What to look for in a Monitor?

hmm paper specs dont really tell you enough about any monitor, ideally you'd want to see them in the flesh to see if they are up to what you want from a monitor. I have several samsungs, a lot of people swear by them, my wife loves them.

Personally I cant stand gaming on the samsung screens, but thats not a samsung issue thats a technology issue common to all desktop LCD's, narrow viewing angles, uneven colours and huge pixel pitchs are all things I cant stand.

Monitor selection is a critical choice, its your primary interface with the computer, what you want depends on what you are doing with the display. Despite my hatred of LCD's for gaming quality I love them for office and desktop use, Im typing this from a nice non-TN (nice wide viewing angles by LCD standards)Sony unit fantastic for internet and office use - headache inducing for gaming.

My CRT running at high resolution would induce eye strain if I spent 8 hours reading text on it  

Yeah I know CRT's are better but I dont have the room for it. It's mainly for gaming but It's not for FPS games, and FPS games are the ones who are effected by what kinda monitor you have from what I understand.

What about contrast ratio? I heard the higher the better.

Also I'm still confused about the contrast ratio on that link, is it 20k:1 or 1k:1?

Another thing, this monitor has speakers on it ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... ) and last time I had a monitor with speakers on it I would echo people in Vent and I couldnt figure out a way to make it stop. Anyone know if this is a problem with all monitors w/ speakers?

i would get a LG 22" with 3000:1 and 2ms it is a very nice montior for gaming. i use the montior for my gaming needs and it does a very good job. also when i had to rma my 20"1 very friend tech support and fast rma service. so Lg has my vote on a awesome gaming montior

But a screen with 20k:1 ratio would be much more clear right?

my lg montior is the clearest montior i have ever used in my life. it has very good color. and the text is very very clear and the 2ms will help with games

ERYX24; Just type the model number of the monitor into your search bar and read the reviews.
BTW 20000;1 is B*****ks, no monitor has that sort of contrast, all the more reason to read the reviews.
Your best bet is to go to the local computer stores and actually see the monitors on display or in use.
We all see the world differently, so what is good for one may not be good for you, so, again, try to actually SEE the monitors working.

Alright I'll do that but how is it BS? Look at the links I posted plz.

Samsung monitors are, in fact, very good for gaming PCs. The low latencies and good color accuracy, as well as fair prices make them good at what they do. I'm typing on a Samsung SyncMaster 2053BW, and I love it.

Anyone know anything about contrast ratios? Is 20k:1 good? What should I look for

The main thing is to look at reviews or see it in person if possible. You can't really tell much from specs alone.

What matters as far as contrast is concerned is static contrast ratio. 20k:1 is impossibly good for static, so it must be dynamic. The static contrast ratio is probably more like 1000:1 or 1200:1, which is fine.

Well the specs on the monitor (the one I linked on my first post) shows 20000:1(1000:1). What does that mean, that it's really 1000:1?

If you search on wikipedia for contrast ratio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_contrast_ratio it shows there are 2 different types of contrast ratio, Dynamic and Static. Dynamic is "ratio of the luminosity of the brightest and the darkest color the system is capable of producing over time." Static is "the ratio of the luminosity of the brightest and the darkest color the system is capable of producing simultaneously at any instant of time."

Im guessing the 20000:1 is dynamic and the 1000:1 is the static. Im not really sure if that is good or not because I haven't a clue myself just thought it would help distinguish the two ratios.

if im looking for a monitor to buy i want the best possible resolution @ first. then picture quality, then the extras.

i was actually looking @ this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

since it can offer me a wider resolution than most 22" (1920x1080 vs 1680x1050), which will help me in Race Driver Grid (better cornering), and some other RTS ( i have a habit of building my bases sideways).

in the end it still depends on what you need.

That means that the static is 1000:1, which is the far more important spec than the dynamic contrast ratio. That's fine btw - as long as it is over about 800:1, it'll look pretty good.

How is a higher resolution going to help you with cornering in Race Driver Grid???

lol

Would you notice a difference between a monitor with VGA vs DVI input?

Yeah CRTs are bad for your eyes, which is why I'm pushing to get an LCD at work. I got P.O.'d when they took my old 19" CRT and gave me that dumb Dell 15" CRT because it "matched the dell computer". Like seriously they chucked my good monitor because the outside of it looked crummy (white plastic being not so white and what not). For that reason I use my slower laptop most of the time at work since it's LCD won't strain the eyeballs. Anyway I still game on my NEC 19" MultiSync 97F CRT, because its nice to change resolutions on the screen without worrying about it looking crappy for not being it's "native resolution". Ah glorious 19" CRT 120Hz color and lighting goodness, even if I rarely use it's highest setting of 1600x1200.

Speaking of that if you want to get an LCD monitor and play games on it you need to consider the native resolution. The higher the resolution, the more powerful a GPU you will need to cope with it. As people have said, paper specs don't mean alot for LCDs and you should go to somewhere like BestBuy or CompUSA to see them operating in person. Generally Samsung is the best but viewsonic is pretty good too. HansG is a pretty good lower cost brand as far as how it looks but I don't know how reliable they are.

@megaman, I'm planning on getting an Nvidia 260 216 core or a 285 to go with a 1920x1080 monitor. Pretty sure that'll be enough.

Another question I have is monitors who come with speakers usually end up sending an echo when you talk to people through programs like Ventrilo, is there a way to stop this? The obvious answer would be to turn the speakers off but my friend had a monitor like this and even when he turned them off he would still echo other people.

one word. APEX.

(thats assuming you're playing with the in-car view  )