Wide-Gamut LCD OK for gaming? (...and Dell 2407 vs 2408)

[sofakng]

Sorry for creating a lot of threads lately...

I'm now looking at upgrading my Dell 2405 to a Dell 2407 or Dell 2408. I've found pretty decent prices on both (under $200 and under $300 respectively) and since I've been happy with my 2405 I figure this might be a good upgrade both.

Anyways, the Dell 2408 is newer and has more inputs but it was a "wide gamut" like a lot of newer monitors.

I'll be using this almost exclusively for gaming but I'm not too concerned about the input lag because I've read it's mostly fixed in the newer revisions of those monitors and even the "lag" on my Dell 2405 doesn't bother me.

However, the "wide gamut" on the 2408 is supposedly bad for gaming and almost everything except Photoshop (and other ICC [?] compatible applications).

Is this true?

I'm heavily leaning towards the 2408 as my 2405 upgrade but I'm a little concerned about that...

 

[T2k]

It's not bad for gaming at all - as a matter of fact it's only bad when you need standard gamut compliance and it's not managed.

 

[Friendo]

I had a high gamut LCD b4, people in videos looks very saturated.

 

[nitromullet]

I regretted replacing my Dell 2407WFP with a 2408WFP, and I eventually returned it. The primary reason being that I just couldn't get it adjusted properly due to the wide gamut.

Wide gamut in and of itself would be fine provided that you have color management or the RGB setting on your LCD gives you a good picture. Sadly, the RGB setting on the 2408 looks like crap and the manual settings are also inadequate for establishing a decent picture.

I don't do any professional color work. So, when I say "decent picture" I don't mean 100% color accurate ready for print media, but rather simply not painful to look at. Of course opinions vary on the 2408, and some people really like it.

My suggestion is to do your research about wide gamut, understand what it is, and decide if you can or want to deal with it. The nice thing about Dell is that they will take your monitor back for a full refund for 30 days for whatever reason.

 

[sofakng]

Hmph. That doesn't sound very good!

Unfortunately, I'm not looking to buy this from Dell because they don't sell either monitor anymore.

It also seems like almost all new monitors have wide gamut so it seems like I'm a bit stuck unless I go with an older monitor like the 2407.

Have you played any consoles games (360/PS3, etc) with the 2408? That is my main concern and I've read that games use lots of different color spaces so wide gamut is really fine because there isn't one single standard.

 

[logothesia]

The wide gamut monitor is fine for gaming, as long as you color correct the monitor. If you do not have an EyeOne or similar device to color correct the monitor, you should not purchase it.