I'm looking to buy a new monitor(s) for my high spec gaming rig. The main decision is 1,2 or 3 screens. Should the screens be identical in multi setups? Is it worth having 120hz? The main usage will be gaming but I will use it for work too. Impotantly I won't be using it as my main movie screen. Is the 3008 Dell better than having 2+ screens? Is it worth having 1 120 hz with say u2410 aswell?
all those extra things such as 3 monitors, 120Hz or 3D are useless. Dell 30 incher, or NEC 30 incher are the way to go.
2 screens, like 2x 24inch gives you more work space, but games can only appear onto 1 displays, unless you have an ATI eyefinity capable card, or the Geforce GTX 400 series. It's really a personal preference. if you are interested in the U2410, have a look at the U2711. 27inch 2560 x 1440 screen resolution. It maybe cheaper than going with the 30inch, as an alternative. Is it worth having 1 120 hz with say u2410 aswell?[/QUOTE] 120Hz is not worth it. Yes it has advantages, but it also means terrible color, expensive, low quality TN panel. 120Hz is not for today in computer monitors. The U2410 monitor - which I have - is an amazing monitor for the price. Whath out for it, as it comes down on special a few times. For instance, in Canada, the monitor was 750$ and it drop down to 500$, making the monitor virtually free for what you get.
I agree with you in the fact that 120Hz and 3D arent quite there yet but having 1 display v 3 displays is right down to opinion alone, both have their up's and down's and personally, I'd go with the the 3 monitor's as the effect created during gaming is really something else. Any recent graphics card with 2 DVI ports is capable of gaming on 2 monitors, it's when you notch it up to 3 that eyefinity or Nvidia's future take on it will be required and this won't be limited to just GTX 400 but also GTX 200 cards. With Nvidia you will also need 2 cards in SLI as opposed to just 1 when adopting ATI's solution.
From what ive read people seem to be avoiding the u2711 because its 16:9 and not lcd backlit but im coming straight from 3:4 CRT so i dont know how much of a factor this will be to me. I probably wouldnt multi screen games much i just like to have a screen up for vent, video, poker just background apps so i dont need to tab around to get to them. As for setup im planning on buying the new nvidia fermi cards at the same time as the screens. My current feeling is u2410/u2711 with a cheaper 120hz tn panel on the side but i would use it to play fps as im pretty hardcore and the response times and smoothness are a big factor in to me much more than the actual image quality. Im just looking to play well rather than the game look spectacular! My main issue is how non identical screens "feel" as ive never run dual before i kinda think the symmetry is important somehow! One reason im hesitant to buy the 30inch screens is they are all ancient in computer terms and i like to buy more recently released hardware
It's 27inch, that is why.. if it was 16:30, then it would be 30inch. The issue with 16:9 are with 24inch displays... some are "24inch" 16:9 instead of 16:10 as they should. If you want 16:9 "24inch", while keeping a nice precision level, you have to go 23inch. LCD backlit? Oh you mean LED backlit. Well as I mentioned, LED backlight is junk. It's ideal for laptop as they consume less power and are very bright, ideal for outdoor view when the sun is behind you. Desktop, we don't care about power conservation, I mean unless you have a lot of power surge and you are depended of a generator or battery. LED backlit displays, are using simple white LED's. These white LED's are actually not white. We CANNOT, so far, today, produce real white LED's. What we have now, is very light colored blue LED's that is close to white, but still blueish. High quality CFLs are the way to go (which is on the U2410 and U2711 from Dell, and well basically any high end LCD's using CFL lamps), OR RGB LED's. RGB means Red, Green and Blue. Basically it's 3 or 4 LED's (the forth one is there for additional correction of a color that might be too strong in comparison to the others), which once turn on and mixed together, hgive you white. Exactly like a CRT monitor produces white, it mixes blue, green and red. A 2ms response time TN panel is equivalent to a 16ms response time of a IPS panel, to your eyes. As I explained in other posts on this forum, TN panels can only produce 6-bit colors (262 144 ), and not 8-bit (16 777 216) like a IPS or PVA panel can. To produce the missing colors, it take 2 colors near and flash them really really fast (2ms rate) in the vein hope to trick your eyes. Now add to that a moving pictures... now you have 16ms for your eyes. If I remember correctly, Wired has an article on this many months ago, demonstrating this. The statement, was however true in the old days (in technology time line), where IPS panels where slow.. about 25ms average, PLUS it's processing power to manage color accuracy was slow also, adding serious lag, especially on PVA panels. Today, this is not the case. The U2410 has at worst 30ms lag time.. again this is at worst..meaning you have your monitor set as Adobe RGB or sRGB color modes while playing a fast action game/video, and even then it's not all the time. And if you are THAT crazy to get near 0 input lag, you also always have an option in IPS panel to go in Video (or sometimes called Game) mode, where color accuracy processing is drop, doing a quick render. In the case, of the U2410 and it's 27inch equivalent brother, when you set in Video/Game mode, it makes the colors a little more blueish for movie and warmer for games, and dynamic lighting for a great movie/gaming experience. You can't have both, not with LCD technology. If you want 0 input lag, 0 ghosting, <1ms response time overall, color accuracy, sharpness:. you need to get a CRT monitor. This is the price to go with a big screen and thin desk saving solution. As a big fan of CRT, I had no choice to say buy buy to my wonderful CRT. The image was distorted, squished on the left side, but still I was holding on to it, as LCD technology sucked. If you wanted something close a CRT you had to pay 1500$ MINIMUM and I had to forget gaming on it. I was actually saving money for one for several years, but then came the U2410, and I am super satisfied. Now, my CRT is gone for ever. Dell could have sold it at 1000$ and I would find to be worth every penny. It is again, of course not perfect.. but it really bring a high end display with a TN high speed display into one, without any large sacrificing on either side. - Yes, it's not AS fast, with a potential of a 30ms input lag at worst if you are unlucky. - Yes, you don't have perfectly uniform backlit dispersion like those 20000$ monitor. But hey it's less than half the price of a super high end one. I can actually buy 2 of them! I had the money. But, 24inch is currently sufficient for me, and don't need more. For the best experience, it is best to order 2 screens are the same time of identical model, from the same place.
