IPS screens massively outweigh the response time issue.

(P.S. Can't believe I forgot to recommend prad.de as well!).

[holophrastic]

I guess there is one more factor for you -- PORTRAIT MODE!

If you read a lot of text, you'll love turning your screen into portrait mode. I chose my NEC because it's the only 30" capable of doing so.

Similarly, whether the monitor tilts, swivels, swings, or whatever may be important to you too, from a physical or ergonomic perspective.

[KJ_A]

holophrastic and MrJP thanks for the explanations. They put things in a lot better perspective as far a practical use is concerned. Some things that stood out to were first the line "12ms is like two frames of gameplay." if that is accurate then with a 12ms response time on a 60hz screen is the differences of 60fps vs. 58fps. A 6ms screen at 60hz would lose 1fps. I get what you mean by response time not being the the final word in monitor selection. In my experiences the loss of 2fps should be negligible. The second thing is are comments about color accuracy. I forgot to take into consideration the fact that I have Red/Green colorblindness that is my eyes can confuse various shades of red, green, and related colors. As such color accuracy is probably not as important to me. An d the room I will be using it in is panted dark and only has direct sunlight in it during the later part of the day and both widows can be be closed of with blinds if necessary. So having said that I should be on the lookout for ether a modern 8-bit TN or a *VA panel.

[morphine]

With that kind of color blindness, you should just go with one of the better TN panels. The only practical issue with those, in your situation, is the fairly poor viewing angles, but even that is mitigated by the color-blindness.

My advice is to go, for example, for the forementioned HP 24" or a similar good TN model.

[edh]

Given the direction of this thread, I think the BenQ G2400WD should high on your list of potential candidates.

[MixedPower]

tn can be 6-bit or 8-bit colour.

All TN panels are 6-bit. Also, *VA panels have the "black crush" issue you mentioned that washes out the detail in dark areas when viewed head-on. My monitor uses a PVA screen and I find it very annoying in games (I've had to tilt my monitor away in order to get past certain places in a fair number of games). If the OP can afford it he may as well get an IPS monitor.

That response time is something that I have been wary of. Hardcore gamers make it out to be like a visible slow down on screen but even playing Rainbow Six 3 and Vietcong on my parents computer with its 5 year old 17inch LCD and on board graphics I never noticed any obvious kind of motion blur. According to something I just read at TFT Central it is not much of an issue in modern monitors when you get to the 5ms rang. Still I think I am going to have to see with my own eyes before I buy. As for two monitors, I think that is a bit much for my needs. Thanks for the suggestion though.

One thing you should keep in mind is most current monitors have their refresh rate (how quickly the backlight flickers) set at 60 Hz. That's about every 16ms, which means as long as the response time is 16ms or lower you won't notice much, if any, sluggishness.

EDIT: I just read the color blindness part, and I agree with everything morphine said. Make sure you read some reviews from reliable sites of any monitor you're considering; don't just assume it's good from the specs. Monitor specs are even less reliable than a Yugo.

[KJ_A]

Given the direction of this thread, I think the BenQ G2400WD should high on your list of potential candidates.

That one caught my attention over at TFT Central as well. I have added it to my monitor options list. Along with the HP LP2475W the Dell S2409W and the LG W2453V-PF.

Edit: It was the BenQ V2400W that I noticed at TFT Central. I will look into the G2400WD.

[edh]

One more thing to watch out for: the "old" standard for wide screen monitors is/was 16:10 (1920x1200). The "new" standard is 16:9 (1920x1080). While the 16:9 monitors match the aspect ratio of HD television, I really resent the loss of those extra 120 vertical pixels. I often turn one of my monitors into its portrait orientation and having the full 1200 is -- to me, at least -- a distinct advantage. The manufacturers are claiming compatibility and consistency -- what they are really doing is cost-cutting.