The display is the most important part of any computer.

The display is the most important part of a computer

  • Yes, it usually is

    Votes: 94 63.9%
  • No, some other part is most important

    Votes: 53 36.1%

  • Total voters
    147

tzhu07

Gawd
Joined
Nov 21, 2010
Messages
566
Yes.

Don't any of you start being a smartass and say "Well if the CPU/motherboard/RAM/power supply was missing then your computer wouldn't be functional."
 
I think it is, computer to me is "audio-visual" experience, so display and headphones/speakers (with soundcard etc. of course) is the most important part to me. Of course CPU&GPU are important too that everything runs well so the experience will be smooth and enjoyable.
 
The display isn't even a part of the computer unless you're buying an All-In-One.

Furthermore, you can have the best display in the world and it will look like ass if you're running a Pentium 2. I just fried the motherboard on my main workstation and am running on a MacGuyver'd ancient motherboard with an AMD Athlon 64 on it. It won't accept PCI-e, so I'm stuck using 1024x768 VGA to my ZR22w. To be honest, I'm about to just disconnect this and move it to a nearby HP vs17, since that's just as ancient and I only use it for troubleshooting clients' computers separately anyway.

In terms of importance:

Workstation > Display > Sound Setup
 
The display isn't even a part of the computer unless you're buying an All-In-One.

Technically speaking you're right, but usually Display, Keyboard and Mice etc. are considered as part of the "Computer". Like when buying "Pre-assembled" computer they come with keyboard/mice sometimes with display too.
 
The display isn't even a part of the computer unless you're buying an All-In-One.

Furthermore, you can have the best display in the world and it will look like ass if you're running a Pentium 2. I just fried the motherboard on my main workstation and am running on a MacGuyver'd ancient motherboard with an AMD Athlon 64 on it. It won't accept PCI-e, so I'm stuck using 1024x768 VGA to my ZR22w. To be honest, I'm about to just disconnect this and move it to a nearby HP vs17, since that's just as ancient and I only use it for troubleshooting clients' computers separately anyway.

In terms of importance:

Workstation > Display > Sound Setup

yes and if you have your i7/580 sli rig hooked up to a 10" crt, then it will also look like ass. all components have to be somewhat balanced or else something is going to be wasted.

the point is, the monitor and the software you use determine what components you put in your rig. i would say software is most important, because if youre doing picture editing youre gonna want a sexy big screen and a mediocre-powered computer. if youre gaming then you might want 3 medium screens and a kickass cpu/gpu. if youre folding then monitor doesnt matter and you want lots of cpu/gpu power. so really your software is the most important aspect of deciding what to get. but since thats not really a part, id go with monitor since no matter what youre doing, the components you get depend on what monitor youre going to be running the stuff on.
 
the point is, the monitor and the software you use determine what components you put in your rig. i would say software is most important, because if youre doing picture editing youre gonna want a sexy big screen and a mediocre-powered computer. if youre gaming then you might want 3 medium screens and a kickass cpu/gpu. if youre folding then monitor doesnt matter and you want lots of cpu/gpu power. so really your software is the most important aspect of deciding what to get. but since thats not really a part, id go with monitor since no matter what youre doing, the components you get depend on what monitor youre going to be running the stuff on.

Good post. If I were to look at it from an even broader perspective, I'd go with this:

What do I need/want my computer to do? >> What software allows me to do those things? >> What hardware do I need to run and bring out the full potential of the software?

I've generally found that most people say that the display is the most important part because that is what you are staring at while using a computer. Me personally, I'm a web designer/developer, so the monitor is easily the most important (I have an NEC PA271W). The creation of websites doesn't take a whole lot of horsepower. My 2500K and AMD 7970 is overkill for the mission critical things in my life. But great for a gaming hobby. :D
 
No, you're not seeing the point:

Powerful Workstation allows great monitor.
Great Monitor allows nothing on its own, which in itself proves that it is not the most important part of a computer setup.

Unless your budget is infinite (which won't be the case for 99% of the people in the world), then it's rather foolish to say that one bases his component purchases around his display. Had you used graphics designers or other professionals who are also on a 30"er like you as examples, then maybe I would have seen your point, but your entire post is moot when the question asked was what the single most important part of a computer was, not whether or not I'm folding or using 3 monitors.

Also, you state that the most important aspect of a computer is what software a person is running, but then you vote for display anyway? Just like the most important part of a car is its engine + tranny, the most important part of a computer is what makes everything else go.

Or here, since you wanna think backwards, let me pose it to you backwards:

Which of the two (workstation vs display) can you make a big sacrifice on and still be able to use your software with 100%? Here's a hint: NOT THE WORKSTATION.
 
