Recommend me a Gaming Monitor

Yes, it has to be a monitor. The only space issue is height.

Here's the setup. For the past few years I've been using and extremely happy with the Dell Ultrasharp series of monitors. I have the 2405FPW on my Ubuntu rig and my primary system is running the 2408FPW.
I have never actively noticed input/output lag... but I'm starting to wonder if the panels I use aren't contributing to the sometimes 'sluggish' sensation when I am playing FPS games. At mid to long ranges I am fine, but if the action is close and personal it always seems a bit floaty and I generally lose to the guy that suddenly popped into view.

So I would love to hear any recommendations for a brand/model of monitor that you have or are using that is low lag while still providing decent picture quality.
I have done some research on this topic, but would love to get some recommendations or personal experiences from the community. I have a few panels already in mind, but am curious to see if the same names pop up on an open-ended question.

Details:
To be attached to a Radeon 5870 HD via Displayport. (For Bluray, but I could shuffle that to a secondary display if Displayport introduces its own lag.)
1920x1200 or greater.
My main concern is image quality + speed.
I'm hoping to use this as an excuse to try out mounting arms vs stands for my displays, so compatibility with standard adapters would be nice.
Pricerange is flexible if the value is there.

Help me twitch gamers! You're my only hope!
Am I crazy?
Is any ol' TN panel good enough these days?
Thanks!

So, space is an issue?

Truthfully, I don't follow monitors all that much, so I'm here to see what people's responses are. That and to see if someone ends up telling you that you're crazy and probably just getting old.

Not a bad article on the ins and out of input lag

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2803

I'm not much of a pro at online gaming so I dont exactly care that much about input lag.. I mostly go for size when it comes to monitors.. I want the biggest and the best in terms of quality and features.. I never really look at input lag (one because it can be a subjective issue)

If you are that concerned.. dig up an old Sony 24" CRT monitors.. I see them on Ebay all the time.. they will do 1920X1200 (I believe) and other than being monsters in terms of size and weight are basically the best when it comes to performance.

Text will look like crap though...

Rezzy, are those Dell Ultrasharps you have IPS monitors? if so, I can see where those could cause a bit of lag. It's my understanding that IPS panels are primarily for art/design/etc where color accuracy is important, but they have significantly slower response times.

I have a 24" Dell ST2410 (non-IPS), and it's been a fantastic gaming monitor. I think it's discontinued now, and replaced with a 2420 or something.

Yup. IPS panels. I do some hobby photography and have this thing about washed out colors.

I have never actively noticed input/output lag... but I'm starting to wonder if the panels I use aren't contributing to the sometimes 'sluggish' sensation when I am playing FPS games

That 2405 definitely has some lag. Mine messed me up pretty good when I first bought it. I was constantly missing clicks on things on the desktop, and I didn't understand why, and my performance in FPSes dropped suddenly and dramatically. It wasn't until I'd had it almost a year that I found out about monitor lag, and by then I'd already gotten rid of my CRT. The problem never got to the conscious level, I couldn't SEE the problem, but I could definitely feel it.

One way to help cut down on apparent lag: turn off vsync. Otherwise, you just want a monitor with fast pixels and a fast scaler. The monitor I'm running now is an HP LP3065, which is a 30" panel that has no onboard scaler at all. It's an absolutely dedicated computer monitor; it has only DVI ports. It's about as fast as monitors get in IPS-style, but a smaller TN screen would probably be better.

The new 120Hz/3D screens would also help -- just run them in 120Hz instead of in 3D mode, and you'll cut your lag time in half. Frame times at 60fps are 16.67 milliseconds; at 120, that's just 8.34ms. Human reaction time is about 10 milliseconds, so getting your displayed frame rate faster than your fastest possible twitch response should let you play at your maximum capabilities. Once you've gotten the actual panel to 120Hz, it's going to be all about the monitor scaler.

I went native 120hz with my latest display. Bought the Asus 23 inch.

I'll never buy another 60hz LCD for my PC.

Arise dead thread!!!

What does the hive mind think of this monitor?
http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-vg...
(it's about $400)

DanB wrote:

Arise dead thread!!!

What does the hive mind think of this monitor?
http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-vg...
(it's about $400)

That's the exact monitor I have. I love mine.

It's a glossy screen, so if you're worried about glare and don't have control of the lighting in your room it might not be great. It's also not going to be great for photo editing or things like that if you do any of that, simply by the nature of it being a TN panel.

But if your primary use is just general desktop use and gaming I think it's great.

Arise dead thread again!
I need new monitors and a stand for them so I have the whole arm thing that I can move around.

