Technology Your recommendations for large, wide-screen monitors

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Apollyon

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I am running a 3 monitor setup with a Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital box to co-ördinate things. I'm ready to upgrade, though. I have 19 inch X 3 right now, and want to go to 24-27 inch 16:9 X 3. I've seen Dell and HP for reasonable prices. However, one problem I have is the borders of the monitors I have now - although not large, they're doubled (of course) between the monitors. I haven't seen any with a narrow border. I certainly don't want any with integrated speakers. (Another problem will be having enough landscape on my desk for the three!)

So, does anyone have any personal favorites or recommendations? Reviews online seem to only be good - where's the honesty?? Nobody seems to have a "con" besides price.
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Apollyon said:
I am running a 3 monitor setup with a Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital box to co-ördinate things. I'm ready to upgrade, though. I have 19 inch X 3 right now, and want to go to 24-27 inch 16:9 X 3. I've seen Dell and HP for reasonable prices. However, one problem I have is the borders of the monitors I have now - although not large, they're doubled (of course) between the monitors. I haven't seen any with a narrow border. I certainly don't want any with integrated speakers. (Another problem will be having enough landscape on my desk for the three!)

So, does anyone have any personal favorites or recommendations? Reviews online seem to only be good - where's the honesty?? Nobody seems to have a "con" besides price.
Click to expand...

Honesty is such a lonely word. Everyone is so untrue.
 
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The Acer branch of (Gateway, acer, pac bell) makes decent monitors for the money (3 year warranty, but these are budget monitors). If you want a really balling monitor go with Dell Ultrasharp, but man o man are they expensive. Give me a dollar amount and a general use description and I'll give you a recommendation.
 
You'll want to make sure you get monitors based on In-plane switching (IPS) technology, it provides the best quality.
 
Blue Dog said:
Seriously, though...monitor quality is in the eye of the beholder.
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Well, that's true, but, more or less, I know the quality (such as it is) of posters here on SDN - I want to know what y'all like/prefer/have found with your monitors.

justaregularmed said:
Give me a dollar amount and a general use description and I'll give you a recommendation.
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I'm aiming for about $500-$600/each max. I'm not doing a grand or $1500 each. This will be for a lot of text and mild to moderate gaming. Also movie viewing (but not editing).

1UP said:
You'll want to make sure you get monitors based on In-plane switching (IPS) technology, it provides the best quality.
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I gotcha. And I'll check out NewEgg!

Many thanks!
 
So, as I now had a little direction as to for what I am searching, I find I need a "narrow bezel" - that is the terminology which I was lacking.

An interesting variation is taking the 3 - and putting them in portrait mode. Widescreen gaming forums has a picture of a guy's setup with 5 - it's "dope"! They also showed modded monitors with the bezel removed - so there's really minimal space between them. One guy has a pic of his setup - there's a steering wheel, and a driving game, and a person wrote that they thought that it was the CG roll cage, but it's actually just the bezels.

Matrox has this "bezel management system" to manually try to compensate for the differences, but it's a bit of a pain.
 
Many narrow bezel monitors are designed to be grouped together as "video walls." You might do some Google searches using those keywords, as well.
 
Apollyon said:
Well, that's true, but, more or less, I know the quality (such as it is) of posters here on SDN - I want to know what y'all like/prefer/have found with your monitors.



I'm aiming for about $500-$600/each max. I'm not doing a grand or $1500 each. This will be for a lot of text and mild to moderate gaming. Also movie viewing (but not editing).



I gotcha. And I'll check out NewEgg!

Many thanks!
Click to expand...

Dell UltraSharpTM U2410.

Its going to be about 550. The panel is super sexy (good viewing angles, colors etc). Its CCFL and gets pretty bright. The stand could be better but it hight adjust and tilts. It has some unnecessary card readers and usb ports. IT IS NOT 1080p (1920x1080) its 16:10 1920x1200. You can find it at dell or newegg or elsewhere.

Panel wise thats probably the best at the price range (so few people make the really nice panels you can probably find a similar if not the same one in another monitor). But its has a lot of extras that you really don't need, 4 USB ports and a card reader. So feel free to hunt around for a similar panel from someone else.

