Hi all, this is my first time posting to the forums, but I have been reading anandtech for over a year now. I scrapped together enough money a few months ago to get a gaming rig together and now the next thing on my list is a monitor. I'm still using an old 17" CRT (Aperture Grill from CTX) that got me through college and its finally starting to crap out. I've been reading around a lot and I'm having a lot of difficulty deciding what to get. The main focus of my computer is gaming, but I do also use it for my own amateur photo retouching, watching movies, and obviously internet browsing/reading things. I guess I'll just make a little list of whats been going on in my head instead of writing a long, rambling paragraph:
Monitor Budget: $500 max, hoping to spend much less than that
1) I'd rather have an LCD as they seem to be much better now that a few years ago, but I don't have any problem with CRTs. As such the following points are basically centered around getting an LCD and considering CRTs second.
2) As I said, my computer is mainly for gaming so LCD response time is very very important to me. It will drive me *CRAZY* if my games don't look good. I would gladly sacrifice other features to have as little ghosting as possible. However, I would still like to have a monitor that can do other tasks acceptably (crisp text, watch movies, somewhat rich colors). IMHO, CRTs are more versatile - no problems with response time and deep colors and clear text.
3) If I get an LCD it will most likely have native resolution of 1280x1024. That basically means all my games will have to run in that resolution with a comfortable frame rate. I was not worried about this until I bought FEAR, which I run at 1024x768. In general, I am concerned about being able to run next gen games at native res without spending $300 on a new video card. CRTs do not have this problem as I can scale the resolution with no pixel interpolation.
4) If I get a CRT, I will be able to afford one that can run 1600x1200, which would be very nice to have.
5) CRTs are generally cheaper than LCDs of the same size. I could even get a refurb 21" CRT for around $200. However, I am slightly wary of buying refurb products over the internet.
6) If I buy an LCD over the internet (where they are cheaper), I might get dead pixels. A red dot in the middle of my screen would drive me crazy. To avoid that possiblity, I could buy at a retail store, but for $100 or $200 more. Regardless of where a new CRT comes from, I don't have to worry about dead pixels so I can get it for the cheapest price possible, internet or real life store.
7) I have read in a few places now that CRT quality has actually been going down in the past few years to keep prices low and competetive with LCDs. Apparently its not even possible to get a new aperture grill CRT, which I would rather have. So to get a quality model I might want to get a refurb from a few years ago (again, I don't like refurbs) because I am afraid that new models are all lower quality than what I currently have. I have a friend who bought a 19" CRT from Best Buy and it looks terrible. Much less clear than my 5 year old screen. If that monitor is representative of new CRTs then I definitely have to get an LCD.
8) In general, LCDs are the way of the future and CRTs are a dying breed. It seems like a lot of work is going into making quality LCDs and that a lot of people are buying them for all sorts of purposes and they are happy with their purchases. I just feel that its better to get an LCD. At this point buying a CRT seems to be like buying a VCR - its cheap and time tested, but that doesn't mean its the best idea.
I have a few models in mind so far; Viewsonic VX924, Viewsonic VP930B (I believe is the successor to the VP191B), and NEC LCD1970GX.
Sorry for the long post, but I think thats finally it. Any advice or suggestions on a monitor that I should get would be greatly greatly appreciated. Even just a discussion about this in general would be nice just to let me if everything I'm thinking is on point or if I am missing some stuff. I also wouldn't mind hearing what monitors you gamers are using and the experience you've had with them. Thanks for reading my ramblings!
Monitor Budget: $500 max, hoping to spend much less than that
1) I'd rather have an LCD as they seem to be much better now that a few years ago, but I don't have any problem with CRTs. As such the following points are basically centered around getting an LCD and considering CRTs second.
2) As I said, my computer is mainly for gaming so LCD response time is very very important to me. It will drive me *CRAZY* if my games don't look good. I would gladly sacrifice other features to have as little ghosting as possible. However, I would still like to have a monitor that can do other tasks acceptably (crisp text, watch movies, somewhat rich colors). IMHO, CRTs are more versatile - no problems with response time and deep colors and clear text.
3) If I get an LCD it will most likely have native resolution of 1280x1024. That basically means all my games will have to run in that resolution with a comfortable frame rate. I was not worried about this until I bought FEAR, which I run at 1024x768. In general, I am concerned about being able to run next gen games at native res without spending $300 on a new video card. CRTs do not have this problem as I can scale the resolution with no pixel interpolation.
4) If I get a CRT, I will be able to afford one that can run 1600x1200, which would be very nice to have.
5) CRTs are generally cheaper than LCDs of the same size. I could even get a refurb 21" CRT for around $200. However, I am slightly wary of buying refurb products over the internet.
6) If I buy an LCD over the internet (where they are cheaper), I might get dead pixels. A red dot in the middle of my screen would drive me crazy. To avoid that possiblity, I could buy at a retail store, but for $100 or $200 more. Regardless of where a new CRT comes from, I don't have to worry about dead pixels so I can get it for the cheapest price possible, internet or real life store.
7) I have read in a few places now that CRT quality has actually been going down in the past few years to keep prices low and competetive with LCDs. Apparently its not even possible to get a new aperture grill CRT, which I would rather have. So to get a quality model I might want to get a refurb from a few years ago (again, I don't like refurbs) because I am afraid that new models are all lower quality than what I currently have. I have a friend who bought a 19" CRT from Best Buy and it looks terrible. Much less clear than my 5 year old screen. If that monitor is representative of new CRTs then I definitely have to get an LCD.
8) In general, LCDs are the way of the future and CRTs are a dying breed. It seems like a lot of work is going into making quality LCDs and that a lot of people are buying them for all sorts of purposes and they are happy with their purchases. I just feel that its better to get an LCD. At this point buying a CRT seems to be like buying a VCR - its cheap and time tested, but that doesn't mean its the best idea.
I have a few models in mind so far; Viewsonic VX924, Viewsonic VP930B (I believe is the successor to the VP191B), and NEC LCD1970GX.
Sorry for the long post, but I think thats finally it. Any advice or suggestions on a monitor that I should get would be greatly greatly appreciated. Even just a discussion about this in general would be nice just to let me if everything I'm thinking is on point or if I am missing some stuff. I also wouldn't mind hearing what monitors you gamers are using and the experience you've had with them. Thanks for reading my ramblings!
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