I've been completely thrilled with my Asus VS series LCDs. Bright, responsive and good color to me. For an arm, anything that reviews well should be fine, I'd imagine.

If you will mainly be gaming I would say go for a 120Hz TN panel. I know a lot of people don't like them (myself included) but for just gaming they are great. Personally, I have a HP ZR24W and what little gaming I do (the occasional new release with lots of Minecraft) seems to be practically lag free, though I do see a little bit of motion blur. I'm not a hardcore gamer and mostly use this monitor for web browsing, video editing and graphics design so TN just wouldn't cut it for that and I find the vertical color shifts of TN panel to be nauseating. If you do decide on IPS I would have a look a this list first: http://www.pchardwarehelp.com/guides/s-ips-lcd-list.php

The latest trend among PC gamers seems to be these high-resolution 27" IPS monitors from Korea that are popular because some are capable of running as high as 124Hz, though the quality seems very hit or miss.

I have a 30" dell IPS... I don't notice any gaming lag. I may just be insensitive.

I think a lot of the perception comes down to what task (or game) you're asking it to perform well at. I'd say the vast majority of games right now aren't that sensitive to lag, but there's just a few that are or reward that little edge it can give you.

I'm remembering the time I played some bit trip runner and went so far as testing different controllers for the different button responses (my old logitech pad won) and tinkered around with the different display modes on my dell2407.

I have the Asus VG278H that I only use for gaming and never ever open a browser so text in steam is about the only text I ever see on it. I really like the 120hz refresh and if your video card can get there, it's much much smoother than 60.

http://www.amazon.com/Asus-VG278H-27...

Does anyone know of a cheap(ish) ($200 - $400) monitor with multiple inputs and audio out? I'm moving my consoles to my computer area for a while and I need to be able to connect at least two HDMI inputs and two more PC (DVI or VGA) inputs.

I also need audio out so I can avoid a slew of cables and hopefully connect headphones to the monitor. Anyone know of something like this? Considering a cheap TV as well. That's certainly on the table if I can find one small enough and light enough and capable of attaching to a monitor arm.

The biggest problem I'm running into is that since I want a monitor to connect my PS3 and 360 to I need two HDMI ports or more. Most monitors that have two HDMI ports get rid of the DVI port.

I need DVI, 2 HDMI and one VGA port. That or 3 HDMI ports and a VGA port. I'm not in love with the idea of an HDMI switch box. Especially as I'd like to be able to cleanly connect headphones to a single port for use with whatever device is currently in use. I feel like what I'm looking for should be out there.

In our defense, what you want IS out there, you're just unable to spend the money on it.

I do almost exactly what you want but only use one hdmi connection on my monitor running off a receiver.

You might also want to note that not all hdmi cables do audio. They all might now though. They definitely didn't when I first put my system together which was like 5 years back. Cables might be better about this sort of thing now.

ibdoomed wrote:

In our defense, what you want IS out there, you're just unable to spend the money on it.

I do almost exactly what you want but only use one hdmi connection on my monitor running off a receiver.

Is there a/v receiver with a optical out? I've seen a/v receivers from $200 to $2000 and none of them have optical out.

Baron Of Hell wrote:
ibdoomed wrote:

In our defense, what you want IS out there, you're just unable to spend the money on it.

I do almost exactly what you want but only use one hdmi connection on my monitor running off a receiver.

Is there a/v receiver with a optical out? I've seen a/v receivers from $200 to $2000 and none of them have optical out.

Ok I've been do some digging on this and I think I see my problem. Most of these receivers think you will use the speaker connections on the unit so there are limited output options. Also if you have a hdmi hooked to the receiver you might not be able to get it to output to optical.

My problem was that I have these Z 5500 speakers that I kind of like. I want to run all my audio through but it can only take 1 optical, 1 coaxial and some other useless to me inputs.

Oddly enough I just check my tv and it has a optical out that I never noticed, so I don't have a problem anymore. My pc and all my consoles are all hooked up to the tv which doubles as my monitor. Now I feel stupid because I was also trying to figure out a good way to pump the audio from my tv to the speakers. My tv also has a single audio output for headphones but I never used it since it wouldn't be in 5.1.

Good to hear Baron.

A TV is probably DSGamer's solution too but I think below 32" they are all 720 and over 32" isn't going to be cheap... Not to mention text frequently looks like crap on a TV and you have to deal with 4:4:4 subsampling.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...

This is my monitor. I run a dual set-up with this and a 21" Dell ultrasharp Widescreen that's about 6 years old. I bought it because it has a backlight + an HDMI input so I can also play my xbox 360 on it.

