When's the next "System of the month" topic?

[Skrototem]

I enjoy seeing what's currently low-mid-top in the PC tech. It's well thought out, concise and generally a pretty decent guide for what's currently the best options for your money. Having said that, any ideas when the next one is out, since the previous one was the 3rd of last month, will we be expecting one within the week?

I'm mostly asking, as I'm looking to buy a new second monitor. I'd ideally like to have this "guide" as it were in-front of me before I went ahead and looked into anything too heavily, in case the market has shifted and there's a different product i should be researching!

[Toffie]

You don't have to wait for it, you could just ask State your budget and what your looking to get and people who have knowledge will help you.

[llDemonll]

There's been nothing new, so the same builds as before are still relevant

Marest's Sample Builds is your best bet usually. It's kept up-to-date and is a bit more "in depth" than what Chaud offers. Chaud's are good if you don't want to look into it and just want parts to work at that price-point; Marest's will help you fine-tune to your price point.

Either way, we always recommend making a thread to get community help on the final touches before ordering

[Cyanotical]

we always recommend making a thread to get community help on the final touches before ordering

i can't stress this enough, there is nothing worse than when someone has already purchased a computer that is bad and then seeks approval on it, there is not much we can say that won't upset or disappoint you at this point

[Skrototem]

Well, i generally aim for "Narwahl" or whatever it is on there, since my system is fairly high-end. I'm the type of guy that prefers to spend a little extra money on something (if it's worth the price that is, not just for brand name) I generally just use Chaud's as a basis on "what's new" really, and then look into anything I find attractive there in much more detail.

As to what I'm after, it would need to be within the 22"-25" range, just so I don't have a monitor that's drastically bigger than my other. I'd also be looking to make the monitor I buy the monitor I use as a primary, with this current one being moved to secondary(This one is a 22" that I bought 6-7 years ago, so it's a little past it's prime). I'd like to have a pretty decent refresh rate, HD (if not possible for full HD, at least a HD connecter) as well as support for 1908x1080 if possible (I'm not fussed about a higher resolution, since the monitor is going to be fairly small/I'm used to using 1680x1080)

Anything you guys could suggest would be great, in the meantime I'll have a browse through Marest's, thanks for your input!

Edit: Almost forgot! Budget - I have around £500 ($754.15 at current exchange) to play with, but I would much prefer to go below this, since what I've seen doesn't approach that until you get to very high end/large screens afaik)

[Cyanotical]

HD is just a sales term for the 1920x1080 resolution, there is an HDMI connector, but it's mainly meant for consoles and TVs, even though its quality is the same as DVI most PC enthusiasts consider it sub par compared to DVI or Displayport

for a 22-25" 1920 screen there are tons of options, personally i tend to recommend Dell monitors, the U2412 is a 1920x1200 screen and really is very good

[Skrototem]

HD is just a sales term for the 1920x1080 resolution, there is an HDMI connector, but it's mainly meant for consoles and TVs, even though its quality is the same as DVI most PC enthusiasts consider it sub par compared to DVI or Displayport

for a 22-25" 1920 screen there are tons of options, personally i tend to recommend Dell monitors, the U2412 is a 1920x1200 screen and really is very good

Oh? I thought I'd had an overall improvement in my picture quality using a HDMI connection, then again that could have just been me psychologically expecting/hoping to see an improvement and then inventing it!

Edit: Also, thanks for clearing up my misunderstanding of what HD actually means.

[Cyanotical]

if you were going from DVI-A or VGA, then yes, HDMI would be better, HDMI is a digital signal, that means its always the same, HDMI, DVI-D and Displayport all deliver the same image quality (also, because they are digital, any cable that works is good, don't be fooled by monster cables, this is the same for all digital cables), where HDMI falls behind currently is bandwidth, so it's not capable of ultra high resolutions at high refresh rates, but for TV, it's fine

[Skrototem]

Hmmm ok, interesting to know - My GPU has "Upper Single-link DVI-D + Bottom Dual-link DVI-I" I'm completely ignorant as to the difference between DVI-D and DVI-I though?

I also have 2 "mini-display ports, but i also don't know if they're any worse/better than the full sized versions in terms of quality.

I have Display port, but that would be using on board graphics.

[Cyanotical]

mini-DP and DP carry the same signal, but mini-DP connectors are also used for thunderbolt, thunderbolt can carry DP signal but not the other way around, DP and thunderbolt also have daisy chaining capability

DVI-D is digital only, DVI-A is analog only, DVI-I carries both digital and analog, DVI-D can be both single and dual link, while DVI-I is either or

single link has a max data transmission rate of 5Gb/s iirc, while dual link is only limited by the copper and the signal source


wikis
DVI
Displayport
Thunderbolt
HDMI