Finally built my new comp (specs)

[CoFFeY[NiTrO]]

Right now im just using a monitor I found sitting around the house but im saving for a 20" flat panel Sony.

Current Specs
Intel P4 2.4GHz
1 Gig of memory
GeForce FX 5800
80 Gig HDD

I guess thats all the important stuff. I also got a nifty blue case with blue glowing fans .

[Hexis]

I'm not sure what your Sony LCD costs, but you may want to look at the Dell 2001FP. All of the Sony LCDs I looked at last year had slow enough pixel clocks that gaming on them is a problem. The Dell 2001FP is a 20", 1600x1200 with a 15ms pixel clock. I have one at home (and at work actually), and it's a nice setup and quite reasonable in price. They are $675 right now, but I have seen them as cheap as $600.

[fire1811]

Dells 2001FP is a excellent monitor (lcd)
HP's 2335 also is and excellent monitor (LCD)

Nec's FE2111SB is great (CRT)
Viewsonic's P225FB is great also (CRT)


the lcds posted above are great for gaming. I personally didnt like LCD's for gaming until I tried these two.

pick any of the monitors above and you cant go wrong

[maxama10]

man a p4 and only 2.4!? shouldve gotten an athalon 64 or waited until intel came out with there own 64 bit processor (which should be soon or so i hear).... oh well still pretty nice that gig will be real nice and nice vid card too...

[Hexis]

Different folks, different purposes and different budgets. Don't disparage his machine. There is nothing wrong with it.

[CoFFeY[NiTrO]]

I only paid 400 for the gfx card, memory, processor, and motherboard. (My friend got replacement parts for his comp for christmas

[Dryden]

I'm not sure what your Sony LCD costs, but you may want to look at the Dell 2001FP. All of the Sony LCDs I looked at last year had slow enough pixel clocks that gaming on them is a problem. The Dell 2001FP is a 20", 1600x1200 with a 15ms pixel clock. I have one at home (and at work actually), and it's a nice setup and quite reasonable in price. They are $675 right now, but I have seen them as cheap as $600.

We have just purchased 14 of the Dell 20" FPs, and the native resolution is actually 1680x1050 WSXGA. Most all of the nVidia cards in our data processing division don't work with these resolutions correctly, despite the fact that both Dell and nVidia properly support one-another. I have since replaced the bulk of these suspect nVidia cards with cheap-o ATi 9250 Sapphire cards, and the monitors work flawlessly.

The problems ranged from minor (no POST display on boot) to major (random and frequent 2-second screen blanking and monitor suspending or sleeping under high load) with everything from old GeForce MX 200/400 cards to newer GeForce FX5200s.

This has really been a very disappointing and frustrating experience since I've supported nVidia since the debut of the Riva TNT and about the time that 3Dfx went belly-up.

My recommendation, don't buy any 16:9 display unless you can test it first under your configuration, despite what your vendors tell you. I'd also discourage buying a FP monitor if you play alot of emulators or are a hard core gamer. I've recently had to abandon my old ViewSonic 15" FP at home and go back to a CRT, because I couldn't tolerate the nastiness when running some things in resolutions other than 1024x768.

[Hexis]

My 2001FP has worked flawlessly on my ti4600 and now the 6800GT, both on DVI. I have some generic Dell intergrated video chip on my work machine and 1600x1200 is working fine via VGA (the trick is to calibrate it correctly). I also have had luck hooking up my Powerbook to the DVI port on both and that works flawlessly as well.

I think you found the right source of the problem, if a video card does not support 1600x1200, you do not want to get a LCD that has that native resolution. I have been quite impressed with the 2001FP's ability to scale non native resolutions to the screen and make it look good. I find this acceptiable for games, but would not want to use a desktop that way. I held off on an LCD purcase for a long time for the gaming reasons. For me with the level of technology I see no reasons for CRTs for any user (for the vast majority).

LCDs can do gaming well now, that reasoning holds no validity for me. Older models with slow pixel clocks are excluded from this. Ghosting is simply not acceptiable. Production models are doing 12ms now, and that's more than enough. There are rumors of 5ms in the next generation, that's way more than perfect. The fixed pixel nature, lack of flicker, lack of convergence issues, light weight, lower power consumption and DVI are all reasons CRTs are dead for me. The only advantage CRTs hold IMHO is cost. I never pick cost as my most important factor.

I'm also a huge fan of DVI (at least on computers where the color control is possible). The ease of real per pixel perfection and no setup is simply the way it should be. My strong suggestion would be to make sure anything you (the royal you) get has DVI on it. You may not be able to use it now (say if you get a DVI compliant video card and don't have the monitor), but you will be able to when both components are in place.

I only really talk about the 2001FP because it's all I have to use an a realworld example. I may pick up one of the new 16:10 24" LCDs Dell introduced reciently. I used to have a 24" CRT that was nice size wise, but a super PITA to converge. I miss the 1920x1200 desktop. I don't think that res will be a problem on my 6800GT or the Powerbook.

[kosmo]

Ok, Ive got a 2005fp on my new comp, and a 2001fp on my older small form factor computer right on top of the new one. Also I have owned several other lcd monitors, never had a problem with anything. First off, the 2001fp is not wide screen, its naitive resolution is 1600x1200. The 2005fp is widescreen, and its naitive resolution is 1680x1050. The 2001fp has a response time of 16ms, while the 2005fp has a response time of 12ms. Both are fast enough response times that the screen can refresh fast enough so ghosting, or blurring under motion while watching games or movies, does not occur. Secondly, drydens issue was a driver problem, not a hardware problem. Current nvidia drivers support widescreen resolutions, and the drivers are compatible with hardware back to the geforce 3 generation. His issue with blurring on the monitor when not run at 1024x768 is something called interpolation. It is something that older lcd monitors could not handle well at all. Both of the Dells I have, as well as my almost 3 year old samsung, are able to handle it well. There will still be some slight blurring, but it is really only noticable while reading colored text in games, and even then is minimal. Also, I would like to say the Dells should never ever be bought at full price. It is too easy to find coupons online for them. I bought mine at a savings of over 30% for each of them by finding stackable coupons. I only payed 500 bucks for the 2005fp and that was back before christmas. Currently you should be able to get one for under 600 shipped provided you dont get taxed.