Hi guys,

I am pretty new to Toms, so bear with me if I seem a bit green on a few things.

I am designing a rig for after my honeymoon and now that the Nvidia 7950GX2 tech is out I am pretty stoked. I really wanted to try an SLI rig but wasnt overly excited to see most of the board crammed up with the 2 video cards making it nearly impossible to add other things in the future. Now that this is out I am pretty excited I will probally wait till it comes down in price for a while mind you. I tend to buy the 2nd best or 3rd best video card when I build.

Now here is the delemia.

I have been looking at getting a flat panel. I really dont want to spend more than 500 bucks on it though. I had my eye on the Viewsonic VX922 but now I see it really doesnt have a super high resolution option. This new video card preforms BETTER at the higher reso.. and SLI almost requires me to have a really good resolution or its a waste right?

So am I doomed to not be able to have a flat panel? Should I go looking at the Graphics 20 inch model CRT for 499$ that they have on the viewsonic site? I dont like the bulk and weight of a CRT... but to use what tech I have my eye on.. would you say I am probally gonna have to grab a CRT?

Educate me
Ghost of War

I like this screen it's cheap and has good specs for more i would go with this one not so sure with this one though heard good things about the viewsonic though I wan't to get it myself.

But what resolution do they get.. thats the key

Do not go with that 20 inch Viewsonic, with 16ms black to black response time you could see ghosting and if your budget is $500 you can find something better...i personally just bought this BenQ 20.1 Widescreen for only $299 it was a steal, decent reponse time and imagine quality is awesome, BUT if you are willing to spend the money that samsung will be amazing....so take your pick

Is the resolution one that SLI would use though? They have built in speakers too.. is that good or bad?

lcd screens (ordinary ones) and games simply don`t match...
vx922 is 2 ms grey to grey (who knows how many black to white )..1280x1024 (5/4) .... etc........its simply not good expecially for sli...

just grab a good crt screen...

i`m not going to give you the full story...why tft`s don`t work well with games..there are billions of forums and sites with that.........but i can only tell you this (cause i`m in a hurry).....lcd screens can only display one resolution ..that is the native one 1280x1024 (that`s the case for vx922 and most of the lcd screens).....other resolution (lower of-course) is simply not worthy to watch ... the screen is forced to make an interpolation and the image is very poor.......

crt screens are only limited by the maximum video frequency...and they can display any resolution (incuding resolutions on different aspect ratio than 5/4...ex 1280x960)..also the image quality is natural for any resolutions.....the contrast is max...anything but the power consumption ..... the max resolution is limited ..by te video frequency ....ex one can display 1600x1440 at 100Mhz....this will mean a max vertical scan rate and horizontal scan rate ...... the bigger the surface the higher the video frequency will have to be ..the higher the vertical scan rate...(refresh)...etc...and the story goes on and on.....

if i were to choose now i would go for vx722..it has the same resolution ...lower pitch...(which is better).....

i`ll be back.....
good luck.....

p.s.
lcd .....as screens with universal resolution...and universal app...are still science fiction....i hope i`m wrong....

Get a nice widescreen LCD.

Here this is a great monitor from Samsung with a 5ms respsonse time which is great for gaming and a max/reccomended resolution of 1600x1200,
Samsung 204B

It would be great for gaming and Im sure you will be happy with it.

LCDs are a weird beast. The resolution goes up the bigger the monitor you buy. Of course the bigger the monitor you buy the more it costs you. If you go with a 24 inch widescreen LCD you will be pushing some higher resoultions . If you stick with a 19 or 20 inch LCD not so much.

SLI is really only good for high res gaming. If you buy a LCD in your price range you dont need the high res so you dont really need the SLI. Why buy SLI if you dont need it ?

Either go with the CRT and SLI or save yourself some money and just get a 7900gt now and save the rest of your budget for a DX10 card and new power supply when they come out late in 2006/early2007

Personally I have a 20inch widescreen LCD and I like it. It runs at 1680X1050 and I dont see any ghosting. Its not perfect and in some ways not as good as the 21 inch sony CRT I had but its smaller and lighter and widescreen is the way you should play games.

I've got a VX924. Its a better quality monitor than the 922, but still has problems. With anything other than its native resolution, (1280 x 1024) it posts an annoying notice that you are not running in its native resolution and you need to change your settings to match it. It seems to run well enough on its own and is nice and clear, but is just annoying, as I said.

My other computer has a 21 inch Sony CRT and I like that monitor a lot better. I can change the resolution to whatever I want without hastles. The picture is good. Its only problem is that its a great big hulk of a thing.

If you want high resolution, relatively low price, and fewer hastles with resolution, get a CRT. If you desire low weight, minimum space requirement and don't care about the resolution, go LCD. And yes, unless you get a big LCD, there isn't any reason to go SLI or Crossfire.

I agree with fainis, get a crt

CRTs are yesterday LCDs are today...don't even consider getting a CRT, if you want a higher res and a bigger screen and have the money get a 21 inch widescreen lcd or a 24 inch lcd, the image will look much crisper and sice you will have a powerfull enough gfx card you can run full 1600x1200 resolution or more ...only 19 in are limited to 1290x1024...20.1 and 21 or 24 all run 1680x1050 for widescreen and 1600x1200 for normal, some run even higher than that...

i have the opinion that you should go lcd only if you want to save energy or have a limited space. Other than that, i dont see any real advantage on lcd. CRTs have better image, better colors, better viewing angles, better response times. And are cheaper

or want to go widescreen.. and after playing a lot of games on a HDTV with a 360.. widescreen is the wave of the future.. or it should be.

I'd rather play on a 5:4 or 4:3 with accurate colors/brightness/contrast than on wide with not so good quality.

...you keep playing on your 360 on a HDTV. No need for a lcd monitor

of course, these were my personal opinions

...you keep playing on your 360 on a HDTV. No need for a lcd monitor

of course, these were my personal opinions

True but there are some PC only games that come out that I want to play so I like to have a gaming PC as well as a gaming console. I see the advantages to playing in widescreen on both systems.

I really believe that most people after spending some time playing on a widescreen will find the square box monitor/TV restrictive.

Dont give into all the "LCDs are today" hype. Sure they are popular, but that doesnt mean they are the best. LCDs dont even come close to CRTs when it comes to image quality, resolution, and price. If you have the space on your desktop to fit a CRT, then go for it.

The only areas that LCDs have CRTs beat is when it comes to space (this can be a major selling point to get an LCD, it was for me anyways), anti glare, and that newer higher tech look, and lower energy costs.

They can also be mounted on walls, are no way near as heavy, don't destroy your eyes and dont explode if you spill water on them .

Wrong. I'll concede on the point about resolution. With LCD's you're basically limited to the native resolution.
Price: The reason CRT's are cheap is because no manufacturer bothers to develop that technology anymore and they're selling refurbished models for next to nothing. They're crap and they're trying to get rid of them because they take up too much space in storage. The only good CRT's left are the high-end, workstation/photographer/graphic designer oriented stuff that's VERY expensive.
Image quality: LCD's are simply better. Perfect geometry, no flickering, crisp and bright images and with today's good quality models more than adequate colour fidelity and v. good viewing angles. Plus they're not so tiring on the eyes which is extremely important if you spend hours in front of the computer. NOTE: with a DVI connection - NOT analog