Build Advice Building a new system(First in 5 years)

WOW NICE!
Can you provide a picture looking in front, where the background is fully black (with minimum and 50% brightness).
From the picture you have, I can see a bit of light bleeding on the corner, which is totally normal and expected for an IPS screen of under 1-2k US/Can for this size. I am curious on how it compares with my U2410, granted it's not an exact test as it's a different light, so the illumination isn't the same. So my minimum can be brighter or lower than yours, but it's just to get an idea.

So far I am nicely impressed, you can really the color difference...
I am definitely going to add it in my list of recommendations

 

Is it me or is that a bit of a small case for such a large build. I have a Fractal R3 don't get me wrong its a great case but I think you'd want something a little more substantial for such a build. Perhaps this:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/coolermaster-atcs-840-black-classic-full-tower-aluminum-case-w-o-psu

or this?
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/silv...l-tower-aluminium-case-with-ap181-fan-w-o-psu

I personally love the Silverstone

 

I'll do it when i provide the written review.

It's actually less light bleed in real life than what it looks like in the pictures.

Yeah as I said earlier I can reccomend this right now without giving it a second thought.

 

I'm actually planning to build a couple of scratch built cases later this year. But ironically the PC I have now isn't powerful enough to model them

 

Yea, because the camera auto-adjust system kicks-in, and thinks it's something you are trying to show in pith black or near that. You need to play with manual mode features of the camera.
What I am looking at is how far the corner back light bleed reach the center, to get an idea of the level. I am sure in real life is close to null at a brightness level that doesn't make you blind.

 

All the pictures in the dark is shot with 1/8 shutter time, f3.5 @ ISO 100

All the pictures in the lighted room is shot with 0"8 shutter time, f3.5 @ ISO 100

 

I'm gonna have to post pone my pictures of the light bleed with a all black screen until I get my laptop back from repairs.

Trying to convert RAW files to JPG on this thing is a no-go with the very low light pictures. It gets some crazy amounts of noise.

What would you like to see in the written review, I'm not used to writing them so some points to review would be great.

 

Ideally something like this:
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/nec_ea232wmi.htm

But obviously, no one expects detail data and analysis reports, as you don't have the equipment. View angles are covered already so you can skip that.

Things you can talk about is the menu navigation, is it easy to navigate through, hows the white screen? what adjustment and connection feature it has. Does it have any dead or stuck pixels, does it have a tint issue (visible on white, at an angle.. where you see green or pink strongly). To your eyes how the calibration out of the box, what options do you have under the custom profile, do you only have Red, green and blue to adjust, or you have more options? If more option, which one you have. If you have any games, how does it compare against your previous monitor or experience, do you see any ghosting issue, or input lag?

I think that would be a great review... better than more sites out there anyway.

 

Please note that I've not installed drivers or any software as this is not my usual rig. So I might not have all the options available.

menu navigation:

The menu system is great. Easy to navigate once you get the hang of the touch buttons. That’s right touch buttons. Each button is marked by a small white-ish dot on the bezel. The markings are small and doesn’t disturb the overall look of the screen and bezel. Another nice touch is that you can turn on and off the LED that indicated if the screen is on or off in the menu system. This allows the screen to be on without any distracting lights.

One thing tho, the menu is a bit harder to navigate in a dark room since there is no physical buttons, luckily the touch buttons on the bezel is correct in relation to the menu on screen, so once you’ve entered the menu you can just press beneath the icon on the screen on the bezel.

how’s the white screen:

Not quite sure what you mean here. If you’re talking about the image showing when you turn it on or off. It’s a nice logo that says: LG IPS The Premium Display.

what adjustment and connection feature it has:

There’s not much adjustment on this monitor stand just tilt. This isn’t a issue for me as I’m gonna mount these on the wall.

The connection features are VGA, DVI-D ,HDMI and 3,5mm audio-out jack. These are found directly beneath the VESA-mount which is great for cable manage ment on walls and LCD-arms.

The VESA-mount it self however is a whole other story. The bottom half of the screen is thicker than the top, this will force you to use some small plastic bits which are included if you are gonna mount it on the wall. I for one think think I’ll make some brackets just to be on my safe side(High standard ) The long screws for the top half of the VESA-mount was too short to fit on my brackets, but they are about 4mm thick.

Does it have any dead or stuck pixels, does it have a tint issue:

None! Flawless display, I’ve never seen a monitor this good on a computer.

how the calibration out of the box:
It’s better than any TN-panel right out of the box, I however prefer the sRGB-mode. There’s also user, movie, text and photo mode

what options do you have under the custom profile:

General:
There’s Brightness, contrast, sharpness and black level which is grayed out as we speak (currently on low)


Color temperature and gamma settings:
You have color temp presets (warm, medium and cold), you also have user settings. These allows you to change color temperature in RGB or Red, Green ,Blue, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow which you can adjust both hue and saturation on.

There’s also gamma options. The options are Gamma 1.8, 2.0 , 2.2, 2.4, 2.6 and 2.8.

Of Course there’s vertical and horizontal position and auto-adjust.

You can also change clock and phase.

There’s also a overscan option but is grayed out as we speak.

If you have any games, how does it compare against your previous monitor or experience, do you see any ghosting issue, or input lag:

I haven’t played any games yet as I’m currently on my GF’S old pc, but watching 1080p videos in clone screen mode I haven’t noyiced any lagging, trailing or input lag.

