monitor suggestions/help

[Chadwokie]

Im currently using a BenQ XL2420T as my main monitor with my old syncmaster 2494 as a 2nd screen.

I love my xl24 and dont feel i need to upgrade it so what im want some advice on is what do you suggest for the a 3rd screen? i feel a 2nd xl24 would be a waste as it wont be the main screen.

Budget up to the price of a £250 but not really sure if spending that money would be needed

main use for the pc is gaming

 

[Kushiro]

Get a Samsung curved TV!

On a more serious note, what do you need the extra monitor for? Or did you just want the extra one for 3 monitor gaming?

 

[Chadwokie]

no particular reason in all honesty tho i do fancy giving 3 screen gaming a go

 

[JR23]

That's understandable I really enjoyed having triples but never got the full experience with tragic old school Alienware rebrand Dell TN panels. I couldn't decide whether to get 3x 24" IPS Dells but ended up getting a 1440p which is nice in a different way, especially when I use it to watch TV at uni. If you've already made a big investment in graphics cards then I personally would go for a pair of nice slim bezel IPS panels and if you fall in love replace your BenQ with one. If the budgets tight just scrounge any old 1080p screen and see how you like it and how well you can run what you want to play. I'd be looking at Dell U2414's especially now they are sub £190.

JR

 

[Kushiro]

As above^^

 

[MacLeod]

A little off topic but how do you like that BenQ? Ive been seriously entertaining the idea of buying its 27" big brother. Im looking for a little more real estate than my 25" HP and am wanting to give 120 Hz gaming a go.

As for the 3rd monitor, Id want something as close to the old Syncmaster youve got now just for my OCD. If all 3 monitors couldnt be the same thing Id at least have to have the two on the ends to look as much like each other as possible. But you might not be as OCD about things like that as me.

 

[JR23]

As for the 3rd monitor, Id want something as close to the old Syncmaster youve got now just for my OCD. If all 3 monitors couldnt be the same thing Id at least have to have the two on the ends to look as much like each other as possible. But you might not be as OCD about things like that as me.

Agreed entirely on the OCD but I couldn't advise somebody to buy kit like that now. If you tried to pair the samsung you would end up with ultimately 3 odd screens, 3 different input lags, one would be amazing and one would be average and one would be horrific, 3 different sets of backlight bleed and 3 lots of quirky TN viewing angles and colouring.

If you matched the BenQ, yeah it seems sensible to get another of your highest quality monitor giving potential to get a third one. But then you would have dropped ~£600 for which you could of got 3 kick ass slim bezel IPS monitors that are perfectly suited to being triples as opposed to a 3d surround 3d setup that would need uber amounts of hardware to drive 5760 at 144hz.


A little unnecessary story if you have the time for it, it doesn't really go anywhere but it did teach me a lesson of don't keep adding to old tech, it's always pretty easy to sell and buy new when you need it.

A long time ago I used to have a beefcake XPS laptop and so I bought an Alienware AW2210 monitor, at the time it was very good, IPS was less of a thing and it had miraculously thin bezels and an epic input lag but the selling point for me was it had two HDMI ports so I could plug in my laptop and PS3. Because I was fairly uneducated in the tech world I was very happy with it as time went on and then I built my first rig. It had a 2600k and two GTX570's because at the time you needed two cards for triples, BestBuy UK were shutting down and they had a AW2210's on clearance so I bought another and for ages I ran one each side of my Panasonic 32" IPS TV. Eventually I got bored of how massive and quirky it was, about three years after I bought my first AW2210 so I decided to locate another. I had to buy a weird dodgey ebay one from a man in deepest birmingham with a mysteriously Russian warranty but anyway it was good and I had finally made it to having a matched set of triples!

21 April 2013

It was great for a while playing Dirt and Grid with my G27 was epic fun and GTA IV ran beautifully and i'd play it every day. When my 570's eventually went wonky I saved up a bunch of money and got two 780's on release day and decided my now 3 year old TN monitor setup wouldn't cut it and I was going to get new screen tech! The main thing that annoyed me was when you get content that is only 16:9 like TV or films and awkward games then that only leaves you with one tiny screen and that's what pushed me away from triples. When I get a place of my own and some serious cheddar I will do both because I miss it but i'm slowly becoming more of a modder/enthusiast than a gamer it's the picking, building and aesthetic that gets me now.

JR

 

[Chadwokie]

A little off topic but how do you like that BenQ? Ive been seriously entertaining the idea of buying its 27" big brother. Im looking for a little more real estate than my 25" HP and am wanting to give 120 Hz gaming a go.

love it tho iv only owned 4 monitors a old crt a "xerox" that was amazing but not widescreen prob close to 10 year the samsung which i liked at the time but the difference between the samsung and the benq is night and day (as it should be for the price and tech differnces)

as for the 3rd monitor you bring up a really valid point even now i see a differnce between the samsung and the benq (brightness being the main one but there's a definite sharpness difference to)

i think having 3 different monitors would drive me nuts i think i may end up seeing if i can shift the samsung and pick up another benq tho

 

[MacLeod]

A little unnecessary story if you have the time for it, it doesn't really go anywhere but it did teach me a lesson of don't keep adding to old tech, it's always pretty easy to sell and buy new when you need it.

A long time ago I used to have a beefcake XPS laptop and so I bought an Alienware AW2210 monitor, at the time it was very good, IPS was less of a thing and it had miraculously thin bezels and an epic input lag but the selling point for me was it had two HDMI ports so I could plug in my laptop and PS3. Because I was fairly uneducated in the tech world I was very happy with it as time went on and then I built my first rig. It had a 2600k and two GTX570's because at the time you needed two cards for triples, BestBuy UK were shutting down and they had a AW2210's on clearance so I bought another and for ages I ran one each side of my Panasonic 32" IPS TV. Eventually I got bored of how massive and quirky it was, about three years after I bought my first AW2210 so I decided to locate another. I had to buy a weird dodgey ebay one from a man in deepest birmingham with a mysteriously Russian warranty but anyway it was good and I had finally made it to having a matched set of triples!

21 April 2013

It was great for a while playing Dirt and Grid with my G27 was epic fun and GTA IV ran beautifully and i'd play it every day. When my 570's eventually went wonky I saved up a bunch of money and got two 780's on release day and decided my now 3 year old TN monitor setup wouldn't cut it and I was going to get new screen tech! The main thing that annoyed me was when you get content that is only 16:9 like TV or films and awkward games then that only leaves you with one tiny screen and that's what pushed me away from triples. When I get a place of my own and some serious cheddar I will do both because I miss it but i'm slowly becoming more of a modder/enthusiast than a gamer it's the picking, building and aesthetic that gets me now.

JR

Heard. While Im a devout gamer and have been since the early 80's and I do think that 3 monitors are just freaking cool, I dont think theyre for me. I agree with TTL that theyd just be a little to distracting for me while I was playing. For me this 25" HP is almost perfect and I think something like a 27" or MAYBE a 30" would be just about right. I want to be immersed in a game but I dont want to get sea sick or have induced seizures so I dont like having ALL my vision filled with the screen.

I think something like the BenQ XL2720Z will be just about right for me. (Not sold on 2560x1440 at 27" either. My eyes are too old to be trying to read tiny little text and I dont want to have to invest $1000 in GPU's to push that rez.)