Hi been toying around with building a new rig capable of playing HD films for a while, and therefore have been looking at getting a 24" monitor to go with it hoping to go with a PVA panel for the viewing angles and torn between these two:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/show [...] subcat=510
or this one
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/show [...] subcat=510

Being a cheap skate I favour the OCUK for £100 quid less and hoping I get lucky with back ligh bleed/dead pixels, however it lacks 1:1 pixel mapping. Is the options for scaling using the cards drivers reliable alternative to getting a monitor with this function? I'm asking as he brought a large LCD TV to use as a monitor and he had problems with the desk top and games "spilling" over the edge of his screen, and the driver option didn't seem to work with out using a registry tweak which you have to restart the computer each time you use.
Just wondering if there are drivers out there which have this problem solved in which case I'll go with the OCUK monitor but if it's still iffy I'm wondering if the extra £100 is worth it.

Thanks for any advice.

If HD films are high on your list, you might want to consider a Radeon. Ati's traditionally have better TV scaling.

In addition, if you're using Windows XP - you'll want a Radeon for sure, because image quality enhancements like noise reduction and jaggy reduction don't work on Geforces in XP... Geforce HD image quality enhancements only work in Vista.

So if you have the 8800 and like your HD, upgrade to Vista!

Ah cheers for the reply thinking of taking the plunge with vista 64 as I've heard it's got some good features for media and secondly I'm not sure I've got this right but it's nessicary for HDCP compliance?
Have been very tepted by the HD3800 serise as I'm building it in an Antec Fusion and I know people have managed to shoe horn them in and the air flow can cope with their temps, but I'm foolishly hoping to still use the rig to play the odd game so figured the extra muscle off the 8800gts might be worth wile it shoould just about fit and I'm hoping the blower cooler will help reduce the case temps by dumping most the hot air out side the case, if it seems a little warm might try adding a PCI slot coller next to it too but fingers crossed it won't be needed.

If what I'm hoping to do seems rathr foolish or you reckon the HD3800 serise can offer enough grunt for my purposes I'm listening

This might sound strange but I wouldn't count on image quality enhancements working on Vista 64. This is one of those things you assume will work, but I also assumed HD video IQ enhancements would work for XP like they do in Vista 32. Vista 32 might also be more compatible for games if you're into that... but I'm curious about Vista 64 and wether or not Geforce (or Radeon for that matter) HD image postprocessing features work on that OS with those drivers.

I think I'll run some tests on Vista64 with HD postprocessing, although it might take me a month or two.

You're right though, the 8800 GTS 512MB is a great gaming card.

The older 320 and 640MB versions are strong too, but no stronger than the Radeon 3870.