Yeppers, the Techno-Noob par excellence, Tbolt is back and soliciting advice from Banzai, (Lord help us all). You guys have never steered me wrong with tech suggestions in the past, so here goes.
I am soon to be in the market for a decent 17-20 Inch LCD Monitor. who has the best prices? So far all the retail stores are kinda outrageous and the online guys I have looked at seem more reasonable, but then again I haven't factored in shipping yet. Any suggestions?
Thanks guys.

Hey Tbolt! Spartacus here. Been a long time since I posted here, so I never changed my tags on this forum.

The best way to get a good flatpanel cheap, is to buy a new PC with one. Always get a discount that way.

Barring that, the best way is to serch on Cnet reviews. Absolutely fabulous review site.

Try this link:

http://reviews.cnet.com/4566-3173_7-0.html...=edRating7+desc

Take a look at that Dell UltraSharp 1905FP.

I did a lot of research when I bought my first one. The coolest feature that you need/want/desire is (IMHO) digital type input..that is called DVI. You need a video card with digital out, and a flatpanel with digital in. Get them both, and the difference in image quality will blow your mind. Seriously!

My setup. Two 19 inch flatpanels.

Dude! How many freaking screens do you NEED?!
Thanks for the linky. I'll check it out. Not usre if my vid card is up for that and after all the trauma I went through replacing it I'm just not ready to go through that again, but I will definitely check out tht link. Is that a Saitek stik on your desk? It looks an awful lot like the one I use, right down to the blue LED on top. And from the set up I'd say it looks like you're a southpaw too...
Thanks for the info!

I used to use three at once but then summer hit and I discovered that CRTs put out a lot of heat...

In my opinion the best place to shop is NewEgg. Their prices are generally good, they carry pretty much anything you need, and have good service.

LCDs are still an area where, for the most part, you get what you pay for. A cheap display is not gonna have near the quality of a better (and therefore more expensive) one. There's too many ways to cut corners on LCDs (uneven backlights, cheap panels that have poor color reproduction and dead pixels, poor electronics) that let the bargain manufacturers put out something on the cheap, but really show in terms of how the finished product works.

Personally, I'm quite enamored with NEC's flat-panels, but a lot of people swear by Dells, and still others will recommend Samsung. Stay away from the off-brand stuff, or you'll likely end up regretting it.

Generally speaking, for a gaming display your going to want:

At least a 12ms response time. Any more and you will start to notice smearing when things are moving quickly on the display.

A full 8-bit color depth. Some panels have a 6-bit depth, which makes getting response times down simpler and makes things cheaper, but means that you will notice dithering when you've got things set at 32-bit color depth and something onscreen falls outside the monitor's gamut.

A DVI hookup, if your video card has one. Otherwise the digital output of your video card is getting converted to analog, and then back to digital again, which leads to degradation of image quality.

Contrast and Brightness... well, these are kinda subjective, in truth. I was darn near blinded by my LCD when I got it (NEC MultiSync LCD1770GX, if you're wondering) and I still only run it with the backlight at 65 percent or so. Contrast on LCDs is typically exaggerated compared to a CRT unless adjusted. I think the best way is probably to go into a brick and mortar store and look at a screen to see what it's like.

In fact, the best advice overall would be to go to the store and play around with a variety of displays until you get a feel for what combination of features and specs you prefer and then try and find where you can get that for the best price from a good manufacturer.

Hey thanks thrahsy! I went to New Egg and looked at NEC monitors. Very nice. I couldn't find hte model you mentioned by I probably typoed something in wrong or something. Even the 17's are a tad out of my present price range, but I can save up a bit. Thanks for the tips on the 12ms info. I didn;t even know what that was when I read it on certain descriptions and I didn't know what was better 8 or 12 or what. Good info I plan to put to use, well as soon as Ic an afford to.

Just to clarify: 12ms or lower is what I meant, I wasn't very clear now that I re-read my post. Just in case. 8ms is great, lower than that can be overkill unless you're very sensitive to the smearing effect.

I'd highly recommend this monitor from newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16824116375

Tomshardware.com rated this as one of the best lcd monitors for gamers on the market right now. Good price, good picture quality, and a very low latency. A lot of the new latenency monitors have severe spiking issues with their times. But this one is consistantly fast.

And wow, heheh, been a long time since I've been to this site.. Maybe it's time I got back into gaming and put my x52 to use for once. Hello all.

