Dell U2414H Or BenQ XL2420Z For Gaming?

[AdamantC]

Sadly my Mitsubishi Diamond CRT just gave up the ghost a few days ago, and I don't have the cash to toss at a Sony FW900 or C520K.

I've narrowed down the choice down to the two mentioned in the title. Both have very low input lag, but I'm kind of torn between the two as I've become so used to having blur free motion, good viewing angles, and great color in my CRT.

I'm leaning more towards the Dell as it seems to be the best "all around" choice due to the low lag with good colors and viewing angles.

So does anyone have any advice or experience to add? I can gladly pay you in the large clumps of hair that I've been pulling out of my head.

 

[lehtv]

Do you have hardware fast enough to run the games you intend to play at framerates well over 60? If not, you won't benefit much from a 144hz monitor.

What games do you intend to play?

 

[BrightCandle]

The reduced motion blur and low persistence modes of the Benq are far closer to the experience you are used to on your CRT. Colour quality isn't amazing, its still 6 bit + FRC but under motion its enormously better than the Dell. The problem with all the IPS monitors is that for gaming they are just a blurry mess, while a lot of people recommend them for the colour accuracy and gamut few actually set up the monitors to use this, often resulting in the IPS performing worse than a well setup TN. So unless you intend to also buy a calibration tool you won't be getting the most out of the Dell.

 

[escrow4]

The reduced motion blur and low persistence modes of the Benq are far closer to the experience you are used to on your CRT. Colour quality isn't amazing, its still 6 bit + FRC but under motion its enormously better than the Dell. The problem with all the IPS monitors is that for gaming they are just a blurry mess, while a lot of people recommend them for the colour accuracy and gamut few actually set up the monitors to use this, often resulting in the IPS performing worse than a well setup TN. So unless you intend to also buy a calibration tool you won't be getting the most out of the Dell.

I have a Dell U2412M running Standard with the brightness adjusted and its perfectly clear. Blurry?

 

[Ayah]

The reduced motion blur and low persistence modes of the Benq are far closer to the experience you are used to on your CRT. Colour quality isn't amazing, its still 6 bit + FRC but under motion its enormously better than the Dell. The problem with all the IPS monitors is that for gaming they are just a blurry mess, while a lot of people recommend them for the colour accuracy and gamut few actually set up the monitors to use this, often resulting in the IPS performing worse than a well setup TN. So unless you intend to also buy a calibration tool you won't be getting the most out of the Dell.

basically the above.

I'm assuming that you mean fps games when you say "gaming". you shouldn't have blurring issues otherwise.

 

[BrightCandle]

basically the above.

I'm assuming that you mean fps games when you say "gaming". you shouldn't have blurring issues otherwise.

No I mean pretty much all games. As soon as you image changes significantly from the previous one, like it does in a panned RTS, or a turn in an FPS or just a side scroller moving across the very slow pixel response of an IPS will introduce quite a lot of blur. IPS monitors look great statically but when you test what images look like in motion they are awful. I have a Dell 2410 and my Benq XL2411T and side by side there is a clear difference in colour quality but also when you move even a Window in Windows I can see the blur the Dell is introducing in comparison. Its just the limitation of the technology. If you play games were the screen doesn't change much you won't notice, but that doesn't refer to a lot of games, and those coming from CRTs will notice that blur a lot more than someone who has been suffering with it for a decade already.

 

[AdamantC]

What games do you intend to play?

From the FPS side of things will be CS:GO, BF3, Planetside 2 and Doom and Quake sprinkled in for good measure. So basically everything fast and slow

I have a Dell 2410 and my Benq XL2411T and side by side there is a clear difference in colour quality but also when you move even a Window in Windows I can see the blur the Dell is introducing in comparison.

Pretty much what I was worried about with IPS panels. I'm very sensitive to motion myself. Overall how are the colors and viewing angles on your BenQ?

BTW I have a 3570K and 7870 (stock) I generally only use AA when a game is excessively noisy and I'll slap on x2. And thanks for your help.

 

[Madpacket]

Save up a bit more and buy a quality CRT. All current LCD tech has serious tradeoffs and switching from a quality CRT to LCD won't be a good experience.

 

[AdamantC]

Save up a bit more and buy a quality CRT. All current LCD tech has serious tradeoffs and switching from a quality CRT to LCD won't be a good experience.

This I am aware of. I've looked around locally to no avail, and the shipping for CRTs as one expect are insane. Not to mention the massive pain in the back it would be to ship one back if there was a problem...

