Two 24" Dual LCDs or One 30" LCD?

Kenji4861

Banned
Jan 28, 2001
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I just got my bonus and want to buy one of the followings

- Two 24" (Portrait Mode) Dual LCDs
- One 30" LCD

Any experience or thoughts?
Some thoughts I have are that the Two 24" would give me more pixels to work with and I can easily Maximize windows on each LCD.. This also means.. when I play games.. it would probably just use one LCD.. and the other would be useless.

30".. I don't know.. I never used it.. but I think the only pro is that.. I can use the full space for gaming.
 

dug777

Lifer
Oct 13, 2004
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If you've ever worked with duallies, you'll never go back ;)

If you're just gaming, get the 30.
 

PHiuR

Diamond Member
Apr 24, 2001
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Unless you're doing a lot of work on your PC...i.e. not gaming or watching movies. Get the 30".
 

Lonyo

Lifer
Aug 10, 2002
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How much do you game?
I had a similar situation with dual 17" vs single 20", and I chose dual 17" even though I am mostly a gamer.
It's nice to have dual screens, moreso I think than a single larger one because of the independence each one offers.
24" should be enough for gaming anyway :p You also have to consider that bigger monitor = more pixels = more GPU/CPU power required to run games at its full res.
 

Lonyo

Lifer
Aug 10, 2002
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Originally posted by: PHiuR
Unless you're doing a lot of work on your PC...i.e. not gaming or watching movies. Get the 30".

Actually it's quite nice to have a film/TV program on one monitor and still be able to do other stuff on the other monitor.
 

dug777

Lifer
Oct 13, 2004
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Originally posted by: Lonyo
Originally posted by: PHiuR
Unless you're doing a lot of work on your PC...i.e. not gaming or watching movies. Get the 30".

Actually it's quite nice to have a film/TV program on one monitor and still be able to do other stuff on the other monitor.

heh i loved that :D

HDTV on one, AT on the other :eek:
 

mercanucaribe

Banned
Oct 20, 2004
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Keep in mind that Dell's 2407FPW or whatever it's called is 6 bit. The older 2405FPW was 8 bit. AFAIK, the other manufacturers have also switched to 6 bit. THat means 264k colors instead of 16 million.
 

ForumMaster

Diamond Member
Feb 24, 2005
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Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
Keep in mind that Dell's 2407FPW or whatever it's called is 6 bit. The older 2405FPW was 8 bit. AFAIK, the other manufacturers have also switched to 6 bit. THat means 264k colors instead of 16 million.

no...it means 16.2 million colors instead of 16.7 million colors.

i'd get two 24''s. that way you can also use it for work and mutlitasking is so much better.
 

PlatinumGold

Lifer
Aug 11, 2000
23,168
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Originally posted by: Kenji4861
I just got my bonus and want to buy one of the followings

- Two 24" (Portrait Mode) Dual LCDs
- One 30" LCD

Any experience or thoughts?
Some thoughts I have are that the Two 24" would give me more pixels to work with and I can easily Maximize windows on each LCD.. This also means.. when I play games.. it would probably just use one LCD.. and the other would be useless.

30".. I don't know.. I never used it.. but I think the only pro is that.. I can use the full space for gaming.

plus, a 24" in portrait mode is AMAZING, content or websites generally are limited in width but tend to be less limited in length.

so you put a website up on a portrait mode monitor and you see soo much more content.

 

mercanucaribe

Banned
Oct 20, 2004
9,763
1
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Originally posted by: ForumMaster
Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
Keep in mind that Dell's 2407FPW or whatever it's called is 6 bit. The older 2405FPW was 8 bit. AFAIK, the other manufacturers have also switched to 6 bit. THat means 264k colors instead of 16 million.

no...it means 16.2 million colors instead of 16.7 million colors.

i'd get two 24''s. that way you can also use it for work and mutlitasking is so much better.

It dithers to get those colors- The actual color depth is 18 bit.
 

AMCRambler

Diamond Member
Jan 23, 2001
7,711
30
91
I've got one 24 for gaming and that is pretty damn big. 30 would be overkill I think. I'm about 3-4 feet from the screen on my desk, and I find I've almost got to turn my head when playing full screen games now, lol. With a 30 I'd have whiplash!
 

Koing

Elite Member <br> Super Moderator<br> Health and F
Oct 11, 2000
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24x2 for me.

I have thought of going to a single 30" but 24x2 is NICE. I may get 30x2 but I'd have to upgrade my graphics cards to handle the single 30" to start with...and I don't use my pc as much as I use to.

Koing
 

Lonyo

Lifer
Aug 10, 2002
21,938
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81
Originally posted by: neomits
Originally posted by: krotchy
how about 1 30 and 2 20s?

My thoughts exactly

A mini version of that (1 20, 2 17s)

What's the graphics card arrangement for that setup?
I was thinking of adding a 20" to my dual 17"'s, but obviously I'd need some more outputs. Second gfx card? Is there an issue when going from monitors on one card to those on the other?
 

PlatinumGold

Lifer
Aug 11, 2000
23,168
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71
Originally posted by: Lonyo
Originally posted by: neomits
Originally posted by: krotchy
how about 1 30 and 2 20s?

My thoughts exactly

A mini version of that (1 20, 2 17s)

What's the graphics card arrangement for that setup?
I was thinking of adding a 20" to my dual 17"'s, but obviously I'd need some more outputs. Second gfx card? Is there an issue when going from monitors on one card to those on the other?

you can add an additional graphics card.

of if you motherboard had a graphics chip built in, you can activate that and use it as part of the extended.

play around with the settings. i've done it for a few clients that way.
 

neomits

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2001
3,228
0
76
Originally posted by: Lonyo
Originally posted by: neomits
Originally posted by: krotchy
how about 1 30 and 2 20s?

My thoughts exactly

A mini version of that (1 20, 2 17s)

What's the graphics card arrangement for that setup?
I was thinking of adding a 20" to my dual 17"'s, but obviously I'd need some more outputs. Second gfx card? Is there an issue when going from monitors on one card to those on the other?

I've got an SLI setup, so 2 7800GTs both with dual DVI outputs. Technically I could add a 4th monitor no problem. When I play games, the sides 2 go off to provide SLI to the middle widescreen.

No problems moving something across all three monitors. I could drag a window across the whole thing and not notice which one was plugged into which card.

If your current graphics card already has 2 DVI outputs, you can just purchase a cheap PCI DVI card to add another monitor.
 

dman

Diamond Member
Nov 2, 1999
9,110
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76
AT Review of 24 & 30 monitors

Not sure if you care but:

That brings us to perhaps the biggest flaw of the 3007WFP: HDCP support. While the LCD does include HDCP support, HDCP was unfortunately not created to work with dual-link DVI. If you want to use the 3007WFP to view HDCP protected content, you may find yourself forced to use a single-link DVI connection, which means you would only be able to run the display at one fourth of its native resolution
 

spacejamz

Lifer
Mar 31, 2003
10,908
1,557
126
just pulled the trigger on a westinghouse 1080p 37" set from newegg for $1060 shipped to replace my dual 19" setup...i have never really gotten over having the bezel between the screens...

Westy

alot of people use this for their primary monitor and the reviews have been excellent...