Brand New Acer Monitor good for gaming?

[biker3238]

So recently I've been trying to design a dream computer and I stumbled across a new Acer monitor. I wanted to get some opinions about whether or not it'd be nice for gaming and if not what would you recommend? (I'm looking for 24 inch, and preferably under $320)

Newegg link:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824009206

Thanks

[Bearded Frog]

Looks like a fantastic choice actually. LED is where it is at. I have an Acer Ferrari monitor on my gaming rig and I am pretty happy with that so I have no issues agreeing with your choice here.

[Brandito]

it's only white LED though, and i've read they have more trouble with backlight bleed and trouble with uneven lighting in dark scenes and blacks.

not to mention it's only 1920x1080

for that price it should be 1920x1200.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...047&Tpk=vw266h

that's what i recommend. pcper did a review on it, i own it along with a few other fragging frogs and we can all tell you it's excellent to game on. it's cheaper than the one you posted, and is actually 1920x1200 so more vertical resolution.

it's also 25.5 inches, so text should be a bit easier to read than a 24"

loving mine

if you're going to get led backlighting RGB is the way to go as i understand it, sounded like white led backlighting just adds more trouble, though it's probably more power friendly.

the asus is just the better deal IMHO, it's cheaper by a good margin, better resolution, a bit larger, and has an established reputation for being a darn good monitor for the price.

[biker3238]

Thanks for the recommendation and I do like the idea of upgrading my screen real-estate for a cheaper price

[Bearded Frog]

1920x1200 isnt necessarily better than 1920x1080. You're comparing 16:10 aspect ratio to 16:9. 16:9 can be advantageous for some situations over 16:10. Also the higher the res the better your video card needs to be. White LED is what is used in most LED backlit screens. RGB is only used in very high end models. While RGB is better than white LED, White LED is still leaps and bounds better than traditional CCFL IMO. As I type this I am on a newer Dell 20" CCFL LCD and sitting next to it is my dell laptop with a LED backlight which is more than likely white LED. The laptop screen looks much better.

The monitor you listed is a traditional CCFL 60hz monitor. It is probably very nice but why you wouldn't get a LED monitor or a 120hz monitor these days is beyond me. When you're going to use something for as long as you generally do a monitor why not get some of the newer technologies?

[mpulliam]

Acer and Asus are both great brands. Acer tends to be the "cheaper" of the two, clients tend to say htings like "knock off Samsung" when comparing it to others. This isnt a bad thing. Asus tends to be more expensive but with a better quality. Asus recently surprised a lot of retailers by lowering their prices on their great monitors, knocking Acer off the map for now (in the 22"+ bracket). The Asus "Gamer" monitors are unprecedented with an actual glass overlay on the LCD. Go ahead and let your friends sneeze on your monitor and touch the map with pizza fingers...

The VW266 Brandito posted is one of those newer style monitors, very little adjustment, but fantastic quality. I look right, and my wife has one on her desk and its excellent; while the old style VW222 on my desk is only a year old and when cold gives off an orange hue (has already been RMA'd twice).

-=M=-

[Brandito]

bearded frog i just don't see any real need to go led back lit, i know it's the new thing but it sounds more problematic than anything else.

it's a lot like these new 16:9 screens, there's really no advantage to them other than price. yes your card will be rendering more pixels, but it's not going to be a huge difference, however for regular desktop usage i think it is a big difference. most desktop activities are better suited to having more vertical desktop space. long web pages, documents, things like that mean less scrolling on a 1920x1200.

there's really not many led backlit monitors on the market, same goes for 120hz, especially above 22". i honestly can't think of any major benefits to 120hz other than 3d gaming though.

neither technology really seems that beneficial right now, not for computer monitors at least.

something from wikipedia on led backlighting. it has its advantages and drawbacks much like ccfl, and at this time i wouldn't say led is giving ccfl a knockout punch.

