Budget IPS gaming monitor?

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SenorBeef

Weaksauce
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I broke my Asus VW246H monitor recently, a monitor I was very happy with. I do a lot more photo editing than I used to though, so the appeal of consistent colors and other advantages of IPS monitors appeal to me.

When I last bought a monitor, IPS monitors were generally too slow to be suitable for gaming, and generally out of my budget. But recently there've been some affordable IPS panels like the Asus VS239H-P and Dell U2312HM that are said to be pretty suitable for gaming.

Are these monitors good for gaming? The dell is supposed to have incredibly low input lag, but what about reactivity? Does it feel as smooth as a fast TN panel?

Are these monitors crippled in some way compared to other IPS monitors that are more expensive?

Between the two, which would you choose for primarily gaming? Or if neither, any other IPS gaming panel under $250?

Or should I stick to TN panels?
 
Stretch your budget to $300 or so, and you can get one of those 27" 1440P IPS monitors from Korea. There's lots of threads around here on those.
 
If you like glossy monitors, the new Dell S2340L with AH-IPS panel could be something for you. Not much information on it yet though.
 
I'm actually in the market for new budget-ish monitor myself. I've read good things about the NEC EA232WMI. I don't think it'll be GREAT for gaming as it's response time is 14ms (though it's ISO measurement and not GTG), but from what I understand it will work reasonably well. The tftcentral review says that it's input lag is pretty low and that the AG coating is not as aggressive if that helps. However, from what I understand it's probably better for photo editing, since you did mention you are doing more of that lately. I think the lowest price I've ever seen this monitor new is around $210~220, but that was probably when it was on-sale somewhere.

I know that NEC recently released (updated?) a 22 inch version of that screen, but I haven't seen much of it (reviews or otherwise).

EDIT: spelling
 
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Would I be better off buying a 120mhz TN panel now for gaming and then later getting a second high quality IPS for movies/photo editing/etc? Or do the cheaper IPS monitors around now do the job well enough?
 
I've done my gaming (mostly casual, WoW, SC2, Oblivion, etc.) on a Dell U2211h for the last year and a half and it's worked quite well. The U2211h is a 21.5" IPS that I got for around $150 if I recall. Though I'm not sure if the colors are awesome on this model as they are supposed to be on the U2311h and others? Can't remember what I was reading about it at the time. But at any rate I haven't felt there was an issue with response time in the gaming I've done (though again, I am more a casual gamer than hardcore).
 
The NEC EA232 use the same typical grainy AG, TFT Central is wrong. It's qc sucks too, there are reviews of units with 33% lower contrast (650 vs 1000:1) and lots of bleeding.

The Dell U2312 is pretty consistent in terms of contrast/blacks, but they have bleeding too. It's the best of the 23" IPS grain fests, but the Asus VG23AH is still better, though Asus's warranty+exchange system sucks compared to dells.
 
NCX said:
The NEC EA232 use the same typical grainy AG, TFT Central is wrong. It's qc sucks too, there are reviews of units with 33% lower contrast (650 vs 1000:1) and lots of bleeding.
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Thanks for the info, <scratches EA232 off list>

So do you think Asus VG23AH is the one to get even if I do quite a bit more photo editing than gaming?
 
LG Flatron IPS277L allow set 75 hz in 1080p. Its 1080p matte panel. 230 euro.
 
Tsumi said:
Stretch your budget to $300 or so, and you can get one of those 27" 1440P IPS monitors from Korea. There's lots of threads around here on those.
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Ditto.

x10

x10

well, you get the idea. SO MUCH AWESOME !!! :D
 
TheUnluckyOne said:
So do you think Asus VG23AH is the one to get even if I do quite a bit more photo editing than gaming?
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Yes, it consistently has near perfect out-of-the-box colour accuracy and is the best non TN gaming solution aside from the Eizo Foris FS2333, but it is not available and will cost at least 450$.
 
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Is the VS239H-P one of the grainfest monitors hated around here? It's $60-80 cheaper than the VG23AH - is it definitely worth paying the extra for the VG23AH?

Is it easy to use the 75hz mode on the VG23AH? Does it screw with any games that are used to having 60 HZ or anything like that?
 
Achieva Shimian $280 shipped. That's what I call budget ips gaming monitor.
If it's not a budget ips, I would get overlord tempest OC :D!

Other than those, I call it "monies burning" monitor.
 
SenorBeef said:
VG23AH is $240 on amazon, is that the unit you're talking about?
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Yep, the VG23AH is the one he mentioned, Amazon now has it on sale for $228 and free shipping.