2x U2410s are the way to go. Or if you want some good 16:9 goodness the NEC 2690UXi is the way to go with it's whopping awesomely close to 100% Adobe RGB gamut. Still i'd say that the U2410 is an excellent choice, especially since it has almost no input lag, it has slightly better performance than the HP LP2475w pre-calibrated(they're almost equal), and it has less build quality issues as far as I'm concerned. Finally the Game mode on the U2410 and the U2711 although does reduce your color accuracy, makes for TN-like lag-lessness, and on the bright side, the picture quality is still miles above a fast TN panel. I'm still waiting for my RGB LED backlit LCD monitors..
Thanks for your input was incredibly helpful 2x u2410 it is then! Edit Having done a bit of browsing around to buy one ive noticed the different rev extensions like a01 ect. Do these have any importance to price or performance?
The newer the revision is, the better. The A01 Revision fixes some of the early issues, so it's better if you can get your hands on a newer model of the same model.
Correct A01 is a new version of the monitor. There are no hardware difference, it's just a firmware update fixing a bug. The bug is that Adobe RGB and sRGB shows dithering on dark gray colors. A01 has this solved. Everyone that has A00 can send back their monitor for a firmware upgrade. The problem is that Dell will not return your monitor, but instead give you back a refurbished monitor (a previously returned monitor, where Dell took it's time to upgrade them.. that means the monitor might have an issue (dead pixel, tinting issue, scratch, etc..). For me, this is no deal. Alternatively, it is to calibrate Custom color profile to sRGB or Adobe RGB and use that. This is what I did. As I don't need super ultra hyperly color accurate displays, I went by eye.. meaning I switch between Adobe RGB and Custom profile adjusting the settings until they both match. Others used a color calibrators which they already have. For me, I am very happy with what I did (let's say the deep discount of 250$ that I had, paid off for this issue). When you buy a new monitor you should have A01. To know if you have A01: Open the monitor box, install everything, and where the USB on the side there is a small panel that slide out, it will say if it's revision A00 or A01. The firmware update has been out several months now, it's most likely not going to be an issue. Meaning the chances that you get A00 is slim. Again, you can return the monitor.
How about getting the dell 3008wfp like me. Then when you have more money you can buy 2 x20" and run them either side of the 30" in portrait. This way you can game on either all 3 monitors, which is awesome, or run the 30" for gaming whilst surfin the net or running other apps on the side monitors. heres a link to my setup. http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=180303 Simon
the problem with dual monitor is the gap in the middle, even if you do eyefinity. true_gamer's setup is amazing and i think starting with a good 30incher is the way to go. as it creates much less dependency on drivers (compared against 3 displays) and doesn't require so much desk space
A single 30" over two 24"s any day. I have a single 24" now, and while I could use another 24" for my secondary rig/benchmark setup, I would never buy a second 24" screen for my main gaming build. Why? There's the damn gap in the middle and the setup would be way too wide for my liking.
What are the input lag/responce times and smoothness like on the 3008 and is there a chance there will be a 3011 or any other new 30" out soon?
8ms response. But then I haven't ever notice any input lag on my monitors. Games run very smooth. Don't think Dell will be bring out any new 30" yet. Can't find anything on it. tried 3009wfp, 3010wfp, 3011wfp, u3010, u3011. Simon
Dell has only 2x 30inch models: 3008WFP: 8ms response rate, not pre-color-calibrated like U2711 and U2410. Average input lag is 27ms - ghosting issue - 58ms max input lag, 46.6ms input lag on average, 36ms minimum. Review: http://www.behardware.com/articles/703-5/dell-3008wfp-hc.html 3007WFP: 16ms response time, not pre-color-calibrated like U2711 and U2410. Review http://www.behardware.com/articles/609-1/the-dell-3007wfp-30-inch.html I can't find input lag. Be prepared to get quiet a powerful GPU... I am not convince that a GTX 260 will be enough for max max gaming settings.. maybe you'll need SLI.
3008WFP would be my choice too, cause it seems to be the king when it comes to connectivity. Would be nice to have my pc and ps3 both connected at the same time. But the downside is the requirements for pc if you want to play games on high, or even medium settings...
The 3000WFP is indeed a great choice, but it's quite a challenge for most GPUs. Or you can grab the NEC LCD3090WUXi, which was even reviewed here!
