Monitor and VPU Recommendations

I'm in the market for two new (identical) monitors and a VPU. For the monitors, I need screens capable of a minimum of 1920×1080 with a 22"+ screen size and . I also need a minimum of one DVI and one D-Sub, preferably with a fast source selection system. Also, I would prefer that there not be speakers on the monitor. Price is a factor, but not a major one. I'm willing to spend well to get something decent. For VPU, I'm just looking for a mid-price-point card to keep me going for the next few years, particularly something capable of playing Borderlands 2 with most of the settings cranked up.

Any suggestions?

I've been pining away for too long and couldn't wait any more. I went with two Asus VS248H-P 24" monitors, along with a dual-monitor stand for them. I also picked up an EVGA GF GTX 570 2.5GB card. It seems that the GTX 500 series is the end-of-the-line for PCI Express 2, and the 600 series and onwards are all PCI-E 3. I currently only have PCI-E 2 and I really don't feel like going through the hassle of a mobo upgrade right now, so the 500 series was pretty much my limit. The 570 isn't a massive improvement over my current GTX 460 on processing power, but the RAM size, speed, and interface were enough of an improvement to make it worthwhile. I'm optimistic that the 570 will keep me going for a few more years until I'm ready to swap out the mobo/cpu again. Also, for the hell of it, I picked up a Microsoft Sidewinder keyboard. My current keyboard is pretty beat up, and I'm a sucker for accent lighting.

That's nice and all but why so impatient?

I don't see why you had to go with a PCIe 2 card, according to my knowledge and Wikipedia, PCIe is downwards compatible. Whether the additional speed is actually needed is even debatable in some cases, I remember using a card in a slot that was only running at PCIe x4 instead of x16 and still getting a huge improvement over my previous card (tests also showed that the difference with existing cards at the time was only about 10% or so).

So you could've probably gone with a better card without upgrading your mainboard.

Hope you'll like the monitors, personally I'd try to get an IPS/MVA/PVA panel next though. Yes, they're a bit slower but I don't play Quake or CounterStrike anyway. 16:10 would also be nice but that's hard to come by nowadays (except Eizo I guess :sweatdrop: ).

Why so impatient?! It's new PC parts! Who wouldn't want that stuff ASAP? The non-budget GF 600 series are a bit on the pricey end for me regardless. I was trying to stay under $1k for the whole deal, and the priority was the monitors and the monitor stand. The VPU upgrade was kind of a splurge anyway as the GTX 460 was still doing a perfectly good job on pretty much everything. In any case, my wife has an identical GTX 460 in her computer and her mobo is SLI-capable, so my current card won't go to waste.

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Originally Posted by Husar

That's nice and all but why so impatient?
Hope you'll like the monitors, personally I'd try to get an IPS/MVA/PVA panel next though. Yes, they're a bit slower but I don't play Quake or CounterStrike anyway. 16:10 would also be nice but that's hard to come by nowadays (except Eizo I guess :sweatdrop: ).

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Yeah.. the 1920x1080 is not a true "24"... most likely a 23.6
I have a 1920x1200 screen @ work which I really love. Its a Fujitsu/Siemens and has great colours and light. I wanted a second one and ordered a 24" screen (we don't get to choose as we need to follow company agreements), sadly the new screens are 23.6 inch 16:9 (1920x1080) of the brand lenovo (also our supplier of computers). Its a great screen, but has cooler colours and it doesn't need "warming up".
I have a 16:10 right next to a 16:9 screen and my sense of symmetry is screaming foul. I could order another lenovo to get it right, but I simply love my amazing true 24 inch. Which is the one I do all my work on, keeping the other screen for email, reference texts social networks etc..

I guess I could find a co-worker and barter... :sneaky:

I agree about the 16:10, but the format appears to have been largely abandoned and it's getting harder and harder to find new monitors in those sizes. My old monitors were 16:10, but at some point we all need to just accept that 16:9 is the new standard for all screens and get on with it. We're not too far away from a time when there won't be any such thing as a computer monitor anyway. There will simply be displays in various sizes and of various qualities, and whether you use it for a television, a computer, or even a picture frame won't really make much difference.

In any case, these monitors are gorgeous. They are significantly lighter and thinner than my old 22" LCDs and the colors are fabulous. I highly recommend them to anyone who is interested, and I suspect other sizes in the same product line would be just as good.

On the downside, I have to return the Sidewinder keyboard. It is a superb keyboard and I love it, but I totally forgot that my KVM switch has issues with complex mice and keyboards. Apparently that is a common situation with KVMs, and it would be difficult to find one that was able to handle the Sidewinder. It's much more important for me to have the KVM than it is to have a flashy keyboard, so the KVM gets to stay and the keyboard is getting sent back. Just five minutes with the thing got me hooked on back-lit keyboards though, so now I'm looking for a basic one with that feature.

I love me some PC bling.

What's the refresh rate on these? (I have a slightly older model than these.)

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Originally Posted by TinCow

We're not too far away from a time when there won't be any such thing as a computer monitor anyway. There will simply be displays in various sizes and of various qualities, and whether you use it for a television, a computer, or even a picture frame won't really make much difference

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I am using a television for my computer screen, which allows me to set up a casual "lounge config". I feel it works very well for me.

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Originally Posted by Psychonaut

What's the refresh rate on these? (I have a slightly older model than these.)

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Horizontal Refresh Rate: 30 - 83 KHz
Vertical Refresh Rate: 50 - 76 Hz

I run them at the standard 60.

these are well regarded and cost peanuts:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/LG-E2351VR-B...I1DVLRC8JDVOL8

Regarding the graphics card, after thinking about thousands of options, none of which seemed satisfying, I saw that my favourite little shop had this card yesterday and got it (my AM2+ mainboard "only" has PCIe 2.0 as well) for the really low price of 214€! (all the other shops here usually have higher prices for non-overclocked versions or none available yet)

It's a great card, especially for the price, it also proved my hunch that the 768MB of my previous card were way too low, especially textures load a lot faster now and most games provide a much smoother experience than with the GTX 460.
Skyrim with HD textures for example runs smooth as butter now from the little I tested it.
They say the fan can be heard but from the few hours of testing a few of my games yesterday I have to say the only thing I could now hear was my HDD, the card is considerably quieter than the previous one, pretty much unhearable in Windows, and my case is wide open at the moment.

Overall I'm very happy with this one so far! :2thumbsup:

(I also found other people who said PCIe 3.0 isn't really necessary for most graphics cards as they hardly shuffle that much data around, so really, next time don't let some interface stop you from getting a better card if they're compatible anyway: proof)