1600x1200 vs 1600x1050

csimon

I'm upgrading graphics and I'm pretty satisfied with my gpu choice but I'm torn between 225BW Black 22" or 204B-BK Black 20.1" in the lcd department.

I'm teh fanbois de samsung but I'd change over to dell or sony if the deal was right.

Your input will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks
csimon

Incindentally I use 2 20" 1600x1200 dells (sonys) at work and they're very nice.

danball1976

Are you sure you want a passively cooled video card? There is the XFX 7950GT that is fan cooled. I personally was looking at that, but if anything, why not a eVGA GeForce 7950GT. I decided on this one because of eVGA's program of where you can exchange your old card with a newer one and pay the difference.

Those Samsungs, don't they have some sort of delay in them because of the MagicZone and MagicColor features?

csimon

danball1976 wrote:

Are you sure you want a passively cooled video card? There is the XFX 7950GT that is fan cooled. I personally was looking at that, but if anything, why not a eVGA GeForce 7950GT. I decided on this one because of eVGA's program of where you can exchange your old card with a newer one and pay the difference.

Those Samsungs, don't they have some sort of delay in them because of the MagicZone and MagicColor features?

Thanks for pointing that out dan I didn't realize the video card is passively cooled. It must be pretty good though to keep it cool at 610gpu and 1600 mem. I can always add a fan or an aftermarket cooler I would think. The speeds of this card though seem unmatched by the others. And 300 is my budget for now until maybe next christmas.

nonstop301

I don't know about the delay in the Samsung monitors of this category.

I'd go for the 204B because I've seen both widescreen and 4:3 aspect ratio LCD dispalys and the 4:3 in these bigger sizes always looks better. Similarly if you had to change the widescreen resolution into a 4:3 format temporarliy to view a broadcast or video that is only 4:3 it looks awful whereas if you were to switch the 4:3 to a widescreen resolution to watch something in 16:9 you'd still be very pleased

Thrax

There's no reason to change any resolution for anything. Letterboxing will happen no matter what display you use until the world goes widescreen, which it will.

csimon

Thrax wrote:

There's no reason to change any resolution for anything. Letterboxing will happen no matter what display you use until the world goes widescreen, which it will.

Have you seen both of these at your work? Which do you prefer?

I'm still thinking about the heatpipe thing danball ...Ya know my lian li inverts everything and I'm wondering now if it's such a good idea. This foxcon looks like a good deal.

danball1976 wrote:

I decided on this one because of eVGA's program of where you can exchange your old card with a newer one and pay the difference.

If you're considering using this program you better act quick because the time frame is usually very limited. I found that out last year.

Thrax

I bought a widescreen because I firmly believe that widescreen is the future. Games, DVDs, TV, hi-def, everything is coming <i>as</i> or <i>natively supporting</i> widescreen. Vista and the Games for Vista initiative, which is something nice in the doughy ball of crap that Vista otherwise is, focuses very heavily on widescreen from end to end: The game, the card, the monitor, etcetera.

Anyone who says "GAMES LOOK HORRIBLY STRETCHED" or "MY DESKTOP LOOKS STRETCHED" is someone with an outdated something-or-rather. Widescreen is not simply the process of stretching 4:3 out until it fits. Widescreen today actually increases your field of vision. Unlike 4:3 television which cuts off the left and right edges of a widescreen scene, and inflates the 4:3 box that remains to fill the image, widescreen monitors do the opposite, adding on to the left and right side of the screen and zooming the center out. Your entire field of vision expands to create a wider field of view in which nothing is stretched.

Widescreen is here to stay, and 4:3 is going to go the way of the dodo. LCD manufacturers are putting their bucks into the widescreen segment, relegating their 4:3 manufacturing to budget models. There's a reason why major retailers are quickly flushing their 4:3 models on clearance, and offering 19-24" LCDs like my store is doing now. They're selling, and that's where the vendor-> store discounts are.

csimon

Ah ...so 16:10 is here to stay! I usually keep a monitor forever so that's why I want to be sure. Thanks for your input oh geek man of orange wisdom!

nonstop301

I would never want to dispute something that Thrax says

At the end of the day it's $400 for letterboxing in both cases even if 4:3 becomes a thing of the past. I will not predict when that will happen but today you'll get letterboxing so it's up to customer to decide which letterboxing they prefer.

