21" Samsung LCD - Anyone using to Play Games

[biglawdog1]

Really been doing the research on buying an LCD monitor. Of course, there's hardly any definitive studies on em and overall, the lCD reviews Ive read have caused me to shy away from em. Right now, though, I've beenl ooking at the 21 inch samsung- I've found it for a good price and Game PC seems to like it - though the refresh rate is 25 MS.

Has anyone on hear purchase the 21" Samsung and used it for gaming? If so, what are your thoughts ? I'd really like to feel good about plunking down 1k+ for a monitor.

Thanks in advance

 

[ChrisLudwig]

I just bought the Samsung 213T which I think is the monitor you’re talking about. Games look great on it, so does everything else, but you better have a good video card since the native resolution of the screen is 1600x1200 so that’s what you’re going to have to run your games at or you’ll loose quality. The 213T is better than most monitors at running outside its native resolution say 1280, but at 1600 it looks incredible.

 

[HN001]

what was the cost?
thanks

 

[biglawdog1]

Thanks for the response Chris. Yes, its the 213T. I've found it on sale at Best Buy for 1090.00. I've got a Radeon 9700 Pro with the digital adaptor. I'm assuming that should be suffcient to run everything in 1600 reso.

I've read a ton of reviews on the 19" monitors and from what I can tell, none of them are good for games. I've read a few reviews on the 213T that say games play pretty well.

A few detailed questions then, if you don't mind:

1. What games do you play on it ?
2. Have you noticed any ghosting on particular games?
3. Where you using an LCD or CRT monitor prior to your purchase and how would you compare the 213t with your previous monitor?
4. Is there anything you don't particularly like about the 213t ?
5. Any regrets in spending the 1000.00+ for it ?
6. What do you mostly use it for ?

I've looked at quite a few online retailers selling the 213t- NewEgg has the best online deal - selling for around 1199. Most other online retailers seem to be selliing for 1200+. I was shocked that Best Buy had it for less than any of the online retailers (I've had a love affair ongoing with Best Buy for about 3 months now- I love shopping there).

Anyway, thanks in advance for your replies, Chris. And if anyone else has some opinions, I'd appreciate your response as well. Call me stingy but its hard for me to justify the 1100+ to my girlfriend for one monitor so I need to be sure =0

 

[ChrisLudwig]

Luckily, I didn’t have any trouble justifying it to the lady. She said “its so pretty!” and that was that!

I picked it up a few weeks ago for $1200. I buy a lot from NewEgg, but I got this from a local store, CompUSA for the same price. I wanted to have an easy return if it didn’t fulfill my needs.

To answer your questions:

1. The only games I’ve tried so far are the new Rainbow 6 and MS Flight Sim 2004. I’m using a FX 5700 Ultra, which is struggling, but still looks pretty smooth.
2. I haven’t noticed any ghosting, but I’m only getting about 30fps or less, until I get a new video card.My CRT was quicker, but the LCD makes up for it with clarity.
3. I used a Viewsonic 21” CRT before this, but ran it at 1280. It was not even close to the sharpness of the 213T, but did a bit better in distinguishing between slight variances in black/grey levels. Still the 213T can pass a standard gray scale calibration such as this one here: http://www.dpreview.com/images/grayscale.gif
4. The only thing I don’t like about the 213T is the fact that I need to run at 1600 all the time. Although the 213T does better than most at lower resolutions, it’s not as clear as my CRT was at 1280. The 213T looks much better than the CRT at 1600, such a high resolution makes me feel sick on a CRT.
5. No regrets, and I don’t get headaches using it, like I did after spending hours in front of my CRT.
6. I mainly use it for high-end graphic design work, manipulating gigantic, ultra-high resolution images in Photoshop. I also use it for web site design work. It’s currently hooked up to 8 computers on a KVM switch. And one directly through DVI.

Honestly, games weren’t my primary concern, but from what I’ve seen, the monitor does just fine.

 

[biglawdog1]

Great, thanks for the response. I can definately see where you'd need it, given your interests. I don't play alot of twitch FPS (counterstrike unreal) which are typically used in testing these monitors but at the same time, its pointless for me to buy a monitor for 1k+ and not be able to use it for pretty much anything. I think thats my fear anyway.

Thanks for sharing your experiences with the monitor. I'm printing this out to show to the significant other now. If anyone has experience with the monitor, please post. There's alot of reviews out there on it but very few really ocver the gaming aspect of the monitor (I'm sorta worried people like the monitor so much b/c of its clarity and size that they gloss over the gaming part of it).

 

[ChrisLudwig]

Well, what you said about the other reviews is true; they do gloss over gaming performance. The real reason why is because it’s not excellent or poor, it’s a bit above average for an LCD, and a bit below the refresh rate of a CRT. Like the reviews said, clarity and color depth make up for it.