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Widescreen LCD recommendations 20 inch+

Last response: in Computer Peripherals
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Hi all,

I am in the process of building a new PC primarily for use in gaming, general internet use and watching DVDs. I have been looking at a couple of different monitors i.e.

Dell Ultrasharp 2007WFP
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO...

Asus MW221U
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO...

I have been looking at others but there are so many variations of monitors that it's hard to make a decision about what to purchase.

There have been reviews for monitors from Tomshardware and various other review sites and I have noticed that most of them recommend a response time of around 8ms though I have seen monitors with response times of 2ms (overdriven).

Do all LCD monitors use overdrive or is this a sales gimmick to encourage people to buy their monitors? I'd rather not have to deal with ghosting if at all possible but as I am currently using a TFT monitor at the moment, I don't know what this would look like.

Has anyone had any experience of either of the 2 monitors above? And if so, were they good or bad? Regarding the cost, the highest I will consider is around £350 though I am willing to look slightly higher if the monitor has been highly recommended. Regarding the size of the monitor, 20 to 22 inches would probably be about the largest I will go. I will be driving the monitor from a 8800GTS 320 graphics card so I will be running it on a fairly high resolution also.

If anyone can give any advice/recommendations, I would be very grateful... :) 

You have very little choice if you want to know the real response time of an LCD monitor. Technically, an LCD monitor does not have 1 single response time, but 65,536 possible response times. Manufactuers have been known to pick one of the lowest numbers, while the other several thousand response times may be 2x, 3x, 4x, or more times slower. So, essentially, all specs on the box (in terms of response times) can usually be classified as an outright lie. For example, the lowest rated LCD monitor (the VX922 listed as 2ms) has an actual response time of 8-10ms.

Overdrive is very, very useful. As I noted earlier, manufacturers used to pick one of the lowest numbers, while the others were higher. Overdrive, tends to make the rest of the response times lower and more in line with the full on/off response time measure that used to be used a lot. You definitely want a monitor with overdrive (if they do it right); a lot of new models of monitors have overdrive nowadays. If you want a good fast (for a normal LCD) 20" widescreen, then the NEC 20WGX2 is a pretty good choice (if you like the shiny screen).

BTW, it should be noted, that no LCD monitor (except maybe for the special, new 120Hz or BFI models) are free from smearing/blurring during motion.
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