Best 24" for gaming?

[Opterpwn]

I'm planning on buying a 24" LCD this month and even though I don't have a set amount of money that I'm willing to spend, cost is of course still a factor. The 3 monitors I've been narrowing down to are the Samsung 245BW, The Dell 2407WFP-HC, and the Gateway 2485B in large part because of the low prices compared to other 24" LCDs. I'm wondering if anyone thinks any of these monitors is particularly good or not good for gaming. I see the response time on the 245BW is 5ms and the other 2 have response times of 6ms so I do prefer the samsung a little more in that sense. Also, the Samsung has a reported 3000:1 contrast ratio compared to the 1000:1 contrast ratio of the other two, would that even be noticable to a layperson like me? I read the LCD thread and the Benq was the only 24" listed there does anyone think thats the clear choice for gaming? Color Accuracy and pixel pitch is also important to me to some degree. I've read that the samsung also has a no dead pixel policy so thats a very big plus in their direction. The only thing I don't like about the Samsung though is that it only has 1 vga and 1 dvi input, wethers the other 2 have component, composite, and S-Video inputs as well as USB ports, but thats not a deal breaker sort of thing as far as I'm concerned. I'm looking in the sub $700 range so If anyone has a preference as to which one of these or any other monitor is noticably better for gaming please tell. Right now I'm leaning towards the 245bw

 

[gizbug]

bump

 

[coldmeat]

i know that the Dell is a very popular monitor and i imagine that its the best of the 3 that you have listed. if i could afford a 24" monitor, i would buy the Dell

and about the contrast ratio, the Samsung is actually about the same as the others. i have heard that the contrast ratio listed on samsung monitors is dynamic compared to static on others, which i believe means that it is measured over time, so it is probably equal to or lower than the other 2

and as far as response time goes, you should see no difference between the 5ms and 6ms. There is no way to accurately compare the response times on monitors because manufacturers can measure it differently. My HP is supposedly 6ms, but i dont notice any ghosting

 

[Opterpwn]

Hey thx for the bump gizbug. I've been researching 24" lcds alot in the past few months and have pretty much narrowed my choices down to the BenQ FP241W or the FP41WZ. The only question I have is does the Black Frame Insertion technology warrant spending $100 extra for the WZ over the W? Of the 3 monitors I originally was considering I pretty much figured out that both the Dell and the Gateway have bad inverse ghosting issues and the Samsung has bad viewing angles and is only a 6-bit TN monitor as all the experts here already well know. Does anyone here have both the FP241W and the FP241WZ? I hear that the BFI causes bad flickering but that it can be turned off so does that mean that its basically the same as the FP241W if the BFI is turned off?

edit: I also heard about the new Samsung 245T the new version of the 244T. I heard that the 244T was a great LCD overall but the one noticably bad thing was the input lag in terms of gaming performance. Does anyone know if the 245T has trimmed down the input lag at all. Is it still an S-PVA panel?

 

[Energizer Bunny]

I've got the 245b and its spot on for gaming. The viewing angle is not brilliant (if you're going to be looking at it from anything other than a 'straight on' direction, you wont see much, but hey, its a monitor, not a TV - you should always be looking at it straight on anyway, so no biggie. The dell is supposed to have better colour but its a hell of a lot more expensive and I have always found the Samsung to be absolute excellent.

If you have cash to burn, get the Dell. If not, go for the Sammy, you wont be sorry.

 

[Opterpwn]

Ya personally when I saw the 245bw at bestbuy I thought it looked great and didn't think the viewing angles were bad at all, and also thought the contrast and vibrancy of colors looked really good, but I think some of that has to do with the glossy screen. Everyone says to get the Dell but theres a serious inverse ghosting issue with the A00 revision http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1mN6lYAJzE. I dunno bout you guys but that would bug the hell outta me. Thats the only reason stopping me from buying the Dell.

 

[lavaheadache]

Why are you concerned about the A00 revision? there is about a 1 in 10 million chance that you'll get one of those if you buy new. Besides Dell has a more than excellent return policy on their monitors.

 

[paulmichaelkemp]

i have the sammy 245B and i think it's great! the viewing angle is quite good. and the colors are really vibrant. it's awsome in games and brillient for watching movies. for the money, i would go with this beast! )

 

[melijak]

I have Dell 24" for about 3 weeks now and its a great monitor. Don't see any ghosting problems with games. Very happy with it, but in case you worry, just get it from Costco and returned if you don't like it.

 

[gizbug]

So I guess I'm stuck between getting a 22 or 24 inch monitor.

 

[Energizer Bunny]

There's actually more difference than you might think (2" doesnt sound like much)

I would definately recommend the 24", but you are committing yourself to expensive graphics cards to run at native res, so factor that into your decision

 

[gizbug]

Thanks. Might play it safe and go with the HP 2207

 

[bigsnyder]

If you don't have the horsepower to run 1920x1200, you can run a it at 1680x1050 which will still net
you close to the same screen real estate as a 20"-21" monitor.

 

[djnsmith7]

I have the Gateway 24" & love it...Had it almost a year now...The price dropped $100, so it's definitely worth a look...Bought it at Best Buy...

 

[Beh]

I stepped up to 24" and never looked back. There's no way I can deal with less than 1920x1200 resolution and 8-bit color anymore. Once I got used to the increased resolution and color fidelity I realized that no TN panel could ever be adequate.

As for having a powerful enough videocard, many monitors 24" and up can do 1:1 pixel mapping. Mine does not, but I can set scaling ratio to either 16:10 or 4:3. That gives me the choice between native resolutions of 1920x1200 or 1600x1200. Also since 800x600 divides evenly into 1600x1200 that also counts as a "native" resolution since there's no interpolation involved. I'm pretty happy with it considering I paid less than $300 for it.

Also, regarding response times, if you divide 1 second (1000ms) by the refresh rate (60Hz) you come to the conclusion that a monitor running at 60Hz wont be able to display response times lower than 16.666ms. I mean true response times, not the typical gray-to-gray times used by manufacturers. While delving into the specifics of my monitor's panel (made by AU Optronics) I saw that the rising and falling pixel response times were 10ms and 6ms (respectively) for a total response time of 16ms despite the 6ms GTG advertised on the box. This is just under the true response time dictated by the refresh rate and consequently I cannot discern any sort of ghosting on this panel.

Wow, I'm really getting long winded here. Anyway, I hope you are happy with your monitor choice regardless of what I've said.