New Monitors time.. eni meni mini mo

[JMFD]

After a crazy amount over overtime this month, its time to ditch my huuuge 20" crt for a couple of tfts. Measuring my desk, I can just about fit 2 22" and my tower ;)

I've been looking at a fair few, with LG being heavily promoted. However, I've been told by a few people I know that they've ended up having them replaced a number of times now.

I play a lot of games, RPGs, MMOS,RTSs mostly, and love having 2 screens at work, so 2 is definately the way ahead. I spotted this baby on another site (sorry nova, you don't have it!) http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/5399087/H ... oduct.html (http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/5399087/Hanns-G-Verona-22-Widescreen-LCD-Monitor-With-HDMI/Product.html), but not sure if to go with it, an LG, a Samsung or a Dell

Heelp!

[Jonny2Bad]

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/spec ... ?LG-W2252T (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?LG-W2252T)
Have too be that 1 for me i was gonna get 1 myself but the 4870 has pushed in the queue just b4 said monitor. Great contrast ratio, great response time, great gaming monitor

[matz]

as johnny said,

novatech has always trusted LG and have had not many bad pixels or anything like that from there products

i was going to advise another monitor but for the same price, its 10k to 1 contrast with 2ms.. thats bursting so many birds with one stone dude


LG _ The way Forward ----->

[JMFD]

Payday has arrived and its out of stock :(

My only real concern is a few people I know have had to have repeated replacements for breaking LG tfts - are they just unlucky?

[system7]

Unlucky? More likely the sort of numpties who wipe the screen with a soggy dishcloth when it's live... :lol:

[JMFD]

waaait... you're NOT supposed to do that? ;)

The main guy in question is a Software Engineer, so probably not that stupid ;)

[JMFD]

I've just found out work has had an influx of these monitors.. from novatech ;) Unfortunately not my dept :( I did get a chance to play with them though :D

[system7]

novatech has always trusted LG...

LG _ The way Forward ----->
Does Matz get paid by these people? :P

It is really nice to have a couple of different monitors alongside each other. I was shocked just how bad my old Medion 17" was alongside my lovely 19" widescreen Samsung. But in hindsight I'd have got 22"+ for browsing the net. A height of just 900 pixels is cramped.

[Jonny2Bad]

Lol you'd think so wouldnt you, does nova spam? Employ him quick lol

[JMFD]

Before I take the plunge... is my 7950gt going to be able to cope running 2 of these? ;)

[Jonny2Bad]

Playing what?

[JMFD]

Guild Wars & Wow mostly (not at the same time ;)) I'd generally have one active as game, and one as browser.
Other games I play off and on are NWN2, C&C - Red Alert 2,

[Jonny2Bad]

Yeah it should be ok anything else and it would struggle though.

[JMFD]

It'll be new computer (or at least new graphics card/processor) time before the next major games change ;) GW2 is betaing in 2009 and WOTLK shouldn't have a much higher req than current WoW. AoC and LoTR online I tried and didn't like, and there's not much on the horizon that calls to me.
I do sometimes dual-account run GW (registry edits ftw), but turn settings down on the secondary account anyway (alt tabbing at the moment).

[Jonny2Bad]

Well as with all things like this the only way to find out is too try, now is a great time to upgrade gfx cards as they are sooooo cheap and good at the moment it would be too much of a hardship if you did.

[JMFD]

hmm i'll have a looksee at the cardies. (8800gt ,maybe..)

Monitors first though :)

[TheTranquilEye]

Dead pixels were mentioned earlier in the thread, so I thought I'd add this:

I bought a 22" Viewsonic from Tesco at a knockdown price as it was the (excuse the pun) display model. I got extra money off as it had a dead pixel on the far right of the screen. I spoke to one of our hardware guys at work and he got me to gently massage the pixel with my fingernail. After a few seconds, it disappeared and hasn't come back even after 4 months. And I saved £25... 8)

[Jonny2Bad]

hmm i'll have a looksee at the cardies. (8800gt ,maybe..)

Monitors first though :)
I'd stretch to a 4850 if at all possible, far more power for only £20 more. :wink:

[JMFD]

But.. thats ati..........(Always had nvidia cards)

hopefully my 7950 will cope, we'll see when the shiney monitors get back in stock.