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From the standpoint of "only as strong as the weakest link" , I think it probably is the most important since it is your eyes into the computer "world", and is one of the most flawed technologies of a computer imo, especially in regard to motion. With an enthusiast budget you can buy a very powerful processor, gpu(s) of any given generation, good peripherals, desk, chair, and even extreme sound systems if you wanted - but you are more severely limited by the display technologies, especially since LCD tech has been the money maker and marketable display tech advancements have been put off for years. Sites and blogs were talking about waiting for competing tech advancements like oled etc at enthusiast pricing "in a few years" since 2007 or earlier I think. :rolleyes: . . Perhaps someday we will get clear "sunglasses" that show a ridiculously high def virtual overlay in front of us, a la "johnny mnemonic" or similar.. with an augmented reality approach that could switch to full VR environment immersion for gaming. That would be a long way off (though there are advancements being made on crude augmented reality glasses) but would make today's display tech look primitive by comparison.
..
.. Since it is one of the most flawed "links" in a total setup imo, its is the most important in regards to getting the best one you can, and unfortunately means choosing between tradeoffs even on the better monitors you can get. So being the weakest link even at best considering the better components that are avaiable aross a build, and being your "looking glass" itself.. it could be considered the most important, epecially if your main use of the pc is graphics.
 
Put it this way guys.

Most people worldwide, are doing little more than Microsoft Office, and internet surfing. Anyone doing more than this is in the fringe, be they gamer/enthusiast or rendering/photoprocessing. As such the interface points of keyboard/mouse and monitor are more important than the guts for most people most of the time.

Give most people a nice monitor, a decent mouse, and even a crappy dynex dome keyboard....and plug into an obsolete AM2 or Core2Duo dual core CPU computer with an Nvidia 8500GT, and a reasonably snappy HDD. Guess what? Most people will be happy. Because most people do nothing more demanding than booting up their machine on a daily basis. And even that crappy 8500 Nvidia can drive almost any monitor you plug into it.
 
Well I guess that depends on how you interpret the question. He did ask "of any computer... not the most important part of your computer or every computer.
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the most important part could be the power supply because without that you have no function :p Thats not the spirit of the question as I interpreted it though.
 
Put it this way guys.

Most people worldwide, are doing little more than Microsoft Office, and internet surfing. Anyone doing more than this is in the fringe, be they gamer/enthusiast or rendering/photoprocessing. As such the interface points of keyboard/mouse and monitor are more important than the guts for most people most of the time.

Give most people a nice monitor, a decent mouse, and even a crappy dynex dome keyboard....and plug into an obsolete AM2 or Core2Duo dual core CPU computer with an Nvidia 8500GT, and a reasonably snappy HDD. Guess what? Most people will be happy. Because most people do nothing more demanding than booting up their machine on a daily basis. And even that crappy 8500 Nvidia can drive almost any monitor you plug into it.

A lot of people are happy with crappy monitors too. Cheapie on sale for 100 bucks at Staples? Done. 17"-19" 4:3 that does 1280x1024? Works for them. "Backlight bleed, pixel response, off-angle viewing, color reproduction, and input lag? What are those?"

I don't think it's the most important part. Having said that, I think there's a fine balance where all parts should be of a certain quality, and I generally will go for bang-for-the-buck. Monitors included.
 
For your average user, the display is certainly the most important part of the computer. The other components (RAM, CPU, GPU) are almost irrelevant for most computer usage.

For gamers, it's a completely different story.
 
A lot of people are happy with crappy monitors too. Cheapie on sale for 100 bucks at Staples? Done. 17"-19" 4:3 that does 1280x1024? Works for them. "Backlight bleed, pixel response, off-angle viewing, color reproduction, and input lag? What are those?"

I don't think it's the most important part. Having said that, I think there's a fine balance where all parts should be of a certain quality, and I generally will go for bang-for-the-buck. Monitors included.

Of all the parts of a computer, a monitor is the one thing even lay people notice and will appreciate the most.

You put a 1024x768 and a 1080 side by side and they'll tell the difference. You have an i7 2700K and a Core2Quad or Core2Duo side by side, and most people won't notice in their normal daily usage.
 
Well I have several computers without screens entirely. ;)

I think trying to name anything "the most important part" is a bit asinine. The best monitor in the world isn't a whole lot of good connected to a crap system, there needs to be a harmony among the various components for any one to really shine.
 
For myself, I consider it the most important part of the computer experience. I'd rather have a great display and so-so computer, than so-so display and super fast computer.

I'm not sure if the general public feels that way though. I recently watched a youtube video of some guy showing off his $3000 Alienware PC. And it was hooked up to what looked like a 17" LCD from 10 years ago. I guess he spent all of his money for the Alienware...

My brother-in-law has a so-so computer, bad LCD display, and runs it at a non-native resolution (even though I told him not to do that)... for some, they can't tell the difference as to what they are seeing anyway, apparently, so I guess the monitor is the least of their priorities.
 
