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I'm looking for a new display. I've upgraded everything around my desk... okay, I've even BUILT myself a new desk out of Brazilian Cherry but I haven't really upgraded to a better monitor since I got my current Acer AL1916. The AL1916 does 75Hz, which is good because text is displayed kind of fuzzy at 60Hz.

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/9434/p1010010px.jpg

Yes, that's an Ultrasharp 2408WFP - and the desk I built which is 6' long. I purchased it about a month ago for $300 and have since received two replacements through Dell, eventually ending up with the latest revision of the model - Rev.02. I did try it out before I bought it - and it seemed kind of laggy on the desktop, but the guy I bought it from was using a wireless mouse and said he'd played Modern Warfare on it and been ranked pretty high, so I figured it would be good enough for gaming.

Yeah... I tried playing my favorite surf map in CS:CZ. There's lag. Lots of it. I cloned it with the Acer AL1916 and took a video of the monitors with a millisecond timer running on both screens. The difference was averaged out to 70ms! So I'll be getting a new, new monitor... I think.

I've looked around for the past couple weeks and everything with 1920x1200 and greater than a 60Hz refresh seems to be out of stock or discontinued. I've seen the Anandtech monitor thread, digitalversus.com, and read forums on [H]ard|Forum and TR.

I'm considering going back to CRT as I can get a Sony GDM-FW900 for $350 - it retailed for $2,300 in 2002. Its resolution goes up to 2304 x 1440 (2560x1600 unofficially) and can do 1920x1200 around 90Hz.

My question is this - can someone recommend a high resolution, flat panel monitor with above 60Hz refresh so I won't have to find room for a 90 lb. CRT in cramped, college-type houses while I move from place to place while going through school?

I'm running a C2Q8300 with a GTX260(216SP)

This topic has been discussed recently. However, I believe input lag is different from seeing flicker and stuff?

Its not 1920x1200, but the Dell 2209WA has been verified to do 75Hz I believe. Its a 1680x1050 monitor though (then again, a lower resolution gets you higher framerates), but its e-IPS so you would enjoy good image quality along with a higher refresh rate.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php ... &t=1387587

I recommended the 2209WA to a friend and he's really happy with the choice. But it doesn't go to 75Hz at 1680x1050 without increasing the viewable screen size so that it goes off the screen.

Also, Fox - that thread really went nowhere about midway down the page. Everyone decided to go off on random tangents after a couple of monitor suggestions including a 120Hz monitor that I thought was supposed to be 60Hz x2 and to be used with nVidia's 3d glasses. If I'm understanding the reviews I'm reading.

Dashak wrote:

I recommended the 2209WA to a friend and he's really happy with the choice. But it doesn't go to 75Hz at 1680x1050 without increasing the viewable screen size so that it goes off the screen.

Also, Fox - that thread really went nowhere about midway down the page. Everyone decided to go off on random tangents after a couple of monitor suggestions including a 120Hz monitor that I thought was supposed to be 60Hz x2 and to be used with nVidia's 3d glasses. If I'm understanding the reviews I'm reading.

Pretty much- the only monitors that can do >60Hz to the panel, and at the same time be capable of taking >60Hz input, are the one's designed for 3D stereoscopy. We've still yet to find an answer as to whether or not they will take a 120Hz non-3d input and output it at 120Hz to the panel, unfortunately.

And I still don't believe refresh rate has anything to do with input lag, unless the OP confuses ghosting with lag. If it is input lag we are talking about, then it is a bit puzzling as the 2408WFP Rev.02 reportedly has the input lag issues resolved. May be too twitchy gaming?

Flying Fox wrote:

And I still don't believe refresh rate has anything to do with input lag

It does.
Input lag means the time taken from performing an action up to seeing it on screen. Lower refresh rates mean longer frame times and they add up to input lag, but on its own it's not much to notice.

Meadows is right, but that level of input lag has nothing on the amount of input lag induced by the monitors circuitry itself. But if you were able to sync everything up, from vsync to the monitor all the way back to the game engine, at 120Hz, maybe everything would just be that much more responsive. I guess that's the ultimate goal of this exercise.