LED backlights
LCD with LED matrix backlight


LED backlighting in color screens comes in two flavours: white LED backlights and RGB LED backlights[1]. White LEDs are used most often in notebooks and desktop screens, and in virtually all mobile LCD screens. A white LED is actually a blue LED with yellow phosphor to give the impression of white light. The spectral curve has big gaps in the green and red parts. RGB LEDs consist of a red, a blue, and a green LED and can be controlled to produce different temperatures of white. RGB LEDs for backlighting are found in high end colour proofing displays such as HP DreamColor LP2480zx monitor or selected HP 8730w notebooks, as well as newer consumer grade displays such as Dell's Studio series laptops which have an optional RGB LED display. The LED Apple Cinema Display for example uses white LEDs.
RGB LEDs can deliver an enormous colour gamut to screens. When using three separate LEDs (additive color) the backlight can produce a color spectrum that closely matches the color filters in the LCD pixels themselves. In this way, the filter passband can be narrowed so that each color component lets only a very narrow band of spectrum through the LCD. This improves the efficiency of the display since little light is blocked when white is displayed. Also, the actual red, green, and blue points can be moved farther out so that the display is capable of reproducing more vivid colors. CCFL backlighting has also improved in this respect. Many current LCD models, from cheap TN-displays to colour proofing S-IPS or S-PVA panels, have wide gamut CCFLs representing more than 95% of the NTSC color specification.


There are several challenges with LED backlights. Good uniformity is harder to achieve, especially as the LEDs age, with each LED possibly aging at a different rate. Also, the use of three separate light sources for red, green, and blue means that the white point of the display can move as the LEDs age at different rates. Power efficiency also can be a challenge. Though it is possible for an LED display to be more power efficient, this is not a given and many first generation implementations may use the same or more power than their CCFL counterparts.[citation needed]


The use of LED backlights in notebook computers has been growing. Sony has used LED backlights in some of its higher-end slim VAIO notebooks since 2005. Fujitsu introduced notebooks with LED backlights in 2006. In 2007, Asus, Dell, and Apple introduced LED backlights into some of their notebook models. As of 2008[update], Lenovo has also announced LED-backlit notebooks, and other companies like HP will also be marketing LED-backlit notebooks in the near future. In October 2008, Apple announced it will be using LED backlights for all its notebook and its new 24-inch Apple Cinema Display, and one year later it introduced a new LED iMac, meaning all of Apple's computer screens, save the 30-inch Cinema HD Display, are now LED. Almost every laptop with 16:9 display introduced since September 2009 uses LED-backlit panels.

the acer basically has led going for it, but the asus has much more overall and at a lower price and has been established as being a very good buy. it's too hard not to recommend it.

[Bearded Frog]

Originally Posted by Brandito

bearded frog i just don't see any real need to go led back lit, i know it's the new thing but it sounds more problematic than anything else.

it's a lot like these new 16:9 screens, there's really no advantage to them other than price. yes your card will be rendering more pixels, but it's not going to be a huge difference, however for regular desktop usage i think it is a big difference. most desktop activities are better suited to having more vertical desktop space. long web pages, documents, things like that mean less scrolling on a 1920x1200.

there's really not many led backlit monitors on the market, same goes for 120hz, especially above 22". i honestly can't think of any major benefits to 120hz other than 3d gaming though.

neither technology really seems that beneficial right now, not for computer monitors at least.

something from wikipedia on led backlighting. it has its advantages and drawbacks much like ccfl, and at this time i wouldn't say led is giving ccfl a knockout punch.




the acer basically has led going for it, but the asus has much more overall and at a lower price and has been established as being a very good buy. it's too hard not to recommend it.

The advantage to a 16:9 screen is for movie watching. A lot of the time with 16:10 you are stuck with a scrunched image or black bars when watching movie content. Also at these res' how much scrolling are you really doing? Its a very high res regardless.

It is hard to argue CCFL vs LED because it is kind of like the 3d Vision arguement. You have to see it to believe it. However after the first time I saw it I was hooked. Comparing my Samsung series 8000 HTV to my LG CCFL HDTV there are large differences. Comparing my CCFL monitors to my laptop screen there is a large difference. I am sure the Asus is a good monitor but I just cant argue for the old technologies right now. LED and 120hz are very new for the desktop monitor market but there are more and more models released every day. When you are buying something that you will have for a long time like a monitor you dont want to be disapointed right away that you bought the old technology.

120Hz is mainly going to be usefull for 3d Gaming and 3d vision potential. However he did mention hes doing this for gaming.

Bottom line though I'm sure either choice will bring about a good result as they are both great monitors. I just cant reccomend CCFL anymore.