Yep, be sure to ask this question on the Displays board :p

It's by far the most expensive single component of my computer. It may be nearly a third of my total (new) system cost.
 
Would you like to drive a supercar with mud all over the windshield? A terrible display ruins the whole experience IMO. I value the display more than any other piece of hardware atm.
 
Look at it this way:

For normal day-to-day use, what will make the biggest impact? A new CPU? Nah. People are running netbooks and can't really tell the difference. A friend of mine is still running a C2Q in his gaming desktop. Don't think that's going to be it.

A new GPU? AMD's A8 and Intel's HD 3k are good enough for all but the most demanding of tasks.

Motherboard? I couldn't even tell the difference between motherboards in day-to-day use. Same goes for a PSU. Get a name brand PSU and you'll be fine.

That leaves a handful of components: keyboard, mouse, storage, and monitor; the things you interact with at all times and the HDD/SSD. Personally, I can tell the difference between the spinning drive in my laptop and the SSD in my desktop. I'm currently typing on a rubber dome keyboard that's several years old, and a $35 mouse. Not too upset with either. Personally, while I'd like a new keyboard (backlit) I'm in no hurry to buy one.

But the move from my 17 inch to the 23 inch was HUGE. In my opinion, leaps and bounds more noticeable than the SSD 75ish percent of the time. If I had the option of a good 27 inch or a 512 GB SSD, I'd pick the 27 inch 100 times out of 100.

If we're speaking from an impact point of view, I think the bigger monitor wins.
 
I think this thread is kinda misdirected. The OP should have worded it like this:

Whats the point of building a badass system for a lessor display?


I see people running extreme watercooled $3,000 - $5,000 systems that are hooked up to 60hz 1080p lcd screens or laggy dell ips panels from hell. I wouldnt call my 2600k + Asus 7970 DUII system extreme by any means (It only cost approx $1,300), however I am feeding the beast with three Samsung S27A750 120hz displays and two FW900s.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v725/l88bastard/AlphaDesk.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v725/l88bastard/matrix.jpg

Instead of spending the money on a 3930k + multi-gpu setup, I put the cash into having awesome displays and I don't regret it one bit.
 
^^Now that I completely agree with. Plugging a cheap display into a high-end gaming rig is just ignorant.
 
Display is not important if you dont care bout your eyes,but if you do then it is

also mouse is more important then what you have in the case
because if you have RSI how will you even use your PC?
 
Of all the parts of a computer, a monitor is the one thing even lay people notice and will appreciate the most.

You put a 1024x768 and a 1080 side by side and they'll tell the difference. You have an i7 2700K and a Core2Quad or Core2Duo side by side, and most people won't notice in their normal daily usage.

Size is easy to notice, of course, because it's right in front of them. I'll give you that surely. But most people won't notice or care about the difference in TN vs IPS vs VA unless you tell them. And that's if you don't get a blank stare/deer in headlights look. I stand by my thought that most people are ignorant. To us it matters a lot, and I will say that going from a 17" Viewsonic CRT, to a 19" Sony SDM-HS95P/S, to a 24" Dell 2405FPW was an amazing and huge difference. And my monitor is my longest-lasting component at the moment, so it was definitely worth the 700 dollars or so that I spent on it at the time.

Plenty of people at my work bring in their own (21"+, generally widescreen) monitors to replace the 17"s or 19"s that I can give them, only to set them at low resolutions or even a 4:3 low resolution. When I show them how to properly adjust the resolution they have some kind of complaint. It's too small, or it doesn't look right, or insert any other user complaint here. That's after I've set everything, scaled up sizes, etc. In the past month I have one user who brought in a 32" 720p Vizio TV to put on his desk. At least he's running the right resolution. I can only think of one person in the past year who brought in a Dell 23" which I properly set to 1080p and was thanked for. But I think most consumers would, without being informed, pick a 25" Hanspree TN LCD over an Eizo FS2332 because the Hanspree is bigger and the Eizo costs four times more for a smaller monitor.
 
The display is the part where I spend the biggest part of my computer budget on and has been for nearly 20 years.

A high quality display was always my first priority. Getting display info, was the reason I joined [H] forum. If I am not seeing sharp and clear, everything is a bust.

Back in the CRT days it was size/resolution/refresh and sharpness (highly variable on CRTs) so I always spent big on the displays. Back then, the next priority was a good card with good DACs capable of driving a clean, sharp analog signal (ATI and Matrox were tops).

Beyond that displays tend to advance much slower and drop in prices slower than PC components, so it makes sense to spend for better there (at least to me).

Switching to LCD, it didn't change much, but it took some time/effort to find my NEC 2490 as a great LCD display. Absolutely zero regrets spending more on this Display than everything else in my system combined.
 
To me the most important part of the system is the time I spend researching to buy said part. So in that case for me it would be 1. video card, 2. cpu then 3. monitor. To be honest I do most of my gaming on a 50" plasma TV now anyways...
 