Never had any problems with any games, CS:Go, SC2, D3, GW2. Great refresh rate and the backlight is the best. Plus it's from newegg so you can get lucky and get free shipping sometimes.

Thanks. I ended up with something similar.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0058UUR6E/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00

That's the Asus VS248H-P. The last few days have been interesting for me. Some brief background. I never really played PC games. For a couple years on a Mac in the early 90s and on a Win 95 computer in the late 90s. Otherwise I've largely personally built underpowered, but compatible Linux boxes. And then I transitioned to Mac. In between there I played lots of console and handheld games. So I never really kept up with the PC market in terms of where to buy parts, etc. I knew people always used Amazon, NewEgg or TigerDirect, but I didn't know why. I'm a little like Rip Van Winkle on this stuff because I never really spent much time choosing computer parts and when I did it was always for low-end PCs. Otherwise I used consoles and they worked. So I just assumed Best Buy and the like carried all the same products. I've spent the past few days both searching inventory on "brick and mortar" stores and actually walking in and looking at products. A few interesting things came to light.

#1 - Low end LED TVs make terrible monitors. I ran a PC and later a Mac on my Samsung 32" LCD without trouble. Mostly used it for movies, but the text always seemed clear. I connected my MacBook to a number of TVs in stores and could never get it to look good so I ruled that out. Also discovered that most TVs under 36" are 720P. That was also news to me.

#2 - Brick and mortar stores have terrible inventory. The more I researched the more I found out that there are a few Asus lines of monitors that are considered the gold standard for lower-end gaming monitors. Problem is I could never actually look at one. No physical store I came across carried much of a selection.

#3 - Random parts like HDMI switches are practically non-existent in non-online stores. Even Fry's had a paltry and expensive selection.

#4 - Most lower end monitors only have 3 inputs. If they have 2 HDMI they get rid of the DVI port. Not sure why.

So in the end I used that information to purchase an HDMI switch from Amazon for $50 along with the monitor above. Both shipping with Prime. I've had such bad luck with the few parts I did buy from brick and mortar stores that I kept going back to them because I knew I could make returns. I didn't realize that there were whole classes of product that were superior and not actually carried in physical stores. Weird. I feel like an idiot for not knowing this, but then again I don't do much with PCs. My Macs just work and Linux boxen never require much attention. So now I know. Newegg and Amazon are where everyone goes not just because of prices, but because the selection at a Best Buy is terrible. Noted. Now I anxiously await my new monitor. I can't wait to clean up my desk area of all the wires in exchange for a single switchbox and monitor.

That's part of why Best Buy is failing; they buy and sell sh*t products to idiots who don't know any better. But knowledge always increases, and people figure out that the monitor they bought at BB is terrible compared to the cheaper one their buddy got at Amazon.

When your business model only works if your Salespeople can trick customers into buying service plans and overpriced cables preferably with in store financing your pretty much doomed. I once attempted to buy a laptop at Best Buy and was promptly told the only IN STOCK laptops had the super awesome Geek Squad optimizations and Service Plan for an additional $350 something (or something outrageous)... I basically was told there was no sealed in the box laptop for me to buy... despite seeing all sorts of laptops in boxes in their cages.

MORONS! Hopefully they will implode soon and shut down for good... I doubt anyone will miss them.

TheGameguru wrote:

When your business model only works if your Salespeople can trick customers into buying service plans and overpriced cables preferably with in store financing your pretty much doomed. I once attempted to buy a laptop at Best Buy and was promptly told the only IN STOCK laptops had the super awesome Geek Squad optimizations and Service Plan for an additional $350 something (or something outrageous)... I basically was told there was no sealed in the box laptop for me to buy... despite seeing all sorts of laptops in boxes in their cages.

MORONS! Hopefully they will implode soon and shut down for good... I doubt anyone will miss them.

Well, I would have once said I'd miss them because it was easier to return broken stuff in person. But I guess now I have to move onto the Tubes with everyone else.

Good call on that Asus VS, IMO. I was going to recommend the slightly upscale VG series(slightly pricier at least, I have no real experience with them). Also, it has 2 HDMI outs vs the 1 on the VS panel.

Oh, and Guru re: Geek Squad Garbage: When I deployed in 2010, I wanted to have a laptop with me when I left and ran into the same issue. I raised an unholy stink about it, and they waived the extra fees for all that crap. So even if they tell you that there aren't any, even the floor sales guys should have the authority to knock that garbage off the cost of whatever it is you're buying.

I'm completely lost on Asus nomenclature on their model numbers these days. The LED cheaper TN panels seem to have an "H" variant and an "H-P" variant. Anybody know what the difference is?