3D vs 27" ? Need help deciding.

[bdizzle11]

So I've been interested in upgrading my monitor for awhile now. I was thinking about doing it with some of my Christmas cash. I currently have an HP 2159m monitor, which has served me very well and I figure I could sell for at least $100. I currently have a gtx 570 and the rest of the specs are in my sig. I see myself as having three options here:

1. Upgrade to a 3d monitor - probably this one Asus 23" w/ Nvidia 3d vision Note that I would do the used like new condition for 318, and I have amazon prime so that would be the price. This one includes the nvidia 3d vision kit which is convenient.

2. Upgrade to a 27" 1080p monitor, as much as I would love 2560x1440 I dont have the money for that. I was thinking either the Viewsonic,HP, or the Samsung
Once again for all of these I would take a used like new condition price.

3. Stay pat with your 2d HP 21 inch monitor, its fine for now!

After selling my current one you can see im looking to spend a little over $200 or less for just the 27" ones. Any input is appreciated but would love to hear from people who were in a similar situation to me. Thanks!

 

[bystander]

I personally really like 3D, and I like 27's monitors. Maybe it would be worth saving up and getting a 27" 3D monitor at a later date so you get both options in 1.

 

[bdizzle11]

But I'm an impatient child! xD Ah another thing I just thought of is that i will be heading off to college next fall. I'm thinking a 27" screen would be more useful there than a purely gaming 3d screen. Maybe if I got a 3d screen and a 2x speed blu ray player so I could watch 3d movies also?

Edit: Lets say I got the 3d monitor combo, and this 3d blu ray player. I would be pretty happy with this thing for both gaming and watching movies when I go to college and now. If I were to do that I would probably sell my xoom tablet that I got for $220 to help pay for some of the extra cost. More thoughts?

 

[Enthusiast]

3D is ohgod awesome.
Get the VG236HE; it doesn't come with 3d Vision 1; and 3D Vision 2 is far, far superior to its predecessor.
The VG236HE is just the 3D monitor minus 3d vision, and its cost shows that.
It's $320, I think, and 3d Vision 2 is the same price as its predecessor.
GTX 570 is almost perfect, but if you have the money get something better. Arkham City spends a lot of time in the high-20's FPS range (and we both know we've spent too much money at this point to have to endure that), the reason being it has to render the frame twice. Same thing with AC:Revelations; at this point I just play ACR non3D and enjoy the glory of a constant 120FPS.

Personally I'd drop the blu-ray player (I don't exactly buy bluray, so maybe I have a warped perspective here) and get a better video card. It really is surprising how demanding 3D is.
(maybe sell your 570?)


On a related note, I want to ask you a question since you have an overclocked 570. What do you think about the reports of destroyed 570's on account of overclocking after only a slight increase in voltage (1.1v, which would be fine on any card)? Also, do you worry about VRM temps?

 

[bdizzle11]

First with the 570 questions: I am not at all an experienced with overclocking so after reading those reviews I decided to only do a minor overclock so I wouldnt have to change the voltage. I am just sitting at 800/1600/2000 clocks. Im sure I could push it even a bit more but I experienced some crashes when it was higher before. The reviews made me quite worried.
So as much as I would love to upgrade to a 580 or something of more power, I just really dont have the budget. Sure life-guarding pays well but hey...

As for buying the monitor separate and getting 3d vision 2, I would love to but it will end up running me about $100 more. The monitor alone will be 295 and then the kit will be 120 for for a total of 415. As opposed to the monitor with vision 1 which i can get in like new condition for 318. If I am told that this is that much better then maybe I will go for it, (or maybe it will depend if my shoes sell on ebay for 100+ )

I would really rather keep it closer to 300 though and when the 27" option is only ~250 its hard to justify the 3d vision 2.
Let me know what you think! Thanks

 

[runswindows95]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824254052

I've own of these for three years, and they are great monitors for the money. I rather the bigger screen than 3D myself.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

If you are going to sit at normal viewing distances and don't want a "grainy" screen, you'll be looking for a PPI of around 96 or so.....1920 x 1080 gives the following PPI

23.0" = 95.8
23.6" = 93.0
24.0" = 91.8
27.0" = 81.6

I wouldn't do anything bigger than 24" unless you gonna be sitting on ya bed rather than desk when viewing.

