Samsung SM-960BF/970BF - how do they rate?

idoru66 · 27 Mar 2006 at 12:29

Finally going to make the jump to a TFT from my trusty 5-year-old Trinitron CRT, been checking this forum and an obvious contender is the NEC LCD20WGX2 20.1", or perhaps the Philips 200W6CS. However, I'm a little concerned that I'm not going to be able to run games at these monitor's native resolution (I currently have to run FEAR at 1024 x 768 with 2xAA/8xAF, no soft shadows, nearly all other settings maxed... although I guess with FEAR I can run it at a lower rez via 1:1 setting) and so am also mulling over a more conventional 19" screen. How do these Samsungs rate? Main concern is ghosting obviously in fast FPS games; I don't use my PC for watching DVDs; desktop sharpness/colour etc is also a priority.

Thanks for the input - I've done endless research on moving to a TFT (possibility dead pixels etc being a big concern for a long time) so I'm determined to get it right when I do make the jump.

idoru66 · 27 Mar 2006 at 13:14

Bah! How predictable - Tom's Hardware has just put up this article literally in the past hour:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/03/27/the_spring_2006_lcd_collection/index.html

Which answers my questions. The 970BF looks an excellent choice for office applications, and as a journalist I guess that should be a priority for me as I spend many, many hours using Word.

Most of the other monitors tested were deemed too bright for office work... first time I've seen this 'measured'/assessed, so that's another variable to throw into the bloody pot!

But latency is not good, so gaming would appear to be ill-served by this monitor... does anyone have personal experience of the monitor to put this in some sort of context?

NEC's use of tinted 'X-Black' style screens also came in for a kicking...

I guess the key observation made by THG is that few TFT monitors these days are all-rounders... maybe I need to buy two different ones! :rolleyes:

idoru66 · 27 Mar 2006 at 14:10

My bad - 970P it is.

The obvious choice at 19" I didn't mention was the Viewsonic VP930... though might not be responsive enough for gaming? Most people seem to think it would suffice. Price is getting closer to the NEC 20" though.

How does the VP930 look if you game below the native resolution? And do Viewsonic still offer RMA for just one dead pixel?

Thanks again. And, after months of lurking, pleased to be here officially.

idoru66 · 27 Mar 2006 at 14:54

Again, appreciate the input. I'd already checked the TFTCentral article (first port of call!), very useful. Always handy to get a bit of direct feedback from other paying punters, of course, hence my posting here.