So shop around and compare that panel vs others and you can see what you want. Make sure the stand isn't crappy, check to see if it pivots, tilts, swivels and height adjusts. Remember the back light doesn't make the panel check for bleeding etc (i.e. don't just buy a LED monitor if the panel that comes with it it crappy, which almost all of them were when i checked.)

Good luck.
 
justaregularmed said:
Dell UltraSharpTM U2410.

Its going to be about 550. The panel is super sexy (good viewing angles, colors etc). Its CCFL and gets pretty bright. The stand could be better but it hight adjust and tilts. It has some unnecessary card readers and usb ports. IT IS NOT 1080p (1920x1080) its 16:10 1920x1200. You can find it at dell or newegg or elsewhere.

Panel wise thats probably the best at the price range (so few people make the really nice panels you can probably find a similar if not the same one in another monitor). But its has a lot of extras that you really don't need, 4 USB ports and a card reader. So feel free to hunt around for a similar panel from someone else.

So shop around and compare that panel vs others and you can see what you want. Make sure the stand isn't crappy, check to see if it pivots, tilts, swivels and height adjusts. Remember the back light doesn't make the panel check for bleeding etc (i.e. don't just buy a LED monitor if the panel that comes with it it crappy, which almost all of them were when i checked.)

Good luck.
Click to expand...

Just found out from slickdeals that the u2410 just went on sale for $490.

Use coupon code C70B$G36TSVVCH for an additional 10% off and it knocks it down to $440.
 
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justaregularmed said:
The only problem now is every other monitor you use is going to look like crap.
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And we're soon (finally) going to all computer charting at work!

I spend magnitudes more time on my comp at home, so it's not a big issue (my laptop has a wide screen, too).

Now I have to work on 1. a new video card, to go up from my 8800 GTS and 2. a bigger power supply to run the new video card!
 
Apollyon said:
And we're soon (finally) going to all computer charting at work!

I spend magnitudes more time on my comp at home, so it's not a big issue (my laptop has a wide screen, too).

Now I have to work on 1. a new video card, to go up from my 8800 GTS and 2. a bigger power supply to run the new video card!
Click to expand...

Yep your going to have to have something hefty to play new games well at the native resolution.

When you get them throw up a white background and tell me what you think.
 
Just as an FYI, PCI-X is actually an old standard that was mostly used by Macs and servers in the late 20th, early 21st century. PCI Express was established as the current standard in 2004 and is abbreviated PCIe or PCI-E (depends on who you ask), usually followed by the version. The current version is 3.0, but that was just completely in Nov 2010 and no ODM I know of is designing to that standard yet, so the latest cards are 2.0. The only reason I bring this up is that PCI-X and PCIe are mutually exclusive, if you told someone you were looking for a PCI-X video card, unless it was for a legacy system, you would end up with something that would not work in a modern PC.
 
1UP said:
Just as an FYI, PCI-X is actually an old standard that was mostly used by Macs and servers in the late 20th, early 21st century. PCI Express was established as the current standard in 2004 and is abbreviated PCIe or PCI-E (depends on who you ask), usually followed by the version. The current version is 3.0, but that was just completely in Nov 2010 and no ODM I know of is designing to that standard yet, so the latest cards are 2.0. The only reason I bring this up is that PCI-X and PCIe are mutually exclusive, if you told someone you were looking for a PCI-X video card, unless it was for a legacy system, you would end up with something that would not work in a modern PC.
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You know what? I wrote that post after working all night. I was referring to PCI-express, and abbreviated it as PCI-X when I meant PCI-E.

As I was writing that post, I had a moment of curiosity and went to the accursed Wikipedia, and read about AGP (as I'd wondered where that had gone), and then I saw the timeline, and then I saw the difference between PCI-E and -X (as, until then, I wasn't aware of that!). I then, without editing, posted my response, not having proofread it. The accursed article even commented on the -X and "express" sounding similar.
 
Yeah, why they made two standards that are so similar and so close in name to one another is just stupid.
 
Then maybe just a single 6970, or wait for the 6990 which should be out soon

I'm running a 2560-1440 and a 1650-1080 monitor, and battlefield bad company 2 runs just fine @ 2560-1440 with low/medium settings. I have a Q6600 and a radeon 4870. I'm guessing a single 6970 would be more than enough to run 3 monitors as long as you don't try to play crysis 2 on all 3 at once.
 
