LED vs LCD for Gaming

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Hi everyone,

I am looking at buying a 27" monitor for (primarily) gaming. I have my eye on the following two, both of which are essentially the same price.

They seem to have the same specifications in regards to response time, resolution, brightness etc, with the exception being that the Samsung is LED and the Asus is LCD.

Should I opt for LED instead of LCD? What are the benefits/drawbacks? Any difference for gaming?

Thanks :)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-162-SA&groupid=17&catid=1120&subcat=

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-030-AS&groupid=17&catid=1120&subcat=
 
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Does an LED fair better against sunlight? I hate gaming in the afternoon as I can hardly see my screens. Although perhaps thick black curtains would solve that problem :P

Think I may swing for the Asus then as it has a Display Port input. If I understand correctly, that would mean I wouldn't have to use my Active Display Port to DVI converter if I were to run 3 of these in Eyefinity?
 
This is just hear-say, but here's how I see it:

general:
LED can be thinner, and most likely uses less energy. Cheaper to manufacture, I think, but because it's "new" and "hip", you'll still pay premium.

Regarding sunlight: I don't think the backlight type alone has any sustantial factor to that. Readability on sunlight depends mostly on anti-glare coating and backlight intensity. Check the specs for luminance, something like 300 or 400cd/m2. Bigger is brighter.

At some point there was also talk about how W-LED (white-led?) is sometimes manufactured by using blue LEDs and covering it with yellow coating, thus making white light. Problem was, the coating will "evaporate" (?) over time, thus starting to give more blueish hue, therefore making the life expectancy shorter than one would assume of LEDs.


flickering:
Both CCFL and LED usually use PWM to control the light output to save power. PWM rapidly switches the light source on and off, thus saving energy.

But the thing is, LED switches on and off very fast, and therefore the "dark phase" is longer, when compared to CCFL, which has a natural "cooling down" time with the bulb. The dark phase is what causes the "flickering" to be perceptible. Though they can counter this with higher PWM frequency.

There are videos on youtube showing especially the ZR24W with CCFL to have backlight flickering (search "zr24w pwm"), but only perceptible to the naked eye in slow motion.


Here's a quote of the youtube description field:

"HP zr24w (e-IPS) on the right. BenQ FP937s (TN-film) on the left. Effect is not visible under normal viewing condition. This film was captured with slow-motion camera. Real camera frame rate is 240 frames per second.

There are number of talks whether PWM brightness control is causing increased eyes fatigue because of flickering. Frequency of flickering is over 150Hz and is supposed to be invisible to human eye.

BenQ fp937s has PWM-less brightness control."


NOTE1: don't confuse common LCD frame rate to LCD PWM frequency rate; totally different things.
NOTE2: Not all TNs use PWM-less brightness control. It doesn't depend on panel type, I think.
NOTE3: CRTs were considered "flicker-free" on 85Hz and up.
NOTE4: PWM-less backlight is supposedly in the kHz range, PWM brings it down to 150Hz and up. Hopefully slightly higher for LED monitors.
NOTE5: Remember, all of this is hear-say. Things I think I've read somewhere before.


TL;DR:
Conclusion: All other things equal, I'd go with non-LED.
 
Kiitos ;) Puhut muuten tosi hyvää englantia. Osaan nyt puhua vähän suomea monen vuoden jälkeen..

I shall do some research, but by the sounds of it I'll be more than happy with the LCD. Hopefully three 27" monitors won't be too overwhelming in Eyefinity :)
 
aatu said:
1 - Here's a quote of the youtube description field:

"HP zr24w (e-IPS) on the right. BenQ FP937s (TN-film) on the left. Effect is not visible under normal viewing condition. This film was captured with slow-motion camera. Real camera frame rate is 240 frames per second.

2There are number of talks whether PWM brightness control is causing increased eyes fatigue because of flickering. Frequency of flickering is over 150Hz and is supposed to be invisible to human eye.

BenQ fp937s has PWM-less brightness control."
Click to expand...
1 - The human eye can detect upwards of 300fps, 150hz is hardly flicker-free.

2 - the flickering at 18+khz (effect probably starts earlier, but i can't confirm that) starts effecting the nervous system through the eye (fatigued and aching eyes with no physical cause tends to be a symptom) and is worse than the hundreds of khz effecting the eye

the low thousands of khz should be fine for not effecting the nervous system much and being undetectable by the eye, if you're really sensitive to flicker you kinda have to check monitors out in store




on topic -
out of asus and samsung, without having any reviews to go by (with calibrators and objective number) i'd have to assume samsung has better image quality (though with TN panels thats still not much better than other things), just out of the assumption as they make their own panels they're more likely to be better.

as to the sunlight problem, if you have a habit of actually using dynamic contrast then the LEDs will have deeper blacks on darker scenes and therefore will show the glare more when its most annoying, if you don't use dynamic contrast then i wouldn't really think the backlight effects things.
 
Almasy93 said:
1 - The human eye can detect upwards of 300fps, 150hz is hardly flicker-free.

2 - the flickering at 18+khz (effect probably starts earlier, but i can't confirm that) starts effecting the nervous system through the eye (fatigued and aching eyes with no physical cause tends to be a symptom) and is worse than the hundreds of khz effecting the eye

the low thousands of khz should be fine for not effecting the nervous system much and being undetectable by the eye, if you're really sensitive to flicker you kinda have to check monitors out in store
Click to expand...

Sorry, forgot I had made a reply here.

Anyways, 150Hz is in every practical way flicker-free for 99.99% of people, when talking about CRT phosphors, lightbulbs, etc, with natural "cooling down" times. It's not about whether human eye can distinguish the difference between 150Hz and 300Hz, because the impression of flicker disappears earlier. I have never met anybody that would have experienced a 150Hz CRT screen as flickering. Most people don't notice it after 85Hz, and even less after 100 or 120Hz.

Regarding 18kHz (that's 18 000 Hz, you know that, right?) and hundreds of kHz's (or even thousands?! that's 1000 kHz = 1 000 000 Hz = 1 MHz) with relation to the nervous system: I have never heard anything about that sort of thing causing problems...? At that frequency, I'd think even the LED is bound to stay lit "all the time" (with regards to the before-mentioned cooling time). The highest consumer-grade CRT frequency I can remember talked about was around 200 Hz (excluding horizontal scanning, which is in kHz-range). I've only witnessed 160 Hz, myself.

But I have heard (and noticed it myself) that when the backlight is set too bright, the eyes will start to ache after a while. This is also individual, though certainly one aspect to look into, especially if using the monitor in darker rooms.

In relation to this: some (maybe even most) manufacturers control the TFT monitor brightness by decreasing the PWM's duty-cycle ratio (ratio between on and off), thus lowering the perceived brightness, but at the same time making the flicker easier to notice, because the "dark phase" lasts longer. That's why lowering the brightness can sometimes cause even more aching to the eyes. This is apparently more common with LEDs, because LED's brightness can't be so easily controlled with voltage, thus making duty-cycle controlling the preferred option with them.

PS. Still hear-say and common logic, no formal surveys or such done in any way.
PS2. At 100-300 Hz range I am willing to believe there is a possibility that our nervous system can detect something that our eyes aren't telling us directly, and that this sort of thing could cause problems like headaches, but if it's in the kHz or MHz range, then that's harder to agree to.
 
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