Besides, when it comes to 20 inch displays, I think any benefit of widescreen is not as pronounced as it is with the larger displays but this again is just a matter of opinion.

The best advice for the prospective buyer is to go and have a look at both formats in a store and decide which one they prefer before they look for a good price online.

Both of those Samsung displays are good and will impress the person that uses one. No one will ever say "Oh, he got the 4:3, I wonder why he didn't get the widescreen instead which is so much better" or vice versa

csimon

I would certainly like to see both monitors side by side but I can't find them at all locally. They either don't display much at the local - Circuit City - Best Buy - whatever ...or they just sell too damn quick or something idunno.
I'm off work til next year so I have the rest of the week to go check them out. Both of those stores are only 5 miles up the road from me. I still prefer to buy newegg however.

csimon

I just placed the order for a 225 and the xfx 610/1600. Once I get it I'll start to consider a second matching monitor.

Sledgehammer70

Thrax wrote:

I bought a widescreen because I firmly believe that widescreen is the future. Games, DVDs, TV, hi-def, everything is coming <i>as</i> or <i>natively supporting</i> widescreen. Vista and the Games for Vista initiative, which is something nice in the doughy ball of crap that Vista otherwise is, focuses very heavily on widescreen from end to end: The game, the card, the monitor, etcetera.

Anyone who says "GAMES LOOK HORRIBLY STRETCHED" or "MY DESKTOP LOOKS STRETCHED" is someone with an outdated something-or-rather. Widescreen is not simply the process of stretching 4:3 out until it fits. Widescreen today actually increases your field of vision. Unlike 4:3 television which cuts off the left and right edges of a widescreen scene, and inflates the 4:3 box that remains to fill the image, widescreen monitors do the opposite, adding on to the left and right side of the screen and zooming the center out. Your entire field of vision expands to create a wider field of view in which nothing is stretched.

Widescreen is here to stay, and 4:3 is going to go the way of the dodo. LCD manufacturers are putting their bucks into the widescreen segment, relegating their 4:3 manufacturing to budget models. There's a reason why major retailers are quickly flushing their 4:3 models on clearance, and offering 19-24" LCDs like my store is doing now. They're selling, and that's where the vendor-> store discounts are.

Once again I agree 100% with Mr. Thrax 90% of my clients buy widescreen monitors and are trashing the old ones, not to say some of those old ones are not nice, they just have a limited field of view.

1680x1050 is a sweet resolution to be sporting these days...

TheLostSwede

On the other hand, i think the next native resolution will be 1080 for proper viewing of HD content. I wouldn't buy a new screen until those where out to be honest.

csimon

TheLostSwede wrote:

On the other hand, i think the next native resolution will be 1080 for proper viewing of HD content. I wouldn't buy a new screen until those where out to be honest.

What's 1080?
I got my screen last night and hooked it up. It's really nice. Not much to get used to since I have something similar at work. I'm seriously thinking about ordering another one soon.

Sledgehammer70

1080 is the standard for HD content. True HD content would need to be run at 1920 x 1080 "1080p" to view it in its full glory. My current HP Laptop will run HD content but not at its full glory. It will still look sharp and crisp but it can always get better.

To note: 1080P is the cuurent highest standard on the market, but the industry is already starting to move to 4320 which is 4 times the size of the current standard. To put it in perspective our current screens push a good 5MB per frame, the future HD format will push upwards to 5GB per frame. The Nvidia 8800GTX would have a heck of a time pushing 120GB of data per sec to a screen for that type of format.

csimon

Ah yes I noticed some of the resolutions on the larger monitors like that.

mirage

Sledgehammer70 wrote:

1080 is the standard for HD content. True HD content would need to be run at 1920 x 1080 "1080p" to view it in its full glory. My current HP Laptop will run HD content but not at its full glory. It will still look sharp and crisp but it can always get better.

