Time to upgrade my monitor for gaming

Pighardia · 4 Aug 2011 at 16:35

Hi guys. I thought about it and decided that it was probably best to post it here, as it is specifically for gaming (BF3) that i am planning to upgrade, and you all have top quality monitors i'm sure, but if a mod wants to move then thats fine by me

My current situation is that i have my 19" monitor that is about 7 years old now and has a silly native resolution. I only use it for RTS games and Civ V, games like that. For all my other gaming, i use my HDTV ususally from my sofa.

It has occured to me that i really should get a decent monitor to start playing FPS's on. I am probably hampering myself by playing BC2 for example from my sofa on my TV(using USB extensions for my kb/m) and would see great benfits in moving to a nice 24" monitor, as i am planning to play BF3 from release probably.

I will still keep my tv for other games, i like playing RPG's for example form the sofa, but with BF3 coming up i am ideally after a nice 24" monitor for around £150. The price can be flexible though.

I have been looking at this, but i am not really up on monitors tbh(as my current monitor should prove)- http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-067-IY&groupid=17&catid=510&subcat=

Any recommendations and experience would be appreciated.

Thanks guys

Pighardia · 4 Aug 2011 at 16:43

Not really knowing much about monitors it is a bit confusing trying to identify the differences between all of the Iiyama ones. There are quite a few on OCUK for around the same price. For example, looking at the one i linked to and Murrays, i can't see much difference in the specs and can't really tell if £10 extra is worth it!

Pighardia · 4 Aug 2011 at 16:47

Gimpymoo said:
It is a minefield.

Do you want 120hz? -Without doubt, but Probably too expensive
Do you want 16:9 or 16:10? -I can't tell the difference visually but i believe 16:9 is better supported? is that right
Do you want a Gloss or Matt display? -Glossy ideally but not a dealbreaker

Pighardia · 4 Aug 2011 at 17:07

hmm, up to £180 probably

Pighardia · 4 Aug 2011 at 18:02

I think that 120hz might be just out of reach if i'm honest. I am happy enough i think with a 24" 60hz for around £150ish.

I'm not exactly the most competitive online gamer

If i could get a 120hz 24" for close to £180 i definitely would though

Pighardia · 4 Aug 2011 at 18:14

That looks very good. What's the catch? lol

Pighardia · 4 Aug 2011 at 18:20

Gimpymoo said:
It has a 16:9 and not a 16:10 ratio although nearly all the new monitors are which is a shame.

Right so would the odd game not natively support that then?
Was it The Witcher 2 that had problems with aspect ratio, i can't remember?

Pighardia · 4 Aug 2011 at 18:24

Gimpymoo said:
Also, while it will be AWESOME for games, will be mediocre for everything else owing to the TN panel.

It would be for general browsing and games(FPS and RTS only really)

For Blurays, video etc i will continue to use TV.

The LG looks like the best option then

Pighardia · 4 Aug 2011 at 19:47

Semiskimmed said:
instead of makign a new thread, ive been looking into a 24inch screen too but what sort of graphics card would be enough to run current games on fairly high settings?
would a 5850 be up to the job?

Personally, i would be happy with a 5850 for any res of 1080 or under tbh. It will play every game on "fairly high settings" as you put it. i had a 5850 until recently and it played pretty much everythng at highest settings at 1900x1080 on my TV.

The only things i found it struggled on were The Witcher 2 where i had to turn off Ubersampling and use 4xAA but still had everything else maxed, and also Crysis with mods, without mods it handled Crysis very well at highest settings. It did struggle a tiny bit on Civ V as well.

BTW i have since upgraded to a 6950 which has destroyed everything so far. I haven't had to turn down a single setting on anything

PS i don't suppose refresh has any impact when considering graphics cards does it?