SurClaro Flight Simulator Resources

Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 1:29 am Post subject: What monitor should I get?

Hi folks, Captainel is BACK!! Smile

Hehe, I am looking to buy a new PC. Since I moved to Holland from Egypt (college) I had to leave my two-year-old then-monstrous PC behind. I am however bringing my XFX 8800 Ultra with me I am looking for good specs to run FSX very good. I have set a limit of €1,100. Here are the specs I was thingking about:

MSI X58 Pro-E motherboard €171,40
Intel Core i7-920 processor €229,80
XFX 8800 Ultra gfx card €0,00 (brought from cairo)
6GB Corsair or A-Data DDR3-1333 RAM €100,20 (A-Data is a 10 €'s cheaper; no plans for oc-ing)
1TB Samsung Spinpoint F1 hard disk €69
Sony BR-5100S blue-ray combo €97
Creative X-Fi Titanium sound card €69

What do you think? Are these decent specs to run FSX with good performance? (planned resolution 1920x1080 or 1920x1200).

Now about monitors. I was looking at quite a whole lot of monitors, some cheap, others more expensive. I'm looking for a 24" that supports 1920x1200 res, can play 1080p media, and is not TN.

For what I hear TN monitors can have fast response times, but at the cost of color quality and poor view angles. This is because TN uses 6-*beep* instead of true 8-bit. It can only really support 252k colors instead of 8-bit, which has 16.7m colors. TN can "guess-timate" the rest of the 16.5m colors by means of dithering (to still make it 24bit true color), but the results are unimpressive. Then there is VPA and IPS which do use true 8-*beep* and show superior color quality and view angles than TN. But these are more expensive, IPS being the best of all. My old 2005 19" ViewSonic VP191s is an S-PVA monitor, and I definitely notice the difference in color quality, since on the same desk I used to sit behind there is another monitor which is TN. The difference is unnoticable when they are not compared to the VPA panel, but color quality is not something I am willing to sacrifice (since I do professional photo editing aswell). So in a nutshell:

TN = poor color, poor view angles, fast response (2 - 5ms)
S-VPA/A-MVA = excellent color quality, large view angle, 5ms or higher response times, more expensive
H-IPS/S-IPS = amazing color quality, large view angle, 5ms or higher response times, creates a massive hole in credit card balance

My limit on the monitor is €479 exactly. I went online and saw Samsung came out with their latest SyncMaster 2494HM. It looks impressive on paper:

24", 1920x1080 and Full-HD 1080p support, 50000:1 dynamic contrast, 1000:1 typical contrast, 300cd/m2, and 5 miliseconds response time.. all for €290!

It sounds impressive, but it's a TN panel, which has its associated weaknesses. I was looking at the BenQ FP241WZ, a two year old model but has A-MVA panel which is 8-bit true. It supports Full-HD, has a larger 1920x1200 res, and also 6ms grey-to-grey, 16ms rise+fall, 1000:1 contrast, and 500cd/m2 brightness, HDMI yes.

I was also looking at the one-year old model Philips 240PW9EB also.
This one is the mothership H-IPS panel with color gamut of 102% NTSC (what the heck does this mean? but its higher than 92% NTSC I've seen on other IPS panels in the price range), 1920x1200 res, 5ms g-to-g, 1000:1 typ, 3000:1 dyn, 400cd/m2. For €433.

Not bad, I'd think. but it has no HDMI!

My question is, based on this information, what would you think would be the best option? Remember IPS is better than VPA is better than TN.
If the Philips had the HDMI I would have hit the BUY NOW button a long time ago. Can I live without the HDMI? I saw a DVI to HDMI converter available for 20 euros. Will this compromise quality of the 1080p image? I do plan to use it as a PC monitor, and I do plan to use it as a TV as well, which includes hooking it up to a Blue-Ray Player to play 1080p movies. Also can I get the Full-HD experience if using the PC?

Hehe, I know its a long question and a lot of information, but I have been stuck with these questions for many days, and spent countless hours in my rather dark cubicle-of-a-room staring at a small laptop displaying search results.

Thanks a bunch load,

Captainel.

Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 1:42 am Post subject:

oops, I may have accidentally posted in te wrong section. That's my bad.

Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 3:14 am Post subject: I am using...

I am using the Dell E2209W, it is 22" widescreen at 1680x1050, but it is plenty and displays very well in the FS environment.

Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 4:41 pm Post subject:

What PSU are you planning to use with your new computer?
For the motherboard, stick with something like Asus or Gigabyte.

What website(s) can you order from?

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 2:21 am Post subject: heh....

Intel rocks!

Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 2:34 pm Post subject:

I am planning on using a 900W PSU from CoolMaster. I used to have 620W wich was good from Corsair, but I am planning on replacing my 2-yr-old 8800 Ultra with two GTX 295's in SLI in the near future. Yep, I saved up!

The choice for monitor is now:

HP LP2475w 24"
OR
Philips 240PW9ES

What do you guys think?
Both are H-IPS panels Razz

The website I am using to find the best deals and the best prices are www.kieskeurig.nl a dutch site.

Captain L

Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 10:45 pm Post subject:

As an owner of a GTX295, I can say that it is not what I thought it was going to be. Sure it works well enough and all that, but it's not what it could be.

RD and I built nearly identical machines at nearly the same time, he is not using a GTX295 and he is getting better frame rates than I am with a single GTX295, although he is running SLi 8800's I think...
Take a look in the "Optimal Configurations" forum in the Core i7's and a Story thread.

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 5:35 am Post subject:

I'm running two 9800GTX+'s in SLI mode. And it kicks the butt off of the GTX295's.

I also saved $200 buying (2) 9800GTX+ cards over the price of ONE GTX295 card.

If you've got a decent M/B and CPU cooler for the i7 920, you can run 3.8 Ghz daily without any heat problems. Mine has been very stable.

.

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 10:25 am Post subject:

That seems very interesting. I would have expected the new GT200 chip to outperform the older G83 chip. Looking at that the GTX295 has more processor cores (480 vs 256 in your case, 2x128), and a higher bandwidth channel (256 vs 448), and more memory 1.7GB vs 1GB. However, memory and graphics clocks on the 9800GTX+ are higher, but still the bandwidth on the GTX295 is wayyyyy higher than the 9800 (223.8 vs 70.4 GB/s).

This to me is interesting. So now the question seems to be whether the difference is the clock speeds or the cores and bandwidths. I am assuming Cat1 is using two GTX295's in Quad SLI?

What is the real difference in FPS rd between you two?

Captain L

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 4:06 pm Post subject:

Not too sure what Cat1's settings are, but mine are maxed out.

With addon scenery at KLAX and KBOS, I can carry 40-50 fps with traffic.

.

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 5:03 pm Post subject:

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 10:45 pm Post subject:

Not bad, the 9800GTX+ here being 178 euros and single GTX295 being in the 400 range. Too bad IPS monitors are a tad expensive I would have plugged two 9800GTX+'s myself. But since I love my colors and had a crappy time with TN panels before (especially with professional photo editing) I had to spare the misery of getting a TN panel and was willing to pay the price.

BTW @ T-fish, whats wrong with MSI? Gigabyte is pretty good had a good experience with them before, but from what I hear MSI is just as good and trustworthy.

Anyways I can't wait to put this machine together and see what difference it had over my older comp back in cairo!

Captain L

Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 12:08 am Post subject:

Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 7:16 pm Post subject:

I just bought the Philips 240PW9ES Smile

Captain L.

Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 11:35 pm Post subject:

Right on, bet it's a happy day to walk in the door with a brand new display! Let us know if it lives up to your expectations. Exclamation