HP LP3065: A new contender for the 30" throne

Response Times and Buffering

A topic that almost always comes up as a problem with LCDs is their slower response times relative to CRTs. There's no doubt that even the best LCDs still exhibit some slight pixel smearing, but the vast majority of users are okay with the level of performance we have available now. Image retention on your retinas also occurs to some extent, so even if you can completely eliminate the smearing effect at the display level you won't necessarily see a perfectly crisp transition.

Besides lag at the pixel level, there has also been discussion about a buffering lag that occurs within the LCD before the image is ever sent to the panel for output. This can be particularly noticeable on some HDTVs when connected to a computer, as HDTVs will often do a significant amount of image processing. Whether or not delays are caused by the internal circuitry or by the LCD crystal matrix taking a moment to align itself isn't really important; the end result is what matters, so a display that updates quicker is usually preferred, especially by gamers.

The Dell 2407WFP and Gateway FPD2485W LCDs advertise 16ms TrTf and 6ms GTG response times. The older Dell 2405FPW comes with a 12ms TrTf and 16ms GTG response time, which is sort of the opposite of what we see on most current displays. The 3007WFP lists 14ms TrTf and 11ms GTG, while the newer 3007WFPHC and the HP LP3065 rate 12ms TrTf and 8ms GTG response times. The Acer AL2216W comes with the fastest advertised response time of the displays we've tested so far, boasting a 5ms GTG response time, but it doesn't explicitly state a TrTf value. There are of course other LCDs that are rated even faster, and ratings aren't always accurate, so let's see how these displays compare in practical use.

We used the Dell 2407WFP as the "baseline" display, so it is on the left in all of the following images. We then started the first game demo from 3DMark03 and took numerous pictures, after which we selected several representing the best and worst case results that we could find. With all of the LCDs running a 60 Hz refresh rate, new frames are sent to the display every 0.017 seconds, so that's our granularity. Pay attention to the value of the Time field in the following screenshots, as that will show whether the two displays are showing the same frame or not. Results for the other displays are available at the following links:

Acer AL2216W #1 Acer AL2216W #2
Dell 2405FPW #1 Dell 2405FPW #2
Dell 3007WFP #1 Dell 3007WFP #2
Gateway FPD2485W #1

HP LP3065

Despite having the highest rated response times, the Acer AL2216W display actually appears slightly worse than most of the other displays in terms of response times. Internal lag, on the other hand, puts the Acer display at the top of the list, followed closely by both 30" displays. Between the two 30" displays, the LP3065 appears to suffer from less internal lag, consistently running about one frame ahead of the 2407WFP. However, pixel lag appears to be slightly worse on the LP3065, and there are several images where we can see very clear transitions.

Having said that, we never noticed any problems with pixel smearing during subjective testing, and it was only when we resorted to using a camera that we could capture the slight differences between the displays. It's entirely possible that we're getting old so that our eyes aren't bothered by a difference of 0.017 seconds. We strongly feel that most people won't have a problem with the slight image smearing that occurs on these LCDs, but this is something that will vary by individual. If you know you are bothered by image smearing, try out a display in person to see if it's suitable for your needs.