Learn Me: Gaming Monitors
 

So I've been using the shit out of my ~20" Samsung monitor for years and I figure it's time for me to upgrade. I'm looking at getting a 24" monitor, and I want one that's good for gaming. I imagine some BF3 in my near future, as well as the iRacing I currently partake in.

So, what 24" monitor would you recommend in the ~$200 price range.

So far I've found two that are highly recommended but each seem to have minor issues. Both are $199.



Some people have had problems with the Viewsonic when using ATI graphics card, which I have (Radeon 5850).

For the ASUS, some people complain that the backlighting is really uneven from side to side.

Doing some more searching I found this deal:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo

After an initial glance it seems to have similar properties as the other two, it just happens to be $50 cheaper and comes with a keyboard and a mouse. It also has some widget crap that I couldn't care less about.

So should I be cheap and get the $150 that "seems" as good as the others?

Any of you guys have experience with these brands? I've had a Samsung for many years and have zero issues. My wife has an ASUS eePC and I suppose it's done alright.

Will it be easier for me to pwn bishes in BF3 with a 24" monitor?

*

Personally I would not go larger than 24" for a gaming monitor.

The two things I look at are response and contrast (after I find the resolution I like, and one with a DVI connection).

It's been a long time since I researched monitors so I forgot what all the GTG and other types of measurement are for response and all the marketing terms used for contrast ratio.

Honestly you want to save up a little more and get a 24" that is 1920x1200. The extra 180 pixels are well worth the price difference.

Hmmm...that gives me something to think about Shuiend.

What if my GPU isn't powerful enough to play the games I want to play (BF3 perhaps) at decent settings at 1920x1200? If I'm relegated to running at 1080 then I'll just have wasted the money on the monitor, that is until I bomb $300 on a GPU upgrade...

gpu alone wont do it, have to have a ok package over all.

I dropped ~900 in feb on a new pc. i run high beta settings and get 40+fps outdoors and +60 indoors. Most games i run at extreme with nothing under 40 fps

ZALMAN CNPS10X Performa 120mm Long life CPU Cooler
Asus VH238H Black 23" Full HD HDMI LED Backlight LCD Monitor w/Speakers
AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor HDX945WFGMBOX
HIS IceQ X Turbo H695QNT2G2M Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
MSI 870A-G54 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

Jeff-man, do you like your ASUS monitor? I guess I'm leaning toward the 24" ASUS as of right now.

My system is:

ASRock H61M/U3S3 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX MB
Intel i3-2100 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz dual core
Samsung F3 1TB HDD
Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1GB 256-bit GDDR5
Upgrading to 8GB DDR3 1333Mhz RAM (currently 4GB of the same)

I would guess our computers would perform pretty comparibly other than the GPU, your 2GB 6950 is probably quite a bit better than my 1GB 5850.

I assume I'll be able to play the game on decent settings at 1080 resolution. I'm not super worried about having all of the graphics maxed out.

I looked at the prices for the 24" 1920x1200 monitors and it seems like the price increase is not worth the resolution to me. The best deal I could find was a Samsung that was $300, but had lower contrast and 5ms response time. I think I'd rather have the much higher contrast and 2ms response time of the ASUS. To get the same contrast and response time in a 1920x1200 monitor would be big bucks. I think that money would be better spent upgrading my video card or getting a 2nd HDD so I could do a RAID 0 set up, or buy a SDD.

So many ways to spend money...

Honestly make sure you do a bit of research. That ASUS you posted before doesn't seem that great.

Response Time --- 2ms (GTG)

That's gray to gray. Which is the marketing way to make it sound good. For colors and it will be much higher.

The dynamic contrast ratio of the ASUS monitors piss me off as well. Depending on the amount of black it will dim the screen to give you a darker black. So the darks look darker because the screen is dim, but the colors and brights also look darker. So their 1000000000000000000:1 contrast ratio is basically BS.

The ASUS and ACER monitors have good reviews because they are mostly bought by people that either don't know what they are talking about. Or are giving them a good bang for their buck rating. I have two, because I needed them for my non gaming computers. But my gaming monitor is a very nice HP. You get what you pay for, there is a reason those monitors are so cheap.

I like this one personally:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824113024

CHEAP if you get it today. Reviews and specs seem good. No experience with them, but they are rated well by gamers.

I have this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...k=acer%20g235h

It works.

2 HD 6950s in crossfire
i7 3.5ghz
16gb ram
blah blah blah


Get a SSD. I wish I did that instead of another HDD for raid 0.


Edit: Actually, it seems that mine is no longer available, but that is the closest thing to it for the same price.

all this talk makes me want to build a new PC.

Do eet! Sandy Bridge is baller.

/thread

fuck you bra, my Asus is bad ass :giggle:

I really like it for gaming. As for 23" vs 24" there is really no difference. Get a screen that matches your play stile and location. 23" covers most of my field of view from where i sit but bigger i would need a deeper desk.

Bad idea. Have you ever measured the input lag of that thing? I guarantee it is terrible terrible.

If you want a big screen for gaming, look at Panasonic. Their new plasmas are excellent for gaming after you run break-in slides for 100 hours. Great contrast ratios and good bang for the buck. Their LCD tvs mostly use S-IPS panels which have excellent response times compared to the majority of the other manufacturers.

OP, what kind of mouse do you have? You'll notice a bigger difference response with a gaming mouse vs a marginally faster monitor.

I run a Dynex 37" 720p TV for my gaming monitor, as well as my 360 monitor and bedroom TV. I also have a couple of 20" ACERs that I got on sale at Best Buy's black friday sale a couple of years ago. I run them wall mounted, one over the other to the left of my main monitor for max gross productivity. By that, I really mean that I can play Black Ops and still see my iTunes and email, lol.

Hard to go wrong with Newegg reviews. Seems like ASUS really has some decent 24" monitors in the $200 price range. I was actually going to get three of these for a nice wrap around setup, but I couldn't source enough spare cash to do it when I wanted it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824236153

I currently have a 24" Samsung LCD, but it's closer to $500, so out of the price range. It has amazing color, contrast and sharpness. Response is a bit slow, but not too bad to really notice. I think my next monitor will be a 27" though. Always need bigger.

I have some crappy HP one that I got at Wal-mart after my dell one stopped working. So basically, I have a shit mouse.

What gaming one would you recommend?


All of these replies and now I'm less certain than I've ever been. I don't mind spending a bit more than $200 but I can't drop $500 on a monitor.

The last ASUS linked by NA6C does have good Newegg reviews. I guess I trust Newegg reviews more than Amazon...

Anyway, thanks for all of the replies.

Mouse pad
Razer Nage wireless

I like the naga so i can have butt load of thumb buttons. If you want a 3 months old inthe box wired one for $60 shipped i'll let it go

Anything more in my price range? That is I'm a casual gamer, I'm not looking to spend that much but I don't mind buying nice things...