Brachiocephalic said:
Then maybe just a single 6970, or wait for the 6990 which should be out soon

I'm running a 2560-1440 and a 1650-1080 monitor, and battlefield bad company 2 runs just fine @ 2560-1440 with low/medium settings. I have a Q6600 and a radeon 4870. I'm guessing a single 6970 would be more than enough to run 3 monitors as long as you don't try to play crysis 2 on all 3 at once.
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I'm not a big time gamer, and I haven't done FPS in years. I'm due for a computer upgrade, and I want a video card that will last me several years (as my 8800 has). I hear ya on the specs.
 
Apollyon said:
I'm not a big time gamer, and I haven't done FPS in years. I'm due for a computer upgrade, and I want a video card that will last me several years (as my 8800 has). I hear ya on the specs.
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Then a 6870 or a 6950 would be good imo. You can hook up all 3 monitors to a single card, and their temp is low so should last at least 3-5 yrs
 
Brachiocephalic said:
Then a 6870 or a 6950 would be good imo. You can hook up all 3 monitors to a single card, and their temp is low so should last at least 3-5 yrs
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Second this. ATI has had the best support for multiple monitors (vs. Nvidia.)

The setup for the newer ATI cards requires 2 dvi connections + one display port. You're fine in this regard.

At this point you are probably up for a major upgrade, you might consider it. (just an entire new computer or if you are comfortable just a new motherboard/cpu/ram at this point, unless you are running EIDE (big 'ol ribbon cables) hard drives, then you would probably need to replace those too.)
 
All good stuff and I really appreciate it. I was reading reviews for cases on techspot, and pricing CPUs. I also see now that 2Tb HDs can be had for what I paid for 1Tb - I'm running 1Tb SATA x2, and have 1.5Tb in total still available (I thought I was saving more data than that!).

I've been looking at barebones systems, but can't find exactly what I want. The Radeon cards vs. two nVidias with SLI was another option - but ATI seems to be winning me over (I've never had anything but nVidia video).

I'll soon have a new rig up and running - just have to work on it! Thanks again! I just wonder about if there would be a difference with "2 DVI and one video connection" - like an analog? Not HDMI - but it looks like mini-HDMI. Does that give a different visual appearance?
 
It's probably a DisplayPort connector. They tend to look like a smaller version of HDMI.
 
OK, so I set up my monitors - so big, I ran out of space on my (physical) desktop. Score!

Then I fire things up...the startup screen...and...stalls during the POST - doesn't complete, and I don't get an error message. Bogus!

There's an error message on the front of my Dell POS - the lights "1" and "4" are lit. That doesn't correspond to any listed Dell errors. Grate!

So, I did some searching, and I've figured out that I've probably burned out my USB ports (hardwired). The TripleHead 2Go box plugs into a USB port. The three monitors plug into the TH2Go box. They have their own power cords, so that's not an issue. However, the box may have sucked some juice. So, the other things on USB are my wireless mouse, my keyboard, my iPod, and my phone. On doing research online, and found that this is a known problem of Dell 9150s and XPS400s - of course, no solution beyond "replace the MOBO". Yeah, not doing that.

There's other things like unplug it and hold the power button on (to drain the system); didn't work. I haven't removed the battery yet (did replace it about 1 1/2 years ago), and let it sit. There's also a solution to reset the CMOS setting by unplugging and crossing a jumper. Some people have gotten power to one USB port and plugged an external, powered port replicator to the one that works, and worked around that way.

I hope it's just a corruption of the USB drivers; if it's a hardware failure, then skuh-huh-roo that!

The short story is that it looks like Michael Dell can have it.
 
A POST failure, with associated error code on the machine, is almost guaranteed to be a hardware failure. You're probably boned. The only thing you could do would be to get a USB 2.0/3.0 card and stick it in one of your PCIe slots. However, it's entirely possible that with the USB ports damaged the system will never POST successfully again. At that point your could try physically disconnecting the ports from the motherboard, which may allow the system to POST, but if the controller itself was fried, there's most likely nothing you can do. The good thing is that you can usually get refurbed Dell motherboard fairly cheap, but it depends on whether its really worth the investment if the system is more than 2 or 3 years old.

The only good piece of news I can give you is that USB 3.0 has active power management in the hardware logic so its practically impossible to have this happen on new systems.
 
The Dell forums are full of workarounds and other stuff. I am confident that the hard drives are intact, so that's not an issue. This will just motivate me to get a new computer faster!