In that case the "huge" lag that is being seen here should be more due to circuitry lag than refresh rate lag then?

Pretty much- compare the 'gaming mode' of the U2410 to the HP2475, or anything with a PVA panel in it.

Airmantharp wrote:

Dashak wrote:

I recommended the 2209WA to a friend and he's really happy with the choice. But it doesn't go to 75Hz at 1680x1050 without increasing the viewable screen size so that it goes off the screen.

Also, Fox - that thread really went nowhere about midway down the page. Everyone decided to go off on random tangents after a couple of monitor suggestions including a 120Hz monitor that I thought was supposed to be 60Hz x2 and to be used with nVidia's 3d glasses. If I'm understanding the reviews I'm reading.

Pretty much- the only monitors that can do >60Hz to the panel, and at the same time be capable of taking >60Hz input, are the one's designed for 3D stereoscopy. We've still yet to find an answer as to whether or not they will take a 120Hz non-3d input and output it at 120Hz to the panel, unfortunately.

Why would the monitor care whether the input is "3D" or not? Here are reviews for a couple 120Hz monitors:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monito ... 268wm.html
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/samsung_2233rz.htm

crazybus wrote:

Why would the monitor care whether the input is "3D" or not? Here are reviews for a couple 120Hz monitors:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monito ... 268wm.html
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/samsung_2233rz.htm

The way I understand it is that it has to be a stereo image for "120 Hz" because they worked some magic where a 60Hz image + 60Hz image = a 120Hz image. Kind of like how a quad core @ 2.66GHz = a 10.64Ghz processor.

Dashak wrote:

crazybus wrote:

Why would the monitor care whether the input is "3D" or not? Here are reviews for a couple 120Hz monitors:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monito ... 268wm.html
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/samsung_2233rz.htm

The way I understand it is that it has to be a stereo image for "120 Hz" because they worked some magic where a 60Hz image + 60Hz image = a 120Hz image. Kind of like how a quad core @ 2.66GHz = a 10.64Ghz processor.

The glasses that go along with it have shutters which operate at alternating 60Hz for each eye, so if the monitor is displaying two different images at 120Hz (one on the odd frames, one on the even) then each eye gets a different image and, if they're really the same image just offset slightly, you get a stereoscopic 3D effect. Some TVs will do that too -- I tried it out at Fry's and didn't like the effect very much (it was real, but not pleasant to endure).

However, the linked Samsung at least appears to be a legit 120Hz monitor -- it'll take a "normal" 120Hz input, and will display it at 120Hz (without any interpolation like the 120Hz TVs do, though if you're watching a movie your video card could take care of that, though I don't know if any do). I wonder if we'll see that tech migrate to more models? Based on the close-up shots in that review at TFTCentral, it looks like it would improve the appearance of fast-moving twitch games (even if it didn't help the player in any real way) by reducing the "pixel hangover" that sometimes results from overdrive circuitry.

Dashak wrote:

crazybus wrote:

Why would the monitor care whether the input is "3D" or not? Here are reviews for a couple 120Hz monitors:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monito ... 268wm.html
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/samsung_2233rz.htm

The way I understand it is that it has to be a stereo image for "120 Hz" because they worked some magic where a 60Hz image + 60Hz image = a 120Hz image. Kind of like how a quad core @ 2.66GHz = a 10.64Ghz processor.

There are other types of stereoscopic monitors that multiple display matrices, interlacing, polarization, etc. to achieve a "3D" image. But those don't have LCD panels capable of 120Hz input. These monitors are not responsible for any stereoscopic processing of the image they receive. In other words they work just fine at 120Hz for 2D mode operation.

X-bit Labs wrote:

By the way, I recommend setting the refresh rate of 120Hz without any stereo mode, too, and even if your graphics card cannot yield 120 frames per second because the monitor will deliver an excellent speed and a minimum level of artifacts then.

gaming input lag in general is not caused by the refresh rate advertised on a LCD
whether your LCD is 5ms response time or 2ms does not mean much
input lag has to do with scaling and processing
just so you know, most plasma TVs run around 400MHZ