Making the jump...for the first time.

[Sanctuary]

I bought my first modern computer (then) in 1999, and I've learned a thing or two about building my own along the way, but the one thing that has always remained a constant was my 19 inch CRT. It came from Cybermax (now defunct I believe), so I'm not really sure who actually made it. But it's lasted for seven years and I've never had any complaints with it. The thing is, it's getting up there in years, and I'm not really sure what the life expectancy is of an average CRT, but I figure if you're extremely lucky, maybe ten years...so mine is nearing it's end most likely. It seems very apparent that it's dying when you can hear a high pitch hum/whine that poor quality monitors make after only a few years of use every now and then after turning it on.

I am planning on doing a full system upgrade, but it seems like I need a new monitor as well. I want to get a 22-24 inch widescreen LCD, and I'm not sure if I'd be wasting money right now, or if I should go ahead and get one. My current video card is a Geforce 6800 GT, and while I completely understand you need a more modern card to run at the higher resolutions that are native on LCD's, especially the larger ones...will the 6800 at least be able to give "acceptable" framerates until I can get one of the newer video cards? I've seen people mentioning running a widescreen with a 6600, which is a little weaker than the card I am currently using.

I've also had zero hands on experience with LCD's, and have only what I've seen in the stores and what I've read to go on. I've read all about blacklight bleeding, banding, dead pixles, input lag etc, so I don't expect an LCD to perform exactly like a CRT, but the pictures I've seen, and the reviews I've read about widescreen gaming just make it sound too good to pass up anymore. Is there anything that I should have to expect to "get over", or is it just a minor period of adjustment going from CRT to LCD? I know another thread about the particular LCD I was wanting was already started, but I felt my topic was a little different. Anyway, I plan on ordering Acer AL2416Wd...from everything I've read, it's the best 24 inch widescreen for the price right now.

 

[kh6idf]

I've just switched to LCD from a Sony 17" Trinitron. What I like about LCD better than CRT: with a DVI connection the picture is very sharp and never goes out of convergence. Power consumption is lower. Less space taken up on the desk. The CRT had darker black levels in the picture. With the LCD, even though all pixels may be 'off', the backlight is still on at full intensity and SOME light gets through. I've noticed this with LCD TV sets also.

That being said, the LCD can still produce nice results. I have a 20" widescreen (Samsung 205BW) and playing games at 1680 x 1050 with the DVI connection is a lot more fun than the 1024 x 768 CRT. It does take a more powerful video card to drive the high resolutions though. I ran a few tests to check for 'banding' and this LCD doesn't suffer from it much at all. I notice no lag compared to the CRT either. It has a 6ms response time which apparently is fast enough.

What I would really like to see is a flat panel that doesn't use a backlight, like OLED or SED technology, where the pixels are actually turned off when black and there is no light behind them to lower the contrast.