To note: 1080P is the cuurent highest standard on the market, but the industry is already starting to move to 4320 which is 4 times the size of the current standard. To put it in perspective our current screens push a good 5MB per frame, the future HD format will push upwards to 50MB per frame. The Nvidia 8800GTX would have a heck of a time pushing 1.2GB of data per sec to a screen for that type of format.

Well, 480p looks much better than TV, 720p is satisfactory, and 1080p is the ultimate. But what would be 4320p? A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation tells that it is 254dpi on a 32" 16x10 screen, or in other words 10 pixels per mm. I think it could only be useful for a screen larger than 100" if you are watching it from 10 feet distance Heck, I will be happy if I can buy a 720p TV >= 32".

By the way, csimon, I know I am late to give feedback but I just wanted to tell that you got the better one. 1600x1200=1920000 pixels and 1680x1050=1764000 pixels. So, 1600x1200 is superior because of its higher resolution, and at the same size 1600x1200 monitors are usually more expensive than 1680x1050. But, since 1680x1050 monitor is 22" vs 20" of 1600x1200, I would have also chosen 22" widescreen too.

Sledgehammer70

Well standard TV is broadcasted in 480i, while 480p was never considered HD material. If my memory serves me correctly 480p"24" & "30" Was labeled Standard Definition Television "SDTV" It wasn't until 480p "50" & "60" came out that they called it Enhanced Definition Television "EDTV". To note the "24" "30" "50" & "60" stand for frames per sec. So to clear things up 48-0 anything is not considered High Definition TV.

The break down of HD is simple the 480, 720, & 1080 represent vertical display resolution. So a 480 Standard TV shows at 720x480, while a true High Def TV will show at a minimum size of 1280x720 which is 720p. But for Full High Def TV you need a screen that runs 1920x1080 which supports 1080i & 1080p. 1080i the "i" standing for interlaced. Interlace Tech will improve the resolution of an image, but it will flicker & retain a small amount of distortion. 1080p the "p" standing for Progressive scan. Progressive scan draws the lines of each image in sequential order, allowing for a much more crisp image that removes distortion and flickering.

mirage wrote:

By the way, csimon, I know I am late to give feedback but I just wanted to tell that you got the better one. 1600x1200=1920000 pixels and 1680x1050=1764000 pixels. So, 1600x1200 is superior because of its higher resolution, and at the same size 1600x1200 monitors are usually more expensive than 1680x1050. But, since 1680x1050 monitor is 22" vs 20" of 1600x1200, I would have also chosen 22" widescreen too.

You have to note 1680 x 1050 is widescreen format which is the way the industry is going...

mirage

Sledgehammer70 wrote:

You have to note 1680 x 1050 is widescreen format which is the way the industry is going...

I am in the mood for some polemic, so bear with me Mathematically, a 4:3 monitor will always have more pixels than a 16:10 monitor at the same diagonal size and dpi. So, based on the assumption that it is always better to have more pixels if there is graphics card to support it, 4:3 is better than the widescreen industry standard at the same diagonal size I think, industry is cheating on us by cutting our LCD panels from top and bottom. :shakehead

Sledgehammer70

mirage wrote:

I am in the mood for some polemic, so bear with me Mathematically, a 4:3 monitor will always have more pixels than a 16x10 monitor at the same diagonal size and dpi. So, based on the assumption that it is always better to have more pixels if there is graphics card to support it, 4:3 is better than the widescreen industry standard at the same diagonal size I think, industry is cheating on us by cutting our LCD panels from top and bottom. :shakehead

16:9 is far superior to 4:3... The idea is all movies are shot in a 1080 or larger formats from the get go, so instead of breaking it down to 4:3 we can watch movies at their native resolution in most cases. HDTV is the way of the future, and from the looks of things I don’t think that will change.