 

[Revolution 11]

From the FPS side of things will be CS:GO, BF3, Planetside 2 and Doom and Quake sprinkled in for good measure. So basically everything fast and slow


Pretty much what I was worried about with IPS panels. I'm very sensitive to motion myself. Overall how are the colors and viewing angles on your BenQ?

BTW I have a 3570K and 7870 (stock) I generally only use AA when a game is excessively noisy and I'll slap on x2. And thanks for your help.

I have been using a Dell U2412M for 7 months now and I have noticed very rare instances of actual display blur or lag. There have been a few genuine examples but 90%+ of problems that I have had were due to low framerates (my HD 7870 can't handle every game at very high settings that I idiotically pick), I/O latency during level transitions (slow cheapo hard drive for me), or CPU bottlenecks that only occur in certain games and sporadically at best, despite my i5-4670K.

Disregarding a few badly coded games and level transitions that are sporadic, I am perfectly happy* with the U2412M. Great monitor, vibrant color, good build quality and I got it for $100 cheaper than list price.

*The one game that I do notice consistent display blur is Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition. I do not know if it is my GPU or the textures in the game, but every pivot and screen turn creates blur almost 100% of the time. But this is the only game I have seen this happen so it might not be the monitor itself.

** You are asking about the Dell U2414H, not the Dell U2412M so my experience may not be applicable.

 

[BrightCandle]

Benq colour quality is not great, my main issue with it is brightness, out of the box its 120-350 CD/m2 and I prefer about 80 CD/m2 so I have to mess with it quite a bit to get it darker and I loose contrast because of it. The viewing angles on the vertical are especially noticable in normal viewing, just shifting up or down a bit will shift the colour at the top of the screen and that is because my eye level is about at the top of the screen. But you get the nice solid image of an LCD with none of the flicker (unless you turn it on) and its about the lowest blur you can get.

 

[omeds]

+1 for benq

 

[lehtv]

I'd get Asus VG248QE, it's $100 cheaper than the BenQ but also 144hz. yes, the BenQ is better, but it's not $100 better.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Eizo FG2421 might be worth a look.

 

[AdamantC]

Well it looks like I'll be pulling the trigger on a BenQ. Thanks again, folks, you'll be receiving your clumps of hair shortly

 

[BrightCandle]

I at least don't think you'll be unhappy with it, I think we should all be unhappy about the trade offs we are forced to make in todays monitor market. What I really really want is a 4k, gsync + freesync, 120+hz, 10 bit colour adobe gamut screen with 2160p->1080p scaling based on 1 pixel going to 4 with no further processing all with a screen that has a latency less than about 2ms combined (pixel + controller) and a low persistence mode that works flawlessly. I can't have it, I can't actually have most of it, so I have to choose what matters to me and in the throws of the game I care more about seeing what is going on than how pretty the colours are when I stand still. Others value the standing still colours and don't worry about how rubbish it looks in motion.

The Benq is about the best of the Lightboost 2 monitors which are pretty much the best gaming monitors, although the Eizo 240hz monitor is also pretty impressive when run in low persistence mode. I think you'll be happy with it and if you really dislike it from the outset don't try and live with it, send it back and try the other side.

 

[TeknoBug]

The BenQ *Z montiors are pretty sweet.

As for colors, use movies or photo mode if that monitor has the option, much closer to the proper colors, I gave up on trying with standard/manual and set sRGB as default colors profile in color management in Windows.

 

[Madpacket]

I at least don't think you'll be unhappy with it, I think we should all be unhappy about the trade offs we are forced to make in todays monitor market. What I really really want is a 4k, gsync + freesync, 120+hz, 10 bit colour adobe gamut screen with 2160p->1080p scaling based on 1 pixel going to 4 with no further processing all with a screen that has a latency less than about 2ms combined (pixel + controller) and a low persistence mode that works flawlessly. I can't have it, I can't actually have most of it, so I have to choose what matters to me and in the throws of the game I care more about seeing what is going on than how pretty the colours are when I stand still. Others value the standing still colours and don't worry about how rubbish it looks in motion.

The Benq is about the best of the Lightboost 2 monitors which are pretty much the best gaming monitors, although the Eizo 240hz monitor is also pretty impressive when run in low persistence mode. I think you'll be happy with it and if you really dislike it from the outset don't try and live with it, send it back and try the other side.

Pretty much this..

If my FW900 died tomorrow and I couldn't find a replacement I would likely pick it up the BenQ. The Eizo is nice but still suffers from blur in certain cases and is too expensive IMO, plus it has questionable quality.

Once you have it all setup please give us your honest opinion of it. I'm interested as your gaming habits and CRT mirror my situation