Looking to buy a new monitor

[Deleted]

Help appreciated (yes yes, I'm new, I came out of hiding and decided to stop lurking)

Needs to be 23.6 inch, plus. Preferably HDMI or DVI, and under £150 if poss although flexible with a response rate of lower than 5ms.

I've heard mixed arguments about 120hz/60hz monitors, and I'm not fussed about 3D gaming.

Not sure if it helps with the argument but I'm currently using the following:

AMD Phenom II x4 965 (clocked to 3.7ghz)
Gigabye GA-990XA-UD3
Corsair Vengance 8GB DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz
SAMSUNG HD502HJ ARA
VTX3D Radeon HD 6850 X-Edition x2

[Deleted]

Part list permalink / Part price breakdown by merchant

Monitor: Asus VE247H 23.6" Monitor (£152.97 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £152.97
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated 2012-02-27 00:15 GMT+0000)

[Deleted]

I've read bad reviews about that monitor. Apparently the low MS causes ghosting.

Any other suggestions?

[Mawaru]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824236153

^ That's the display I have. The picture is absolutely beautiful, and I haven't experienced any "ghosting" or any other issues with it.

Not sure if you'll be able to find one that can be shipped to the UK, though.

[Deleted]

What games do you intend to play? Your GPU isn't the strongest and doesn't have the power to drive a 120Hz monitor in newer games.

Looking over your demands, I'd say that it will be hard finding a proper monitor within your given budget. Any specific reason why you want it to be larger than 23.6"? Remember that pixel density goes down tremendously when jumping up to 24" and above. Also mind that 21.5" monitors are usually a fair bit cheaper than their larger counterparts.

[Deleted]

Have you ever suffered ghosting on it? Just read a couple of reviews.

[noteworthynerd]

Ghosting is caused by high MS, not low... From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respons...y_technologies

Response time is the amount of time a pixel in an LCD monitor takes to go from one value to another and back again. It is measured in milliseconds (ms). Lower numbers mean faster transitions and therefore fewer visible image artifacts.

Older monitors with long response times would create a smear or blur pattern around moving objects, making them unacceptable for moving video. Long response times can be annoying to a viewer depending on the type of data being displayed and how rapidly the image is changing or moving. Many current(which?) LCD monitor models have improved to the point that this is only seen with extreme contrasts.

Edit: Apparently the 2ms response time is an artificial claim. Whatever system they use to get that low is what sometimes causes the ghosting.

---------- Post added 2012-02-27 at 01:48 PM ----------

- I love my SSD, and highly recommend them for any gaming build if you can afford it. The decreased load times alone are worth the £100-150. Most of us recommend the 128GB Crucial M4:

Hard Drive: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£126.30 @ Amazon UK)

- CF 6850s will be more than enough for a few more years (in my opinion).

- I really don't recommend going any larger than 24" unless you have a specific need for doing so (hi-res image editing, for example).

[Deleted]

Ghosting is caused by high MS, not low...

Ah thank you, I wasn't aware of that. Would an SSD be worth the money aswell? I'm just looking to improve what I have as much as I can without a full rebuild.

Currently the 6850's I have aren't the best cards on the market but they are overclocked individually as standard, and they do perform well when crossfired as far as I'm aware.

---------- Post added 2012-02-27 at 06:44 PM ----------

What games do you intend to play? Your GPU isn't the strongest and doesn't have the power to drive a 120Hz monitor in newer games.

Looking over your demands, I'd say that it will be hard finding a proper monitor within your given budget. Any specific reason why you want it to be larger than 23.6"? Remember that pixel density goes down tremendously when jumping up to 24" and above. Also mind that 21.5" monitors are usually a fair bit cheaper than their larger counterparts.

Preferably it's because I'm used to the 23.6 inch i already have. I can't imagine scaling down. I'm not worried about going up though. I currently use an Acer X233H which is 5ms, the picture isn't fantastic either I admit.

I see your point about the GPU, but I'd rather not replace both GPU's if i can help it. If this means that the crossfire combination still won't produce the power needed to benefit from a 120hz monitor I'm quite happy with a 60hz.

---------- Post added 2012-02-27 at 06:55 PM ----------

I'm going to break this forum. Can't get the hang of editing posts haha.

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Aye that's what I read noteworthy, think it was called GTG or something, the system used to produce the lower ms which caused the ghosting.

As for the SSD you've recommended, favourited and will be bought haha. I'm so far behind I had no idea SSD was so cheap these days. Didn't really think about the difference it would make either.

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In terms of mention of my GPU, are two crossfired 6850's bad enough not to be able to support a 120hz monitor? Wondering how far behind I am in the GPU world.

[Deleted]

Oh, didn't realize you had CF 6850. In that case they should be enough to power certain games at 120Hz, perhaps not at max settings though. However, a 120Hz monitor costs a fair bit more than your suggested budget.

I know you said 23.6" and bigger, but check this monitor anyway: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824236100
Review here: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...e228_lcd&num=1

[Deleted]

Came across the Acer G245, if you search on play.com you'll see it. Not sure how good this is for the money mind.

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Taken a look at the three links, Notargets link unfortunately operates at 2ms because of something within the monitor which is apparently liable to create ghosting it seems. Quite a few mentions of the issue.

I can't seem to find a UK shipper for Mawarus monitor or I'd get it.

More size than anything else for yours Marest, need to keep it the same as the current one I use.

[noteworthynerd]

The G245 is not an LED monitor, which is something I highly suggest...

[Deleted]

LED shows true colour right? ie whites are whites? and not grays?

---------- Post added 2012-02-27 at 11:10 PM ----------

'Pretty sure I'm going with this:

ViewSonic VX2453MH-LED