Viewsonic VX2450WM or Dell UltraSharp U2412M

[zanemoseley]

So I use my PC for probably 75% internet/general and 25% gaming (mainly FPS). I've had my current 19" Hyundai LCD for probably 7-8 years so I'd like to make the right pick since I will likely keep it for quite a while.

I don't do really any photo editing that would require really accurate color reproduction but can appreciate a good image quality in general.

The Viewsonic VX2450WM is about $180 shipped while the Dell UltraSharp U2412M is about $300 now.

I'm not an ultra competitive FPS player so will the IPS monitor work or should I just stick with a TN to get the added response?

 

[zanemoseley]

I just looked up my current Hyundai L90D+ monitor and it claims to have a 8ms response time which back then was top notch. So the Dell is the same 8ms where the Viewsonic is 5ms.

Also is the Dell being a 16:10 ratio going to be a problem with games? Will I have black bars filling in areas?

 

[Doom 4d]

Those response times have essentially nothing to do with performance. At all. Ratio won't be an issue in 99% of games, but you should consider whether or not you have the GPU to push a demanding game at 1920x1200. Generally speaking, to keep 60 fps in a game like BF3 for instance a 570 can do all settings on ultra with 0x MSAA at 1920x1080, but as soon as you go to 1920x1200 you also lose the ability to maintain a lot of those ultra settings. This is because the 570 only has 1.28gb of VRAM. For 1920x1200 you will generally want to aim for a card with at least 1.5gb VRAM and preferably 2gb for the sake of future-proofing.

 

[zanemoseley]

I was actually wondering if my system would be able to run that big of a monitor. I actually thought the 16:9 and 16:10 had the same number of pixels if you bought the same diagonal size but now I see what you're saying, I guess the pixels per inch get more dense.

Here's my system specs:

OS: Windows 64bit Home Premium
M/B: ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3
CPU: i2500k
HSF: Hyper 212+
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws 8gb 1333
GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD6870 1GB
SSD Samsung 830 128gb $209.95
ODD : LiteOn DVD Burner
PSU: Antec EarthWatts 500W
Case: Antec Sonata Quiet Mid Tower
HDD Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 160gb

I guess I may also start a post in the general hardware section to see what people think about my rig running a larger monitor.

 

[Doom 4d]

With a 6870 stick to 1920x1080 imo. The 6870 is capable of running a lot of games at 1920x1200, but not the demanding titles once you start enabling the basic eyecandy. That trend will only continue as newer and more demanding games continue to come out. Unless you're planning on changing your GPU within the next year, I would suggest 1080.

 

[zanemoseley]

Just ordered the U2412M from Amazon.com for about $268 with my BIL's employee discount. I'll just have to upgrade if my rig can't handle it. I'm thinking of getting my wife a DSLR for her birthday in a few weeks and I think I could benefit from the image quality when viewing and editing photos.

 

[xit2nowhere]

I bought Dell's monitor the day before yesterday. The monitor that I have received is perfect No blb or noticeable ips glow. White uniformity, so to speak, is great. The infamous AG coating that so many people talk about, could be noticed only on bright white backgrounds, and that is only if you look for it, otherwise you don't even know it's there. As a matter of fact, today in the morning I was doing a lot of work on my computer while sun was shining directly onto the monitor. The picture and clarity stayed perfect
I see now why so many people are recommending this monitor.

 

[Phil1977]

My current monitor is a 2ms Samsung 27". The other day I tried playing a little on a 5ms (both screens are TN panel) some games and the first thing I noticed was how everything was ghosting and lagging. And the mouse cursor and moving windows...

But the thing is, in the past I used these 5ms screens for gaming and it felt ok back then :/

It's just that once you have something faster you realise how poor the other option is. So for gaming I really recommend you stick with TN and specifically a 2ms model.

Apart from that I believe you should check out every monitor in a store. It's the only way you can avoid surprises.

 

[Doom 4d]

My current monitor is a 2ms Samsung 27". The other day I tried playing a little on a 5ms (both screens are TN panel) some games and the first thing I noticed was how everything was ghosting and lagging. And the mouse cursor and moving windows...

But the thing is, in the past I used these 5ms screens for gaming and it felt ok back then :/

It's just that once you have something faster you realise how poor the other option is. So for gaming I really recommend you stick with TN and specifically a 2ms model.

Apart from that I believe you should check out every monitor in a store. It's the only way you can avoid surprises.

Input latency and display latency aren't tied to the response time. At all.

Monitors with 2ms G2G response times can have input latency higher than an 8ms monitor. Screen size is actually one of the factors that plays the biggest role in input latency, because of the way that LCD screens refresh their image, and can be demonstrated pretty reliably with tests as imprecise as human benchmark (in other words the difference is so much between a 27" and a 20" monitor that even a very subjective test like HB doesn't mask the variation).

To be honest, ghosting isn't very accurately tied to the reported "response time" on the retail sticker either, but that would take a long time to explain the different ways that monitor production companies actually produce these "response time" statistics (there is no industry standard way of measuring this and everyone does it differently).

 

[raildogg]

I bought Dell's monitor the day before yesterday. The monitor that I have received is perfect No blb or noticeable ips glow. White uniformity, so to speak, is great. The infamous AG coating that so many people talk about, could be noticed only on bright white backgrounds, and that is only if you look for it, otherwise you don't even know it's there. As a matter of fact, today in the morning I was doing a lot of work on my computer while sun was shining directly onto the monitor. The picture and clarity stayed perfect
I see now why so many people are recommending this monitor.

So how is the Dell U2412M for watching movies, lets say on Netflix? I am interested in this monitor but the 16:10 aspect ratio concerns me a bit for movies. Are there black bars on the sides? Thanks.