Dell 2405FPW & Apple 30" Cinema

[IanE]

I'm just about to purchase a new monitor for 3D Animation. Main usage will be college since animation will be my major, but I would like to enjoy high-end gaming as well... aiming at the Dell 2405FPW, or an Apple 30" Cinema, but for the price, the Dell is the master unless I get convinced into using dual 19" LCDs.

If any of you guys have experience with the Dell 2405FPW, let me know how you feel about it! Or any suggestions for dual 19" LCDs, or workstation monitor layouts let me know!

Thanks much.

Ian

 

[Nocturnal]

For the price and the size you can't go wrong, especially when there are multiple coupons floating around that drop the price to less than 1k.

 

[IanE]

Any idea how to get the coupons or if Dell does a Small Business discount?

Now that I think about it... does anyone aside from Dell and Apple make widescreen LCDs that are worth looking at?

 

[albumleaf]

go to the hot deals forum at www.fatwallet.com and wait for a %40 coupon to drop.. happens all the time (not yet for the 2405 though")

 

[IanE]

How do I redeem said awesome 40% off coupon?

 

[Tiamat]

you buy it on Dell, and at the end, there is a space to enter a coupon code.

 

[JBT]

I've got a 2405 the thing is freaking amazing for gaming. CSS/HL2 looks BEAUTIFUL along with all te other games I play on this thing. 1920x1200 rocks.

 

[IanE]

Originally posted by: JBT
I've got a 2405 the thing is freaking amazing for gaming. CSS/HL2 looks BEAUTIFUL along with all te other games I play on this thing. 1920x1200 rocks.

Awesome. I'm in love with HL2.

 

[IanE]

Originally posted by: Tiamat
you buy it on Dell, and at the end, there is a space to enter a coupon code.

So do I have to be the first person to use the coupon code, or have it mailed to me, or how does this work? Haha, sorry this is completely new to me!

 

[SLCentral]

I've got an Apple 30", and it kicks ass. I haven't used a 2405, but the 30" is amazingly great.

 

[IanE]

Originally posted by: SLCentral
I've got an Apple 30", and it kicks ass. I haven't used a 2405, but the 30" is amazingly great.

Would you say it's completely worth its price? Do you have any pics of it? I'd love to see one in comparison to real world objects haha, haven't gotten to see any of the Cinemas in real life yet.

Certainly sounds like a worthy investment, and quite a sight!

 

[batmanuel]

Remember that the Apple 30" display requires a Dual Link DVI video card to operate. If you don't have one of these cards already, then you might find yourself also soending at least $500 on a video card upgrade in addition to the $3k you'll be spending on the Cinema display.

At $2k, the 30" Cinema display would be an okay deal. At its current price, it is a bit of a rip-off considering that with $3k to spend you could get a pair of 2405FPWs at their full $1200 MSRP and still have money left over to buy a killer dual-head DVI graphics card.

 

[IanE]

Originally posted by: batmanuel
Remember that the Apple 30" display requires a Dual Link DVI video card to operate. If you don't have one of these cards already, then you might find yourself also soending at least $500 on a video card upgrade in addition to the $3k you'll be spending on the Cinema display.

At $2k, the 30" Cinema display would be an okay deal. At its current price, it is a bit of a rip-off considering that with $3k to spend you could get a pair of 2405FPWs at their full $1200 MSRP and still have money left over to buy a killer dual-head DVI graphics card.

Very good point. Is a GeForce 6800GT Compatible? It's on Apple's site with the Ultra I think... but I could be mistaken. 2x2405FPW's would be awesome... but I'm kind of leaning towards just one large monitor rather than two... of course I'd have to test out both to fully compare them.

Thanks for the insight. Keep it coming!

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: IanE

Originally posted by: batmanuel
Remember that the Apple 30" display requires a Dual Link DVI video card to operate. If you don't have one of these cards already, then you might find yourself also soending at least $500 on a video card upgrade in addition to the $3k you'll be spending on the Cinema display.

At $2k, the 30" Cinema display would be an okay deal. At its current price, it is a bit of a rip-off considering that with $3k to spend you could get a pair of 2405FPWs at their full $1200 MSRP and still have money left over to buy a killer dual-head DVI graphics card.

Very good point. Is a GeForce 6800GT Compatible? It's on Apple's site with the Ultra I think... but I could be mistaken. 2x2405FPW's would be awesome... but I'm kind of leaning towards just one large monitor rather than two... of course I'd have to test out both to fully compare them.

Thanks for the insight. Keep it coming!

I am not aware of any 6800GT cards that have dual-link DVI. Very very few consumer-level PC video cards do...

Edit: The 6800 Ultra DDL for Mac is a special exception, and as far as I know there isn't really an equivalent in the PC world.

 

[IanE]

Daaamn that sucks. Well I could always sell my BFG GeForce6800GT and put in some money for the DDL GT... but woult it fit in my motherboard, or does Mac do everything their own way? Haha...

 

[SLCentral]

Originally posted by: IanE

Originally posted by: SLCentral
I've got an Apple 30", and it kicks ass. I haven't used a 2405, but the 30" is amazingly great.

Would you say it's completely worth its price? Do you have any pics of it? I'd love to see one in comparison to real world objects haha, haven't gotten to see any of the Cinemas in real life yet.

Certainly sounds like a worthy investment, and quite a sight!

