PLEASE help: i need to buy a LCD by tomorrow

[Corporate Thug]

tomorrow is the last chance i'm gonna have to buy an LCD for college and i DESPERATELY need recommendations. i'm lookin for a 17-18 incher, my budget is $300-400

also, i have a few questions:

1. how important is DVI?
2. how common are dead pixels? also, do they randomly appear?
3. is it a MUST to a 16 ms response time for gaming?

i'm gonna be doin a good amount of gaming. thanx

 

[SectorZero]

DVI should be great if you got it, but I don't on mine so I can't say.
I can say that it will look just fine without it though.

I've had my 17inch LCD for 2 years now, no dead pixels.

16ms response time? Well, mine is 2 years old so I seriously doubt it has a 16 ms response time.
Everything I play looks great, no ghosting.

Also, I play some games below the native resolution for the LCD. Desktop is set to 1280X1024,
but I run some games at 1024X768(when I'm cranking up the AA&AF) and they look great.

 

[VansTheMan]

There's a really good LCD FAQ/general information here. Props to Kris Kubicki for writing a great article. The thread matching this article is here. Why can't you get it after you go to school? You're gonna find better deals on better models if you're not in a big rush. Are you planning on getting it in person or online?

 

[Corporate Thug]

doesnt matter if it is online or instore. the reason i want it now is cuz i need a computer for school and i dont want to drag around my 70 pound 21' CRT

 

[VansTheMan]

I'd just check around with the various price search engines and find the cheapest one with the specs you want. There aren't that many different producers of the actual LCD panels, so most of the LCDs are basically the same. I can't personally make any recommendations because I don't have an LCD. :frown:

 

[Mem]

1. how important is DVI?
2. how common are dead pixels? also, do they randomly appear?
3. is it a MUST to a 16 ms response time for gaming?

1: DVI can help reduce ghosting and also ensure best possible image quality (your video card will need DVI connection).

2: I had none on my Samsung 191T and also a friend of mine had 0,I would say in general probably 0 or 1- 2 at max would seem to be the common figure.

3: No,mine has RT around 25ms and find it ok for gaming,it really does depend on type of games you play and how much you notice ghosting so it`s really down to your eyes only,if you play lots of very fast games then you would probably be better off with 16ms etc but as I said it`s what your eyes notice.

I play CS,TFC,UT,Q3 etc and find it`s pretty good,if I look hard I can see some slight ghosting but when you are playing in the game you`re too busy with gameplay & don`t notice it ,well at least in my eyes.


Also having V-SYNC ON helps as well.

 

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: shady06
tomorrow is the last chance i'm gonna have to buy an LCD for college and i DESPERATELY need recommendations. i'm lookin for a 17-18 incher, my budget is $300-400

Hitachi CML174SX series. Need i say more?

1. how important is DVI?

Not essential, but it does look better, and reduces ghosting a bit. The above mentioned TFT has DVI on it, and include the cable for it as well.

2. how common are dead pixels? also, do they randomly appear?

Not as common as they used to be. The store that i brought my Hitachi from says that theyve never had a dead pixel on any that they`ve sold.

3. is it a MUST to a 16 ms response time for gaming?

Not a must. But highly reccommended.
Its enevitable that people will point out that 16ms dont use as many colour shades as 20+ms ones, but the difference isnt noticeable at all. By anyones eyes.

 

[SemperFi]

I thought I would chime in on the dead pixel question. I have had 3 lcds in the past year. I am still using 2 on different machines. None of them had a single dead pixel. The 15" that I sold had one pixel that wasn't dead but wouldn't be the right color sometimes. There is a name for this but I forget what it is called. From my experience dead pixels are not that comon. Actually I have had four. I replaced the 15" with a 17" and it went haywire after a week. But it didn't have any dead pixels either.

My 18" Sony is the only one that has DVI and I couldn't really tell any difference when I switched. I am not a gamer so that may be why I didn't see any difference.

 

I have to say that Samsung has good marks. I think you need to spend more than 400 bucks to get an LCD that has both DVI and RGB inputs. I was looking for one myself recently and had trouble finding one with DVI for less than 600 bucks. And I cant truly recommend an LCD for gaming. I'm sure there are people here who swear by them for gaming, but they cant match CRT's for gaming. "Yet"....
Be careful about the dot pitch. Anything over .26 will start to suck. Basically, if you are in a rush and buy one right now, you will be sorry later. You really need to research when buying an LCD.

Sorry I couldn't help more.

GM