Mid-Range Buyer's Guide, September 2005

Display Recommendations

The final area that we want to discuss is the display choice. We've abandoned CRTs, as innovation has pretty much ceased, and the quality is getting worse relative to three years ago. LCDs are attractive, lightweight, space saving, and supposedly easier on the eyes over extended use. If you already have a good CRT, it might be worth keeping, and there are still some older model 21/22" CRTs that are worth buying, but we won't recommend any specific model here as supplies are limited. If you're looking for a large CRT, try to find one that has a 140 kHz horizontal scan rate or higher - that will allow 85Hz refresh rate at 2048x1536. Now, let's get to our LCD recommendation.

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Base LCD Recommendation: Acer AL1914smd-8 19 inch 8ms LCD
Price: $301 shipped (Retail)

The Acer AL1914smd is an 8ms response time LCD that performs very well in games and other uses. (At least it does to my less than stellar eyesight.) There are other LCDs that perform similarly or better, but they cost more. We've recommended the Acer display in previous Guides, and we have not yet found an LCD that can beat it on price/performance. The 6-bit color panel isn't the best, but most people won't notice the dithering that takes place. In addition, few people will experience problems with motion blur given the low response times. Of course, 8ms displays are no longer that special.

If you're willing to spend the money, you can now get sub-8ms response times - assuming that the marketing department is telling the truth. Viewsonic and several others are advertising 6ms and lower response times - Viewsonic even claims 3ms gray-to-gray response times on their VX924 19" unit. Some people are not bothered by motion blur even on 16ms LCDs, but others may notice it and may find it distracting. If you are irritated by motion blur with LCDs (try a few out in person), the 3ms GTG Viewsonic should remedy that problem. We must admit that with a refresh rate of 60 or 75 Hz for all the LCDs that we've used, we're a little curious to know how a 6ms response time can be measured, but hopefully, the worst case color transitions will still be under 12ms. However, getting a 19" LCD may not be the best idea - for gaming or business use.

Our advice is to get the absolute best display that you can afford and stick with it for a long time. I used a 21" CRT for 8 years (through at least as many computers), so quality vs. time is definitely in favor of buying a high-end display. My own upgrade just recently was to a Dell 2405FPW, and it's great - hopefully it will last at least five years, if not more. You don't need to go out and spend $900 or more on a display, but many people do just that. If you stick with the base 19" LCD recommendation, you'll be CPU/platform limited in the majority of games with a 7800 GT. For professional work, the native 1280x1024 resolution can also be limiting, although you can always go with dual LCDs if you need more screen real estate. We would strongly urge enthusiasts and power users to at least look at the 20" or larger range.

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Upgraded LCD Recommendation: Dell 2005FPW
Price: Varies; look for under $500 sales

The Dell 2005FPW and 2001FP are a couple of great choices if you can grab one on sale for $500 or less. (Sales happen frequently on these parts, but they also sell out fast.) The 2005FPW is widescreen with a 1680x1050 native resolution, while the 2001FP is a standard 1600x1200 display. We'd go for the 2001FP, but it frequently costs $75 to $125 more than the 2005FPW, so it may not be worth the premium.

HP has similar sales on their LCDs, though they're usually still more expensive than Dell. Truly high-end users might even consider picking up something like the Apple 30" Cinema Display, though you'll need a card with a dual-link DVI connection for that. 7800 GT/GTX cards have one dual-link, as do several of the Quadro cards. Do some research before going this route. Long story short (too late!), it's basically very difficult to overspend when buying a quality display. It's one of the few components that can last half a decade or more without upgrades.

Just to reiterate, the Acer display that we've chosen to recommend is a good-not-great LCD. Upgrade to something better if you can spare the money and you won't be disappointed. Widescreen LCDs can be really nice as well, but getting games to work can prove frustrating. We suggest that you take a look at websites like the Widescreen Gaming Forum to make sure that the games you play are fully supported before going that route. We'd like to think that all future games will offer native support for WS resolutions, but Battlefield 2 has shown that even high profile games may not include proper support.