It is COMPLETELY worth the price.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=27&threadid=1568700

 

[SLCentral]

Originally posted by: IanE
Daaamn that sucks. Well I could always sell my BFG GeForce6800GT and put in some money for the DDL GT... but woult it fit in my motherboard, or does Mac do everything their own way? Haha...

Can't use a Mac card . Theres a few cards for Windows that'll work, but they're workstation cards.

 

[IanE]

Hrm... would a workstation card still be useful for gaming?

Bleh... might end up with 2 computers soon haha... maybe just buy a whole new PowerMac G5 bleh expensive.

Do you know which workstation cards those are right off the top of your head?

Going to check out your link right now.

Thanks again.

 

[JackBurton]

Here you go, dual link Quadro.

 

[IanE]

Originally posted by: JackBurton
Here you go, dual link Quadro.

That's awesome... but like $500 over my graphics card budget hahaha. Thanks anyway, man.

Current setup:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+
MSI K8N Neo Platinum
1GB Corsair PC3200 VS
BFG Tech GeForce 6800GT
Seagate Baracuda 120gb HDD
Antec TrueBlue 480w PSU

So you can see I have a pretty modest production machine... built it for gaming before I changed my major from Architecture to Animation... but I'm trying to sell it so maybe I should just do that and get a G5?

Any other quality DDL cards, maybe an AGP card, at the most $450?

 

[JBT]

Originally posted by: IanE

Originally posted by: JackBurton
Here you go, dual link Quadro.

That's awesome... but like $500 over my graphics card budget hahaha. Thanks anyway, man.

Current setup:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+
MSI K8N Neo Platinum
1GB Corsair PC3200 VS
BFG Tech GeForce 6800GT
Seagate Baracuda 120gb HDD
Antec TrueBlue 480w PSU

So you can see I have a pretty modest production machine... built it for gaming before I changed my major from Architecture to Animation... but I'm trying to sell it so maybe I should just do that and get a G5?

Any other quality DDL cards, maybe an AGP card, at the most $450?

LOL if you have a budget a G5 and a 30" Apple LCD probably arn't the way to go.

 

[ponyo]

XFX 6600GT dual DVI has dual link. It's only like $165 or so. Asus 6800GT Gamer edition also has dual link but I think that card is around $400 or more. There might be more but those two are the only ones I know offhand.

 

[IanE]

Originally posted by: Naustica
XFX 6600GT dual DVI has dual link. It's only like $165 or so. Asus 6800GT Gamer edition also has dual link but I think that card is around $400 or more. There might be more but those two are the only ones I know offhand.

The gamer edition sounds awesome! I think I might trade my current card for one of those possibly or maybe sell the whole system entirely and get PCI express. Thanks for the info!

Checked all the AGP 6800GT's and they all say Max Resolution: 2048x1536@85Hz, but the 30" Cinema's optimal res is 2560 x 1600 pixels, quite a bit different... does this just mean I'll have to adjust the refresh rate to accomodate the resolution? Well, it's LCD so no refresh rate, but you know... would it work? The XFX DDL 6800GT is only $300 after rebate.

Would there be any advantage of getting the PCI-e version as opposed to the AGP version of the XFX 6800GT DDL?

Would it even be practical to run this monitor on a PC?

 

[batmanuel]

If you are doing any type of animation type stuff, two 24" monitors will give you a bit more screen real estate than a single 30" (4.6M combined pixels vs. 4M pixels - you basically gain an extra 800x600 display and then some). Plus the workflow can be a bit simpler with two screens, as you can keep you animation app open fullscreen on one monitor for modeling while you keep Photoshop open full screen on the other for editing texture and bump maps.

When it comes to games, the 30" Cinema can be problematic just because of the sheer number of pixels - even a pair of SLI's 6800 Ultras would have trouble running HL2 or Doom 3 on the 30" Cinema's native resolution (although I hear it scales nicely if you wind up using a lower resolution).

Noe that I think about it, you just need to stop screwing around, grab a nForce 4 SLI board and pair of dual-DVI PCIe cards and run them in non-SLI mode so you can use all four DVI ports. Then you just need to rig up a VESA mounting system so you can run with four 2405FPWs. You didn't need the rest of that loan money did you?

 

[IanE]

Originally posted by: batmanuel
If you are doing any type of animation type stuff, two 24" monitors will give you a bit more screen real estate than a single 30" (4.6M combined pixels vs. 4M pixels - you basically gain an extra 800x600 display and then some). Plus the workflow can be a bit simpler with two screens, as you can keep you animation app open fullscreen on one monitor for modeling while you keep Photoshop open full screen on the other for editing texture and bump maps.

When it comes to games, the 30" Cinema can be problematic just because of the sheer number of pixels - even a pair of SLI's 6800 Ultras would have trouble running HL2 or Doom 3 on the 30" Cinema's native resolution (although I hear it scales nicely if you wind up using a lower resolution).

Noe that I think about it, you just need to stop screwing around, grab a nForce 4 SLI board and pair of dual-DVI PCIe cards and run them in non-SLI mode so you can use all four DVI ports. Then you just need to rig up a VESA mounting system so you can run with four 2405FPWs. You didn't need the rest of that loan money did you?

HAHAHA... awesome. I'm really considering the 2405FPW now, the Apple is just going to be too much of a hassle blah blah blah... as beautiful as the Cinema is, it seems to be too much of a complication... maybe in a couple years when I'm working!

But just so I'm 100% clear on this... using an Apple display on a PC will work, with proper graphics card and such, right?

4x2405FPWs.... that'd be... yea I'd blow some loan money on that haha.

Thanks for the post, batmanuel.