And thanks for the bad pixel advice :)

[JDowdall]

but... it's better... than the nvidia cards.... :P

[Jonny2Bad]

Yeah it's all over the nvidia cards up till the new gtx260. Ive had nvidia cards for the last 3 sets of cards but they no longer rule the roost :wink:
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=14

[JMFD]

Yummy monitor arrived this morning, annoyingly only had time to set up one before having to go to work. soooo pretty! Had a very quick stint in Guild Wars :D Minor hicup was having to leave my current monitor attached on one channel at first as the nvidia control panel didn't let the display automatically swap to the new shiney monitor til I told it to ;)
Last night (on old monitor) I was getting a number of graphical anomolies on several games. Think the heat's getting to my graphics card, which doesn't hold much hope for it running 2 22"'s without crying .

[Jonny2Bad]

I feel a 4850 coming on :wink:

[JMFD]

So far so good, apart from my idiot of a boyfriend managing to spill a bit of icecream on the corner of one :( Wiped up straight away but appears to be a bit of residue left, nabbing some specialist cleaner tommorrow :S

[Jonny2Bad]

Hi jmfd did you go for the lg that i suggested? Let me know how good it is please im gonna be getting 1 next week with any luck.

[JMFD]

yep I did - 3 of them in fact! (dual screen for me and 1 for my bf). No problems so far other than the ***y icream dot :P Even ran WoW on one screen and GW on the other with no noticeable detiriation in quality :)

[Jonny2Bad]

Nice looking forward to getting mine, but must get a new psu 1st so my son can have mine to run his sli 8800's 1st. :cry:

[JMFD]

After the initial glee, I've noticed slight problems with what appeared to be vsynch, but graphics settings on card and on the application are set to "vsynch on". I've noticed a few times now on guild wars, I'm getting a slight delay in a parts of the upper screen as it refreshes to the next frame when turning.

[system7]

If you're running two monitors and VSync, you're bound to get glitches if you ask me.

System7 tonight wishes to pontificate upon the question of Graphics Cards artefacts. :roll: :P

These are caused by graphics memory chips which have been damaged by overheating around the 90C mark. The only workaround is to downclock the graphics card so that the reduced speed ability of these chips is less of a problem.

The wise computer buff takes no notice of those who say graphics running at 110C is OK. It's not. Nvidia and ATI reference designs are equally bad in this respect. Those who advise the hot running ATI HD 4870 cards are doomed to the same thermal death in the long run.

The truly enlightened will search out a properly designed non-reference design like the Palit/XpertVision 9800GT Sonic cards:
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/5797/pal98gtson05sst8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

These are, in a word, Cool.

Now available at Novatech, despite the misleading picture:
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?NOV-98GT5S

[Jonny2Bad]

Yes 7 a 7950gt is running those 2 monitors also so i think there is bound to be that sort of thing happening tbh. And yes i have flashed my bios on my 4870 so mine now idles at a cool 50-51c whatever the weather. And just touching on 60 when loaded. Oh clever jonny lol. Much better than the idle of 70 when i got it lol

[system7]

Well, of course jonny, I was aiming my tirade/rant at our very own popular ATI 4870 zealot... :wink:

This cooling improvement on the ATI does bode well for the 4870, however. Always takes a while for a product to mature.

[JMFD]

Yeah, turned down the graphics settings and happened a LOT less. New card time when I get back from holidays!
Been monitoring temps of the gcard, highest was 59c

[Jonny2Bad]

Yes they are hanging on for a fan fix but i found my own, just reflash the bios on the card changing some settings and away we go, still needs some fine tuning on my part but its good enough for me at the moment.

[Jonny2Bad]

Yeah, turned down the graphics settings and happened a LOT less. New card time when I get back from holidays!
Been monitoring temps of the gcard, highest was 59c
Yeah i thought it may struggle with those 2 big uns there lol. That temp is fine i would say.

[system7]

Graphics cards often come with a pretty good warranty, JMFD.

Small print like no overclocking, having the original packaging and filling in the registration card.

But worth checking. BFG are very good, for instance. Those memory chips won't get any better, even if you do underclock. :|

[JMFD]

its Gainward Bliss, I'll investigate when I get home. On the plus side, ice cream residue is off after finally finding tft cleaner that listed its ingrediants so I could check for ammonia and alchol ;)