At that price it's starting to become a no-brainer ;)
 
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SenorBeef said:
Are these monitors crippled in some way compared to other IPS monitors that are more expensive?
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e-IPS panels are less expensive than it's more expensive bigger brothers because e-IPS panels are 6-bit as opposed to 8-bit panels. That means it needs to temporal dithering to create and estimated 16.7 milli colors out of an actual 256k colors.This basically means there are a lot of colors a 6-bit panel cannot create without being creative. Temporal dithering (a.k.a. Frame Rate Control) flashes between two colors to create a 3rd color the LCD panel cannot otherwise display. So if an e-IPS panel cannot naturally display purple it gets around this by quickly flashing between blue and red. It is so fast that your brain registers sold purple. 8-bit panels do not have to resort to doing this; they can naturally create 16.7m colors.

e-IPS panels are generally rated at 8ms response time. Other more expensive IPS panels typcially have 6ms response time, but there was at least one with 5ms response times. There may be e-IPS panel monitors with about 6ms response times, but that is achieved by very aggressive Response Time Acceleration (RTA) which over-volts the pixels to for them to react more quickly. This can cause some issues like inverse ghosting which basically means the ghosted images would appear as a negative image (reverse colors). All monitors use RTA to some degree especially TN panel monitors.

e-IPS panels have wider viewing angles compared to TN panels, but not as wide as more expensive IPS panels.
 
Eizo Foris FS2333-BK it's relatively cheap, and it's worth all your money
 
hanabie said:
Achieva Shimian $280 shipped. That's what I call budget ips gaming monitor.
If it's not a budget ips, I would get overlord tempest OC :D!

Other than those, I call it "monies burning" monitor.
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Is there somewhere you can get it for $280? Ebay lists the lowest prices around $320.

I notice one of the Achieva ads on ebay lists compatable graphics cards. It says not recommended for 5850 (but 5830 is on the compatable list...). What's the deal with that? You just need a dual link DVI, right? Which I think all 5850s have.
 
JaguarSKX said:
8-bit panels do not have to resort to doing this; they can naturally create 16.7m colors.
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for the most part this is true, however it's not unusual for even 8-bit panels to use temporal dithering when rendering darker shades. you can see the temporal noise if you look closely.
 
I am currently using a Dell 2209wa. Would I notice the jump in resolution if i went to a 23" 1080p screen? I am using gtx 460sli and don't want to go higher cause I don't want to upgrade video cards.
 
So I'm leaning towards just getting an Achieva Shimian. I know there's a thread dedicated to them, but it's a bit long to go through a whole lot of pages, so would you guys mind confirming these 2 things for me?

1) It's a suitable gaming monitor in terms of input lag and reactivity?

2) It's not significantly worse than the other versions of the 27" 1440p panels, right? The difference is just stuff like stand quality, types of inputs, etc?

So if I were to have a max budget of $300 for a general purpose gaming monitor that also would be used for movies and photo editing, is the Shimian my best bet?
 
Probably not great for gaming. I just got a VG23AH, which is close to/is the best gaming IPS around, and I'm still thinking of sending it back because of how blurry motion is. IPS still has a ways to go before it's good for gaming IMO.
 
Oofloom said:
Probably not great for gaming. I just got a VG23AH, which is close to/is the best gaming IPS around, and I'm still thinking of sending it back because of how blurry motion is. IPS still has a ways to go before it's good for gaming IMO.
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You & I have two VERY different opinions.
I am 200% happy with my Korean Crossover 27" 1440p LCD. I paid $420 and I'm not sorry one bit. If I did it again today, I'd buy the Shimian just to save some money with very little difference in the product.

Gaming on these LCDs is excellent, in my opinion. They have the lowest input lag because there's no scalers. If you buy one that is overclockable to 100hz, then the 60hz vs 120hz argument goes out the window too.

I'm not a competitive FPS gamer, I only play them single player occasionally. I don't get noticeable blurry motion on my Crossover 27" 1440p. Perhaps your VG23AH has high input lag.

OP, with LCDs, the only way to judge them is by viewing it yourself in person to determine which one you like better.
There are probably over a hundred folks here on [H] who bought a Korean 27" LCD and use it for gaming. Most (if not all) are happy with the performance of these LCDs for gaming.
 
SenorBeef said:
1) It's a suitable gaming monitor in terms of input lag and reactivity?

2) It's not significantly worse than the other versions of the 27" 1440p panels, right? The difference is just stuff like stand quality, types of inputs, etc?

So if I were to have a max budget of $300 for a general purpose gaming monitor that also would be used for movies and photo editing, is the Shimian my best bet?
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Yes, Yes and yes. As for sellers, my first choice of ebay sellers would be either:
dcsamsungmall
green-sum

I've had 4 friends buy these LCDs from these two sellers and they've been great.

Here's a nice little summary of the Korean LCDs & a few more sellers:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1715896
 
Have you thought about using an HP ZR24w? I think they are EOL now but I think I've seen a few floating around on ebay for $200 - $250/ea. I have 3 in my current setup and love them.
 
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