I think this is sort of a silly question as well, but I'm in the same boat as a lot of people here: I spent more on my monitors than on all of the rest of my components combined.

I have a 6950 and a 1090, 16 GB ram, a couple of SSDs, a Seasonic x-650, a mechanical keyboard, a trackball, and a nice case. It probably cost $12-1500 all told. I tinker and upgrade every few months, some more ram, a newer graphics card, a new case, etc. The components are not quite disposable, but nothing (except perhaps m,y case, an FT02) is an investment.

My monitors will last through a dozen major computer upgrades, if not more. I splurged on a couple of NECs, and with the slow state of monitor/display technological advancement, I expect them to last through the end of their warranty, at least 5 years. If you're talking about the bottom line, money, then the monitors are the "most important" part of my system, but I hardly consider them part of my system at all.
 
I feel like you can look at the number of users carousing any given forum to see where [H] places its emphases.
 
Display is only the most important part if it's a laptop, otherwise, like all components, you can pick and choose. If I had to, I'd budget more towards the meat of the computer vs the display itself. I need compute power for work, doesn't matter how much display quality I have. Maybe if I were stuck with a 960x640... nvm. I've already lived off of my iPhone (and ONLY my iPhone) for one full month (4 weeks) before, when I had to for a long work project/trip(and my Hellionware m11xR2 broke down on me with a dead battery and a loose power jack that didn't work). Honestly, though, it probably REALLY matters as to what you do on a computer.

If all you do is play games and don't have a fair amount of floating money, the display is secondary, unless if it's puny and/or not working properly. If graphical work is important, the display is king (but if in printing, still secondary to the printer - which by the display logic, is a part of the computer). If CAD work, depends on what kind of CAD work. Compute may be more important, Display may be more important. If simply light office work, display may not be important (watch some smartass come in and say a good panel is necessary is good of the eyes - it's not. Simply using the computer better/less is).

Again, for my line of work (and work, not hobby or coding - which my Vaio SA and the SC [and the m11xR2] before it handles my small projects well [takes at most 3min to build project, should tell you how small my stuff is])
 
Yes.

Don't any of you start being a smartass and say "Well if the CPU/motherboard/RAM/power supply was missing then your computer wouldn't be functional."

well, tbh, if display is missing, the system is fairly useless - unless, of course, you are using as a server of kind and access it remotely :D
 
- I'ld argue that sufficient Memory is the most important thing. No one likes a slow computer and running out of memory is the main reason for a system to be slow. Of course once you have enough memory, more memory doesn't really help much.
- A larger display makes the experience more pleasurable and can add functionality. For most, a $200 monitor is going to be give most people the majority of pleasure and functionality they need from their monitor.
- The processor would be third most important. imo, any non celeron/sempron is decent for most tasks.
 
I think if the common opinion was that the display was the most important component we would have more options than lcd. While there are a lot of benefits of lcd over other display technology, I dont think superior image quality is one of them. You buy your display for the tasks you do just like any other component in your setup. Someone who does graphical work will prioritize components differently than someone who produces music, codes, etc.
 
No.

This is completely untrue. It is not even remotely the most important part of any computer for most people's use cases. MAYBE for gaming PCs it's true. However, I have 2-3 headless machines. I'm sure the display is the most important part of those, right?

When I was consulting we had to run a number of VMs for various reasons. The laptops all had shit screens which was a hindrance, but the devices were unusable if they came in some configurations like those without virtualization acceleration and less than 4gb of ram.

Moreover, my Dad (your use case for the average user) doesn't really care if the display he's using is an old 17/19" CRT job or a newer 22" LCD. Widescreen displays and higher quality displays do nothing for the average user (aside from ooo pretty) once they're or above at an optimal size to fit their use case. The most important part of THAT computer is the operating system by far. He struggled heavily and trashed XP by clicking popups and stuff. 7 has all but eliminated that. I could probably go even further with a linux distro, but it would make things tougher for their Office docs.

I can't even really think of a case where that's true outside of gaming and watching movies (why would you doing this on a computer and spending hundreds if not thousands on monitors? get a TV or a projector if you have space). I've lost my main display a few times, and it sort of sucks going back to a smaller display if you're gaming, but if you're doing non-graphical productivity work it either doesn't matter or you can get a couple crappy displays if you need the workspace and be fine.
 
Nah...Windows XP or Windows 7, doesn't make that big of a difference to me. Getting popups and spam is something that happens on both systems plenty if the user clicks on bad links enough.

Even then, have enough RAM and you can run plenty of spyware lol.

Chair I didn't think about...definitely important for long term use and increased productivity/alertness.
 
It is the most important part if you a very picky or if it's used for gaming/graphics. For everything else a shitty TN panel will do.
 
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