Hey PAT! Thanks for coming out of semi-retirement just answer my little old question. Yeah I like that one a LOT. I appreciate the input.

Speaking of ghosts from the past...

Ok, so just *how good* is the ViewSonic VX922 for gaming?

I've tried three different LCDs (Samsung, Dell and Samsung again), all were supposedly great gaming monitors, and yet the ghosting/artifacts & "tearing" drove me nuts whenever I was playing a moderate-to-fast-paced FPS game.

I've always had to retreat back to my space heater/19" CRT Dell (actually a Sony Trinitron branded for Dell systems).

I'd like to ditch this anchor once and for all, but I cannot tolerate ghosting & tearing in my games. I get shot b/c my friggin screen is too slow to handle some 180 mouse-turns and I get grumpy.

Is the ViewSonic VX922 the real solution? Or should I wait for a while longer?

...and o/t: I'm almost to the point of re-installing MW...it just seems like a bunch of hassle to get the MekPak & crap to work. BUT...I miss it. AND oh yeah, I mean that I miss all of you, of course...*cough*...

Do it!

I second the Newegg recommendation--always been great to work with and their prices are always "fair" if not always the absolute cheapest.

As for monitors, I've become enamoured of Samsungs in the last few years. They have been developing more conservatively, but putting out solid, reliable monitors with a great picture and good value. Here's one that has rebates on it now:

SAMSUNG 940BW Widescreen Analog / Digital LCD Monitor at JR

JR is ok to work with, but watch their shipping costs. This one is widescreen (useful if you ever plan to watch movies, but odd if you are not used to it) and has dual inputs.

If you want to go a little bigger and spend a little MORE, take a look at these Samsungs at Newegg:

SAMSUNG 205BW Black 20" 6ms Widescreen at Newegg

or the really big:

SAMSUNG 225BW Black 22" 5 ms (GTG) Widescreen LCD Monitor at Newegg

I have purchased a 19" Hyundai monitor for around $110 in the last few months that Alli uses as a second screen. I have not tried it for gaming, though...can't say whether the "off" brands have gotten their act together or not. I do know the Samsungs have a 3-year warrenty, and the company ain't going anywhere if you need help.

Another Samsung deal $199 for a 20" flatscreen LCD:

"Samsung 203B 20″ Flat Panel LCD monitor - $199Posted on 10/05/06 by David

Hot deal going fast. Office Depot is offering the Samsung 203B 20″ Flat Panel LCD monitor for just $199 with free shipping after a $40 rebate. Extremely low availability right now, but try changing your ZIP code to search different stores (hint: I had luck with one San Diego ZIP code). Click Office Depot for the techdeal and search for “860039″. "

Monitor Deal at Office Depot

I clicked but it was 299.00 did I miss some text that explains the deal?

Deal ended...

Sometimes these things come and go pretty fast. I've got a couple of "deal" sites that I scan when I am on the hunt for something. With a little patience, something good usually comes up

Ben's Bargains

or

Techdeals

I can scan'em both in about 2 minutes. If something looks good, I follow up. Good luck with the hunt!

I know a few people with these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16824014111 pretty nice, fast, good color. (Wife has one)

I have a special ferrari edition of this panel, and my cube-neighbor has this one.

Gotta have a potent graphics card to handle the wide-panel, but the crystalbrite screen is uber-nice for gaming

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16824009094

That said, hard to go wrong with a viewsonic.

(this is mine http://www.acer-euro.com/ferrari-line/display/ferrari-design.html ://http://www.acer-euro.com/ferrari-li...ri-design.html ://http://www.acer-euro.com/ferrari-li...ri-design.html ://http://www.acer-euro.com/ferrari-li...ri-design.html )

Thanks Cat! Appreciate the input! Lookin forward to my tax return!

Guys, my "NewEgg" machine that you guys helped me build ROCKS! I recently replaced my hard drive with the 150GB 10,000 RPM Raptor which ROCKS, as well.

Great advice on the NewEgg site.

Hey DS does that raptor make much noise? I've got a pair of seagates that have never made any noise but I've heard that raptor's can be a bit noisy.

Yes, it does when it's pulling data. Quite honestly, my Silverstone door on my case rattles when the computer is firing up. But, the speed outweighs the noise. It's really only at start up where I notice the difference.

Aside from that, I have 10 fans in my case that make more noise than anything. I'd switched out the two 80mm fans in the front as they were loud.

I'd like to build with a Lian case next time. And I want to build with case fans that are 120 to 200mm in size. A lot less noise.