22" vs 24" for an upgrade

Azaril000

Azaril000

Azaril000

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12 Apr 2009
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Hi all,

Gonna be upgrading from my current 17" Samsung Syncmaster 930BF, as I've had it for a good 4 years or so.

So I'm browsing through the options, but can't decide if I should go with a 22" or splash out a bit more on a 24", is there much difference apart from the 2" more space?

I mainly use my computer to game, mmorpg's, shooters (TF2 etc), and just other games in general. I also use it for other basic stuff like browsing the internet, watching movies when I'm too lazy to move to watch it on my 40" tv.

My current setup:

Intel Q9450 Quad.
Corsair 4gb Ram
720gb WD HDD
ATI Saphire 4870
X-Fi Sound card.

So yeah, I'n not sure if my card can support the 1900x1200 resolution on the newer games and I know thats one of the main concerns of the 22" vs 24", the native resolutions (22" being 1680x1050 24" being 1900x1200).

Lastly what things should I be looking for when buying a monitor, contrast ration? Colors? Response times? Brightness?

I would really appreciate some opinions/advice on this matter to nudge me on the right direction :)

Many Thanks :).
 
I'd say if you got the money, then go for the 24". Although it's only 2" more, it will look a lot nicer + has a higher res.

Yeah when buying monitors, you should check for the contrast ratio (higher contrast ratio = deeper, richer colours), response time (2ms ideal, or anything up to 5ms inclusive). Also the input connections that it has (HDMI or a DVI a must have for gaming - not analogue).

What's your budget?

Oh and yeah your card can handle 1920x1200.
 
if you have a 1gb card go for 24" 1920x1200
if you have a 512mb card go for 22"/24" 1920x1080 or 1680x
 
i have the same decision to make at the mo. Think am gonna go with a 1920x1080 22" save some money only got a 19" at the mo so gonna notice the difference anyway.
 
Azaril000 said:
Lastly what things should I be looking for when buying a monitor, contrast ration? Colors? Response times? Brightness?
Click to expand...
Contrast: As rule anything above 1000:1 is BS bingo talk (=marketing), only S-PVAs can achieve better than that. (max ~1500:1)
Brightness: About every LCD is bright enough to make you grope for sunglasses.
Colours: IPS and VA use full 8-bit (that full 16,7M colours) panels. TN's use 6-bit panels (~65k) with various (nowadays very successfull) dithering methods for generating missing 2 bits, which in BS talk makes full 8-bits. Considering other differences irrelevant factor.
Response time: For more expensive IPS and VA-monitors response times (5/6/8) are quite accurate. For TNs 2ms BS talk means ~4ms average response time and 5ms is ~15ms. So considering people haven't been lynching TN makers that factor has been pretty much irrelevant for few years.

Unlike with good old CRTs various LCDs have big differences in viewing angles.
160 or 170 degrees of BS talk (=two notch comma error) means that in upper egde darker colours are "blacking out" and in lower edge they're brightening when looked straight on:
http://www.behardware.com/articles/686-8/review-of-the-dell-2407wfp-hc.html
And like you may have noticed leaning backwards in chair can make things ugly for top edge of image. Also even colours can be transformed to colour slide:
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/viewing_angle.php
So no wonder that viewing angle isn't even sometimes mentioned for displays.
If you like seeing colours well regardless of your position in chair you want (already BS talkish) 178 degree viewing angle of IPS/MVA/PVA display and ideally IPS which is closest to CRT and without VA's horizontal gamma shift of darkest shades.

Also another factor varying between displays is input lags which is delay between display receiving image and actually showing it on screen. Often it's trade-off between lowest possible lag and good image quality/viewing angle because displays with better panels rarely have very low lag but there are few IPS displays which combine good image quality and low lag.
 
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