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How much of a difference am i going to see?

Last response: in Computer Peripherals
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Frizzo said:
been doing a lot of reading on the computer using standard 23" acer flat panel. if i upgrade to the more expensive model with the higher refresh rate, am i going to notice much of a difference? in terms of reading being easier on the eyes after extended periods?



if your monitor is lcd then probably not, because the human eye wont detect anything at 60hz anyway, the contrast and brigtness of the screen will have a more noticeable effect if you lower both or either one of them

also the lighting of the room your in applies to how much your eye strain in long reading periods because lcd monitors refresh rates dont work the same as crt screens. crt screens would actually refresh the whole imagine where is lcd is just the speed at which the pixels can change colour.

higher refresh rates usually determine how fluid motion is on the screen. fast moving images will be less blurry on a 120hz screen as opposed to a 60hz
because thats 120 changes of pixel second apposed to 60/s but reading and surfing on internet will not change, make sure your not sitting to close to the screen and the text isn't to small,

The refresh rate on a LCD is different from a CRT. In a CRT even if nothing changes on the screen the monitor always redraws what's on the screen. Therefore you always want to set the refresh rate as high as possible otherwise you might notice the screen blinking.

The pixels on a LCD monitor are always on (* more on this later...). Therefore, the pixels are always on unless something changes. The refresh rate refers to the rate at which the video card sends the video signal to the monitor. So basically 60Hz means the video sends a signal to the monitor 60 times per second (60 frames).


* Monitors using TN or e-IPS panels have pixels that actually flashes between two color all the time to create a 3rd color. These panels are known as 6-bit panels or rarely referred to as 18-bit because each primary color (Red, Green, Blue) only uses 6-bits of data to represent each color; 3 colors x 6-bits = 18-bits. This basically means TN and e-IPS panels can only create 64 shades of each color (2^6 = 64). As a result these panel types can only create 256k colors (64^3 = 256k). However, these panels are advertised as being capable of producing 16.7m colors.

How do these monitors create 16.7m colors out of only 256k? Temporal dithering... also known as A-FRC (Advanced Frame Rate Control). It basically flashes extremely betwen two colors to create a 3rd color. So fast that your brain registers solid colors. For example, say purple is a color that is not part of the real 256k colors a TN / e-IPS panel can produce. Using A-FRC the pixels flashes between Red and Blue to simulate purple.

S-PVA, S-IPS, H-IPS, P-IPS are 8-bit color panels and they can truly create 16.7m colors without have to resort to temporal dithering. 8-bit colors means there are 256 shades (2^8 = 256) of each color. As a result in this increased number of shades 8-bit panels can truly produce 16.7m colors (256^3 = 16.7m).

quite a lesson there...so what am i going to see differently between a 60hz 5ms lcd and a 2ms 120hz lcd? just a crisper brighter image? but you're saying it wont effect tired eyes w/etf they call it?
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Most people will not be able to see the difference between 2ms and 5ms response times. Response times are not an exact science, it's more of a marketing ploy. Basically the manufacturer tests the panels by displaying colors on the screen, the short amount of time recorded to change from one color to another is the response time.

In the past response times were measured in BWB which is going from black to white and then back to black again. Fairly simple and straight forward, but it have high response time results. As a marketing ploy response times switched to GTG or grey to grey. GTG measures the smallest amount of time it takes the pixels to change from one shade of grey to another. As a result you can report lower response times. So... if company ABC makes single monitor and then markets it as two different monitors like... Model A (20ms BWB Response Time) and Model B (2ms GTG Response Time), guess which one would be flying off the shelves.

Okay, so the lowest recorded times are used to advertise response times. So what about the other recorded times? They are thrown out the window. It is quite possible there could be the following situation:

Monitor ABC: Lowest time recorded = 2ms, highest time recorded 300ms
Monitor XYZ: Lowest time recorded = 5ms, highest time recorded 250ms

Monitor ABC seems to be faster because of the 2ms response time measured. But it also peaked at 300ms which is a lot worse than Monitor XYZ. Since those high numbers are tossed out with the trash consumers don't know any better.


The difference between 60Hz and 120Hz is fair straight forward as far as PC monitors are concerned. HDTVs.... well that's a different story. 120Hz monitors have a dual DVI port and when using a dual DVI cable connected to a graphics card with a dual DVI port you will get 120Hz. DVI only handles 60Hz, that why you need a dual DVI port to run two DVI signals. This can allow the computer to display up to 120 frames per second. Is your graphics card powerful enough output 120FPS at the resolution and graphic settings you are using is a different matter.

yea i'm actually familiar with the response times, i notice that some companies will specify GTG...so i'm guessing the ones that don't specifiy GTG are true BWB, or they are just being shifty...but seems that when they don't specify GTG they are more expensive, so i'm guessing that is why i assumed that...didn't know DVI doesnt handle over 60hz though, what if I used the HDMI cable?

If neither GTG or BWB is stated, then it would be GTG. You may see some monitors that have high response times like 12ms or 14ms, but that means the monitor does not use Response Time Acceleration to over-volt the pixels which forces them to reduce the response time. The last time I've seen something specifically with BWB response times was probably back in 2005/2006.

I believe HDMI 1.4a supports 120Hz. Naturally everything needs to be 1.4a... the cable, the monitor's and video card's HDMI ports.

If you currently have a system or will be buying a system that is powerful enough to definitely push more than 60FPS, then I suppose you want a 120Hz monitor to be able to see those extra frames. I prefer the Asus simply because I don't like the black & orange color combo of the Acer. The Acer has more than 2x the number of reviews that the Asus has, but 86% of the Asus reviews gave it 4 or 5 stars. The Acer has a total of 73% of the reviews with 4 or 5 stars. I would probably focus on the 1 and 2 star reviews for specific complaints. Generally speaking people are more prone to write a review if the product is bad because they are pissed off and want to warn others of the problems they are having.

If your system is not going to be able to push more than 60FPS, then you might want to opt for the less expensive 60Hz monitors. Both Asus' and Acer's specs look very similar so I would probably go with Acer. Again, I would read the 1 and 2 star reviews for any specific complaints.
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