This saves some dough
DVD Writer - $ 58 - Asus Model BC-12B1ST/BLK/B/AS http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135247

My son has this upstairs....After seeing it....haven't played Arkham City w/ the glasses yet but the twin OC'd 960's haven't been strained by anything yet....so much so that I declocked the thing a lil bit few days ago.

$290 for the 3D Monitor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236104&Tpk=VG236HE

$150 for the 3D Vision kit
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814998061

As for the 570's, yes the VRM is.....shall we say ..... "not as robust" as in some of the other product lines.....not a small amount of folks have fried their 570's but most of these did so when exceeding manufacturer's voltage limits. I can't blame nVidia for this, they did exceed published limits, but as peeps have been doing this for years, I can understand why they upset when they "can't do what they have always done before". The 560's and even 580's have not resulted in anywhere near the levels of such reports but there will always be some peeps who push to far.

http://forums.gametrailers.com/thread/apparently-alot-of-gtx570-s-ar/1174871
http://www.overclock.net/t/929152/have-you-killed-a-570-no-recent-deaths-buy-some-570s/550

Look at the 2nd post above.....the MSI Frozr and Gigabyte factory OC'd cards use the reference VRM (4+2) w/ a bigger cooler. The Asus and Gainward models however have custom VRM's (6+2 designs) like the 580 which the author reports he could find no failures.....so the saying "your mileage may vary" applies depending on what cad ya bought.

Here's one set of settings for the Asus (6+2) design

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/asus_gtx570_review/4.htm

In the end, we were able to up the core clock to an impressive 933MHz. Unfortunately we weren't able to get as large of an increase out of the memory clocks. We were however, able to up the memory speeds to 1092MHz. Last but not least, the shader clocks. The factory overclock put the ASUS GTX 570's shader clock at 1484MHz. We of course wanted to see a large increase in clock speeds, and that's just what we got. We were able to increase the shader clock speeds to 1866MHz.

 

[bdizzle11]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824254052

I've own of these for three years, and they are great monitors for the money. I rather the bigger screen than 3D myself.

Oh man that looks like a great monitor. I like the 1920x1200 res also. And for the price... unfortunately i have $150 in amazon gift card money that I was looking to spend, and the monitor is $20 from amazon... so that is a $20 that I really don't need to spend. Gah, such a hard decision between everything. Im now looking at maybe getting a cheaper 3d monitor if they exist and a 3d vision 2 kit.

 

[bdizzle11]

The PPI stuff is nice to see, really makes me want to stay away from the 27" option. I was already kind of leaning away from that because I wan't something different and I feel like I would just get used to that after a short while. Thanks JackNaylor.

Its frustrating how expensive the 3d vision 2 kit is. Thats why the appeal of the bundle for only 318 is so high. Jack can you speak to the difference in 3d vision 1 and 2 and is it really worth it? I recognize that the brightness would be nice to have but other than that it seems like they just tried to make the glasses more comfortable...

 

[bystander]

DPI is overrated. I'm not saying it's bad, but 1080p with a 27" monitor at normal distances is not grainy in the slightest. Higher is better I'm sure, but that also means you need more power to support it with good frames. I'd much rather have 120hz at 1080p and 27" then higher DPI and low hz. For gaming at least.

The point about getting a 3D monitor without the kit is so you can get your 27" monitor now, with 120hz, and later, when you can afford it, step into 3D after buying the kit.

 

[bdizzle11]

So I've always been confused about this... can any 120hz monitor be used for 3d with nvidia 3d vision?

 

[bystander]

The ones that are Nvidia certified usually have a built in transmitter, so all you'd need is the glasses. Those without the transmitter will require the 3D kit that comes with a transmitter. It is also important to note that you do need a DL-DVI connection to utilize 120hz at 1080p. 120hz TV's as far as I'm aware, do not have any available that offer DL-DVI connections, so they do not work at 1080p.

 

[bdizzle11]

Best answer selected by bdizzle11.