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Heya guys, long time no see, i know. Like a kid in a candy shop, i came, ate up all the info so i looked like i knew what i was talking about, and left. Sorry about that. With no need for new hardware i basqued in the glow of knowing i got a good deal by posting on techreport, and that was enough.

............until now.........

I need a new monitor. And i want a good one, but i got little idea what metrics are important. I bought a magazine and will look online at consumerreports.com to see the monitors with the highest satisfaction rating, but i get alot of conflicting info on lcd monitors and it's overwhelming. the most confusing thing is that usually the highest satisfaction rating product is also the oldest, meaning i could be getting something much better if i stay away from looking at only rating, bah!

----contrast ratio, I know higher is better, but how high is enough? Will too high a contrast ratio cause color saturation? I h8 looking at a screen and thinking it looks like wet paint

----response time, i know lower is better, but how low is enough? will i be able to tell between 5 and 8 ms??!

----candelas, or cd/m2, how much is enough for a "good monitor"? I see monitors on newegg with 300 that win the customer satisfaction award, but if i pay $100 more i can get 500 cd/m2 brightness. will another 200 make a huge difference?

----What is D-sub? never even heard of it

----Flying fox mentioned aspect ratio scaling on a LCD is a good thing, are all LCD monitors usually aspect ratio scaled now, or do i need to look at the specs, or is this not even done thru the monitor, cause I'm not seeing aspect ratio scaling mentioned specifically on the online specs. I gots an nividia 8800GTX, should I not worry about what the monitor does and just force what I want thru the card?

----pixel pitch, isn't pixel pitch another way of determining native resolution? i believe small is better on pixel pitch but please correct me if I am wrong

Now before you guys go off on me for looking for a spoon feeding, know that I will do my homework, and I already have started, but I was looking for some heuristics from the videophiles at TR.com. Give me numbers, please. Don't tell me it's all subjective. I can read that in the magazines. I want to know what you guys feel is a "good" number for the metrics that matter. If I missed any metrics please inform me, I'm a spong

Lastly, now many of u would buy a monitor online. its so much cheaper, but you don't get to SEE IT before you buy, which sucks!

A few answers:

D-sub, also known as DB15 is just your regular 15-pin analog monitor connection that almost all CRT's use, and most LCD's will accept.

The nVidia card will control your scaling, so you don't really have to worry about that in a monitor.

The dot pitch isn't nearly as bit of a deal in LCD's as it was in CRT's, IMHO. Almost all 22" monitors will have very similar pitches, but they will be bitter than a 20" at the same resolution (older people like to get the 22's over the 20's or the 19's over the 17's with the same resolution do the bigger pixels and it being easier on their eyes. That one's up to you.

What sort of viewing angle are you interested in?

Welcome back. Hope you stay longer this time. Getting into Folding will help you stay.

Seems like even more people are looking for LCD monitors. This recent thread will be a good start. You can search for "LCD" as well and should get you a bunch of other threads.

thanks for the replies so far guys. I am reading the post Flying Fox gave, as well as looking at the 22" monitors, im even looking at 24" monitors.

i hope the 24" won't become pixilated because of similar dot pitch or resolution as the 20" monitors. I will have to be careful to note if there is an upgrade in dot pitch or native res

Viewing angle seems pretty similar across most monitors that I have seen. If there's somethign I need to look out for let me know please. I guess some lcd TYPES of monitors have differing viewing angles. Not sure if i have seen any restricted angles in the models i am looking at

DopplersEffect wrote:

i hope the 24" won't become pixilated because of similar dot pitch or resolution as the 20" monitors. I will have to be careful to note if there is an upgrade in dot pitch or native res

24" runs at 1920x1200, not 1680x1050 that most 20" and 22" monitors. Don't worry.