It is certainly not cost-effective for a new or refurbed MOBO.

Hell, at least I trouble-shot this myself for a bit, instead of paying someone $100 to do it!
 
At the risk of sounding like a stupid girl, what would one do with more than one monitor? Are you looking at the same thing on all three monitors? Or are you running different apps on each monitor? It must be a boy thing, because I honestly would rather spend money on a new Kitchen Aid Mixer with meat grinder, pasta roller, and ice cream maker attachments. Or a nice assortment of stripper heels.
 
jinx520 said:
At the risk of sounding like a stupid girl, what would one do with more than one monitor? Are you looking at the same thing on all three monitors? Or are you running different apps on each monitor? It must be a boy thing, because I honestly would rather spend money on a new Kitchen Aid Mixer with meat grinder, pasta roller, and ice cream maker attachments. Or a nice assortment of stripper heels.
Click to expand...

Girl? Yes. Stupid? No.

Bigger, better, faster, more!

I DO look at different apps on different monitors (like when I had Shareaza, LimeWire, and FrostWire open at the same time). Also, however, wide screen gaming. It's like being in the car, or you can see the whole map, or things blowing up - blow up bigger!

There's even a forum dedicated to it, and it's pretty active.
 
Apollyon said:
Girl? Yes. Stupid? No.

Bigger, better, faster, more!

I DO look at different apps on different monitors (like when I had Shareaza, LimeWire, and FrostWire open at the same time). Also, however, wide screen gaming. It's like being in the car, or you can see the whole map, or things blowing up - blow up bigger!

There's even a forum dedicated to it, and it's pretty active.
Click to expand...

While I admit it looks really cool (just like in all the sci-fi and spy movies that I love), I also have to admit that I'd still rather buy stripper heels. The closest thing to this I've ever done is to hook up my laptop to the TV, but then I only looked at the TV screen.
 
jinx520 said:
At the risk of sounding like a stupid girl, what would one do with more than one monitor? Are you looking at the same thing on all three monitors? Or are you running different apps on each monitor? It must be a boy thing, because I honestly would rather spend money on a new Kitchen Aid Mixer with meat grinder, pasta roller, and ice cream maker attachments. Or a nice assortment of stripper heels.
Click to expand...

Lots of things, I have 3 monitors but desk can only fit two, so I use two right now :(

Second monitor has all the side bars, chat program, foobar (music player)

Or, if I'm studying or writing paper, etc, I can drag a pdf/ppt/word to second monitor, and web browser on first one.

And obviously can watch tv with tuner on second monitor while I "study" on first one.
 
Damn it, Apollyon! I've been playing around with Audacity to edit audio files and now I'm thinking it would really be cool to hook up the flatscreen from my dead pc to my laptop. The only problem is that my desk has a hutch that I keep all my office supplies in, and in order to make room for the monitor I would have to get rid of the hutch.
 
jinx520 said:
Damn it, Apollyon! I've been playing around with Audacity to edit audio files and now I'm thinking it would really be cool to hook up the flatscreen from my dead pc to my laptop. The only problem is that my desk has a hutch that I keep all my office supplies in, and in order to make room for the monitor I would have to get rid of the hutch.
Click to expand...

You can get a stand that puts it up higher, so the monitor can be above the hutch. They can be a bit of a pain to screw everything together iKea-like and getting adjusted as you like it. You can also hang it on the wall.

However, it CAN be done! I'm working on getting a pic of my rig. Right now, the (physical) desktop is covered with junk, so I have to clean that off first.
 
Here is a thread I authored on another forum covering the basics of types (and quality differences) of displays.

It mostly boils down to what you do and what you need. If you don't care about color accuracy and just surf the net every now and then, there's no need to shell out for the best, like NECs or Dell UltraSharps.

Personally, I run 1 U3011 and 2 U2410s and couldn't be happier. I got tired of repairing my CRTs and decided to take the hit in black levels and go LCD.
 
I'm using a HP. It's stylish 22 inch HD LED. You should try that one.
 
mrdentist1372 said:
I'm using a HP. It's stylish 22 inch HD LED. You should try that one.
Click to expand...

I love HP monitors too but I believe most of them are the glossy type and I know some people wouldn't like the glare/fingerprints that comes with it. However stuff just looks better on glossy in my eyes.
 
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