[menios]

Hi i ve been thinking of upgrading my pc monitor i ve got an old crt dell 21"
for the last 6-7 years.I ve recently tried Hellgate London and Crysis both have extremely nice graphics.My monitor can keep up with the games but i think its been time for something new. I did my research and i can't come to a decision.Obviously i ll be getting a TFT monitor but my question is should i base my decision on if the monitor has DVI or VGA input?
I know that DVI doesn't need to convert the signal compared to vga but is it gonna make such a big difference at the end?
Here are my choises
1.Samsung 22"
2.Acer 24"
Any comments would be great
Thanks in advance

[MorphiusFaydal]

No. It won't. If your video card has DVI-out, then I would just go with DVI, to save yourself the trouble of a converter. (which are tiny and easy anyway, but...) Advantage of DVI: You can plug it directly into an HDMI device, such as a Blu-Ray or HD DVD player, as DVI and HDMI are electrically compatible. Another advantage of DVI: It's HDCP capable (you have to check the specific monitor for HDCP capabilities), so you can play your high-definition video in actual high-definition, rather than down-sampled.

[PsychoCoder]

This is what I have work (dual) and I love the graphics capabilities of them. They're a little spendy, but you get what you pay for.

This post has been edited by PsychoCoder: 20 January 2008 - 08:30 AM

[lockdown]

I would suggest going with DVI since it is a digital connection if I remember correctly and will give you a better image. VGA I believe is analog which will be out the door pretty soon for people inside the US (Government Mandate I believe, forget the cut off date).

I would also suggest going with the Samsung monitor over a Acer. I have had friends inform me of trouble with dead pixels and some what bad support from Acer. They do cost less then most monitors but they are not nearly as large as Samsung in the LCD market.

[MorphiusFaydal]

lockdown, on 20 Jan, 2008 - 11:57 AM, said:

I would suggest going with DVI since it is a digital connection if I remember correctly and will give you a better image. VGA I believe is analog which will be out the door pretty soon for people inside the US (Government Mandate I believe, forget the cut off date).

That's only for broadcast TV.

[MarkoDaGeek]

I would stay away from the Acer display, Acer used to have a great line-up of LCD's but their quality has been dropping dramatically over the last few years.

Samsung rocks! I have a Samsung SyncMaster 940BW 19'' LCD and I love it, no problems at all.

You might also want to look into the Dell displays, you can get a lot of bang for the buck and they are good quality. ViewSonic makes top-notch monitors and NEC displays are nice too.

That Samsung SM2232BW looks like a great choice, 2ms response is ridiculous.

[ferrari12508]

PsychoCoder, on 20 Jan, 2008 - 09:30 AM, said:

This is what I have work (dual) and I love the graphics capabilities of them. They're a little spendy, but you get what you pay for.

I have the exact smasung monitor and its great. No bleeding, great contrast, and definitely in the top 5 on the LCD of choice list. and the size is really amazing since it weighs so little.

[1lacca]

Go with the DVI, and make sure, that it gets the digital signal (DVI normally carries both the digital and the analog signal, however some graphics card will have a DVI-D connector, that looks exactly like a DVI, but the analog pins are missing). For lower resolutions it doesn't make a big difference, but for higher ones analog signals can pick up noise from everywhere (power cables, fans, whatever), and that can cause color corruption or flicker.
DVI and HDCP: make sure, that your VGA card, your monitor and even the DVD/Blu ray/ HD-DVD player supports it, otherwise you can give up on (full) HD resolutions for DRM-ed media, since it will be downscaled to some SVGA resolution if any of them doesn't support it - quite painful surprise.
Finally: check the TFT panel of your monitor. TN-film is cheap, fast, but backlight issues and limited viewing angle can be distracting, and it can't really display true color color depth, just with some tricks (for gaming it's probably ok, but for graphics editing it is suicide due to color compression issues) MVA and PVA gives better viewing angles, costs more, colors are better (real true color), however it is a bit slower (expect around 5 ms response times) Their contrast ration is also much better - they don't need that idiot dynamic contrast, that is really painful (for me at least).
Right now I have a BenQ FP241VW, it was a real deal, cheaper and smarter than Samsung - I think right now the best in that price range.
Also, I would suggest checking out 24" monitors, since they natively support the full hd resolution, that is getting momentum right now.

[lockdown]

MorphiusFaydal, on 20 Jan, 2008 - 06:33 PM, said:

lockdown, on 20 Jan, 2008 - 11:57 AM, said:

I would suggest going with DVI since it is a digital connection if I remember correctly and will give you a better image. VGA I believe is analog which will be out the door pretty soon for people inside the US (Government Mandate I believe, forget the cut off date).

That's only for broadcast TV.

I was thinking that after I posted but was not 100% sure if it was just broadcast.

[ferrari12508]

and the date is february 9th* 2009

*its in february, i know that, but don't quote me on the exact day

[lockdown]

Cool thats my birthday

[ferrari12508]

have a happy happy "kill the analog" birthday

[capty99]

PsychoCoder, on 20 Jan, 2008 - 09:30 AM, said:

This is what I have work (dual) and I love the graphics capabilities of them. They're a little spendy, but you get what you pay for.

roommate has this and its great.

i have the samsung syncmaster 213t, correct me if i'm wrong but most have dvi and vga inputs do they not? mine does.

[ferrari12508]

yea i think they do have both.

[MorphiusFaydal]

ferrari12508, on 24 Jan, 2008 - 10:15 PM, said:

yea i think they do have both.

Most video cards have two DVI ports. Monitors seem to be a bit more split. My Samsung SyncMaster 710n is VGA only. I have a friend with a monitor from Spectre, and it's DVI only.. And another friend with an Acer that has both DVI and VGA... I seem to see a lot of monitors that are one or the other, but not both, when I'm working on peoples systems.