Advantages of HDTV expressed in non-engineering terms
High-definition television (HDTV) offers a much better picture quality than standard television. HD's greater clarity means the picture on screen is less blurred and less fuzzy. HD also brings other benefits - smoother motion, richer and more natural colors, surround sound and the chance for different equipment to work better together.

- All commercial HD is digital, so the signal will either deliver an excellent picture, a picture with noticeable pixelation, a series of still pictures, or no picture at all.

- The system cannot produce a snowy or washed out image from a weak signal, effects from signal interference, such as herringbone patterns, or vertical rolling. This is also a disadvantage, because any interference will render the signal unwatchable. As opposed to a lower-quality signal one gets from interference in an analogue television broadcast, interference in a digital television broadcast will freeze, skip, or display garbage information.

- HD programming and films will be presented in 16:9 widescreen format (although films created in even wider ratios will still display "letterbox" bars on the top and bottom of even 16:9 sets.) Older films and programming that retain their 4:3 ratio display will be presented in a version of letterbox commonly called "pillar box", displaying bars on the right and left of 16:9 sets (rendering the term "fullscreen" a misnomer). While this is an advantage when it comes to playing 16:9 movies, it creates the same disadvantage when playing 4:3 television shows that standard televisions have playing 16:9 movies. A way to address this is to zoom the 4:3 image to fill the screen or reframe it material to 14:9 aspect ratio, either during preproduction or manually in the TV set.

- The colors will generally look more realistic, due to their greater bandwidth.
The visual information is about 2-5 times more detailed overall. The gaps between scanning lines are smaller or invisible. Legacy TV content that was shot and preserved on 35 mm film can now be viewed at nearly the same resolution as that at which it was originally photographed. A good analogy for television quality is looking through a window. HDTV offers a degree of clarity that is much closer to this.

- Two new pre-recorded disc formats support HDTV resolutions, namely HD DVD (supporting 720p, 1080i and 1080p) and Blu-ray (supporting up to 1080p). Most players for both systems are backward-compatible with DVDs. However, the two formats are not compatible with each other.
The increased clarity and detail make larger screen sizes more comfortable and pleasing to watch.

- Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is broadcast along with standard HDTV video signals, allowing full surround sound capabilities. (Standard broadcast television signals usually only include stereo audio.)

- Both designs make more efficient use of electricity than SDTV designs of equivalent size, which can mean lower operating costs.

Source: Wikipedia

Sledgehammer70

Here is some info on the new Ultra High Definition format...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UHDV
I love this image

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:UHDV.svg#file

mirage

Sledgehammer70 wrote:

16:9 is far superior to 4:3... The idea is all movies are shot in a 1080 or larger formats from the get go, so instead of breaking it down to 4:3 we can watch movies at their native resolution in most cases. HDTV is the way of the future, and from the looks of things I don’t think that will change.

I agree with you, I always buy the DVD movies in the widescreen format. But my point is different. You can still watch widescreen format movies on a 4:3 high-resolution monitor with some extra area on the top and bottom of the screen. This unused area can be utilized for captions and media player control interface for example. So, between two monitors with 1920x1440 and 1920x1080 resolutions, I say 1920x1440 is better at the same size. And I bet 1920x1440 will be more expensive. You are right, I do not claim that 4:3 format movie viewing is better than 16:9 format.

Linc

csimon wrote:

I'm teh fanbois de samsung but I'd change over to dell or sony if the deal was right.

I ran into this thread doing a search; just thought I'd throw in that someone (probably Brian) recently told me that Dell monitors are re-branded Samsungs, so it's all the same I think most OEM computer sellers (HP, Gateway, etc) use re-branded monitors from another company like that. I actually just picked up two Samsungs because I liked Dell monitors so much, but Dell is back-ordered 'til August on the model I wanted.

GrayFox

There lower end stuff uses benQ panels. (referring to dell)