[Brandito]

i don't think i see a valid argument FOR 16:9. even for watching movies, yeah you'll have bigger black bars for wider content, but it in no way scrunches or affects the image if proper scaling is used.

the movie can still be displayed at full 1080p on 1200 vertical lines of res, the black bar is kind of a weird argument for me, you're not losing image quality in any way, so i don't see why the black bar would be an issue. most movies are filmed at wider aspects than 16:9 anyways.

i can see arguments for new technology, but if someone is buying today and are on a budget, i find it hard to recommend led or 120hz *IF* there are better monitors for less money already out there.

[Bearded Frog]

Originally Posted by Brandito

i don't think i see a valid argument FOR 16:9. even for watching movies, yeah you'll have bigger black bars for wider content, but it in no way scrunches or affects the image if proper scaling is used.

the movie can still be displayed at full 1080p on 1200 vertical lines of res, the black bar is kind of a weird argument for me, you're not losing image quality in any way, so i don't see why the black bar would be an issue. most movies are filmed at wider aspects than 16:9 anyways.

i can see arguments for new technology, but if someone is buying today and are on a budget, i find it hard to recommend led or 120hz *IF* there are better monitors for less money already out there.

Except it fits his budget. Black bars mean less screen space utilized. I was using a 16:10 monitor on my HTPC2 for a bit and everything was always scrunched or black bar'd where with the 1080p (16:9) it is either less scrunched or has smaller black bars.
1080p means 1920x1080 so im not sure how you can say 1200 can be 1080. it cant unless its scrunched or black bar'd.

[Brandito]

Originally Posted by Bearded Frog

Except it fits his budget. Black bars mean less screen space utilized. I was using a 16:10 monitor on my HTPC2 for a bit and everything was always scrunched or black bar'd where with the 1080p (16:9) it is either less scrunched or has smaller black bars.
1080p means 1920x1080 so im not sure how you can say 1200 can be 1080. it cant unless its scrunched or black bar'd.

there would be no scrunching. 1200 is bigger than 1080, so there would just be bigger black bars, the image wouldn't be any smaller or larger unless you strecthed it to fit the screen. if you play it at the proper aspect ration it would be exactly the same number of pixels as on the 1080 screen. 1200 can easily be 1080, you just display 1080 vertical lines of res instead of 1200.

i don't see how the image can be scrunched in any way, possibly stretched but that's on if you're fitting to screen.

i would even go as far as to say the asus would have the same or larger actual image displaying the same 1080p content as the acer because it's a 25.5 inch display. it's certainly going to use the same number of pixels for the 1080p content, the pixels not being used will just be blacked out.

1920x1080 vs 1920x1200 is more about price. i do see people having problems with bigger black bars, but if you know what's really going on the black bars are a total non issue and from a gaming standpoint 1200 is just plain superior. means you see more of the battlefield at only a slight hit to fps.

in this case the asus is cheaper so 1200 is looking really good.

i'd personally like to see fewer computer monitors using 16:9, it's just not as good for productivity, sure it's good for tv, but we're talking about computers here. they're cheaper to make though so people are gonna keep buying them.

[Bearded Frog]

More pixels, less inches. Black bars bother me personally.

[Brandito]

Originally Posted by Bearded Frog

More pixels, less inches. Black bars bother me personally.

i don't see why i guess, i mean i'd rather have black bars occasionally, than less desktop space always. i mean you're likely to get black bars watching most wide screen movies even in 1080p because most are filmed at wider than 16:9.

obviously i won't change your stance, but it's still good discussion.

[mpulliam]

but it's still good discussion

I agree. You young guys know your chit when it comes to monitors.

Thanks.

[Bearded Frog]

Originally Posted by Brandito

i don't see why i guess, i mean i'd rather have black bars occasionally, than less desktop space always. i mean you're likely to get black bars watching most wide screen movies even in 1080p because most are filmed at wider than 16:9.

obviously i won't change your stance, but it's still good discussion.

But you'll have less of a black bar or less of a scrunched image with 16:9. I'd rather have better looking movies than slightly more pixels on the desktop. I guess thats just my opinion though. However I would be very suprised if you didn't side with me on LED if you were comparing it side by side to CCFL.