 

hey guys, just a question
those IPS monitors look really amazing, but is 8ms response time an issue for gaming or fast moving objects and ghosting? (eg. a football leaving a trail behind it etc etc)

 

Ye syou do have all the options. Monitor don't have drivers. All it does is install a color profile for programs that supports it (MS Office, PhotoShop, and other picture editor, your web browser (all of them), Windows Photo Gallery, and more) for better picture representation.
Depending on your monitor, it might makes things worse or not. Try an see.

Wow! sound like the Dell U2410 and up monitors (all U series are using LG panels). But what is cool with the Dell monitors that has the touch feature, is as soon as you bring somewhat close your finger to the menu "button", it illuminate for you to locate it, and every "button" illuminate a light, for you to see them. You can't turn off the power button, but the LED is a smooth and soft blue light... so it's all good (Dell knows how to use blue LED's. Most manufacture put super ultra bright blue LED's beyond belief... might as well be a laser pointing at your eyes... arrggg). So it's pretty too to see how essentially everything is the same between the LG monitor and the Dell U series. I am sure the menu looks different, but wow, it's so close.

I meant have a full screen white color (when you have your computer back, of course).
Like so:

Yea keep sRGB, which is probably pre-calibrated, or close to correct, which is good enough if you don't need pin point color accuracy. The other modes are usually crap.

On my U2410 they are:
> Standard -> store shelf settings.. everything brownish and over saturated
> Multimedia -> Standard but more yellow and blue
> Game -> average colors thorough, with a focus on the brown, and dynamic contrast ratio is turned on.
> Warm -> well warm... pale colors, yellowish...
> Cool -> very blue. It is smoother to the eye, I guess its good if your eyes are tired and working late night, and don't need any color accuracy.
> sRGB -> WOW - nicely calibrated (any pros would still re-calibrated it them-self), but never the less)
> Adobe RGB -> sRGB with a hint of more red, and a slight increase in saturation. I think because my monitor is wide gamut, if I set it to sRGB, icons in Windows, and games look pal'ish and washed out a bit... but real photos (with the monitor color profile loaded) looks AMAZING! So when I am not designing a web site or drawing or editing pictures, I just use Adobe RGB and Windows default color profile.
> Custom.

Custom profile looks like has the same options (+- 1 or 2 options maybe) as you.
I don't have any gamma settings, other than "PC" and "Mac" modes..
"Mac" boost the gamma. I guess the OS treats color differently, or used to.

The U2311H and up has Graphic and Video mode. Under Video mode, you have as color profile: Movie, Game, Nature. When set on Video mode (or also called Game mode), the color processor is turned off, to reduce input lag.

That is because you are using VGA connection, These will disappear when you attach your monitor properly to a digital port like DVI (or HDMI or Display port), which don't need that. And

you'll enjoy a slightly better picture, more sharper also.

Are you a hard core FPS gamer that have twitch reflex beyond normal?
If not, then even if you play FPS here and there, or even semi-seriously, you won't notice anything. Heck I passed from a CRT, which has 0 ghosting, 0 input lag, and the refresh rate is color switch is the speed of light (cathode ray cannon projecting the image, hence the big tube), and I didn't notice a thing when I got my U2410, even if I set it to (which is 90% of time) Adobe RGB or sRGB color profile which provides the higher input lag (30ms) that the monitor is recorded to do. I don't notice anything in FPS games. But I am not a crazy FPS guy. I just like to play for the fun of it, not be the best of the best. I do play quiet a bit of games on my system, and I can tell you, you don't notice anything.

The Dell U2410 has a 6ms response time.

I beleive that anything above 16ms you don't notice. It is critical for TN panels, as they can only porduct 6-bit colors in reality (so 262 144 colors instead of 16 777 216 colors). To produce the missing color, it takes 2 colors that it can produce and switch between them in the vein hope to trick your eyes. Sadly your eyes can see several billion colors and your brain can process all of that at crazy speed. So that why TN panels appear to have it's colors all crappy. Now mix that switching thing system, with a moving picture... and it would seam that the response time is slower.

As IPS and *VA panels can output 8-bit colors (well most of them, as they are some strange exceptions), it's no problem. As most IPS and PVA panels have a color processor, this causes a high input lag than TN panels (and also the panel itself, but it's not a big part of it). Some monitor you have some "Game" mode which disables the color processor. The color processor essentially assures that every pixels outputs the correct color.

Even under the highest input lag settings, even when watching a DVD movie, like Born Identity series with the ultra shaky and fast moving camera, 0 ghosting visible even up close. You don't notice it.. as 30ms is really nothing. Yea, ok fine, you do see a minor, if you look rreeaaaallly closely and have a CRT next to you to compare.. or have 1 eye on the CRT and the other on the monitor. But you'll also see the CRT flicker like crazy, despite setting is at 85Hz (or 60Hz, if you never discovered the settings to increase it, or have a crappy CRT)

I strongly believe that colors is better than speed. Games look better, pictures look better, movies looks better, heck even your desktop wallpaper looks awesome (assuming you don't use XP where it's default wallpaper are super compressed JPEG pictures of the size of might as well be 40x40, stretch like no tomorrow, to easy the CPU in drawing the background (and reduce size on the disk and memory)