24" Not Worth It?

grunt22

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Sep 23, 2006
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I am tempted to buy myself a nice, big widescreen 24" monitor. However my concern is the following. Please let me know if I am talking out of my ass...
1) LCDs don't look as good when set at anything but their native res;
2) you need a pretty high native resolution to get a good video definition and avoid a grainy effect on a 24" (more than 1680x1050);
3) Having a higher resolution will not make it look that much sharper since you are running it on a larger monitor;
4) The higher resolution means your hardware is finding it harder to cope faster (it means you need a SLI solution for sure, or even a Quad SLI)
5) Therefore you may need to turn off some Graphic Quality options in order to get the desired FPS, whereas you may not have to on a smaller monitor running a lower resolution.

In conclusion, on a 24" you need a higher resolution which will not make it necesseraly look sharper since your monitor is bigger. In the end, the image quality may be less than a solution with a smaller monitor since it is easier to run high graphics settings at a lower resolution. Newer games coming onto the market with more demanding vid requirements means I might feel compulsed in the future to upgrade my rig more often and spend at the top of the cost ladder more often since I am "stuck" with running games at 2048x1536 or 2560x1600.

These charts illustrate: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2006/08/08/get_quad_sli_before_it_is_hat...d_uk/pa

Comments?
 
I am tempted to buy myself a nice, big widescreen 24" monitor. However my concern is the following. Please let me know if I am talking out of my ass...
1) LCDs don't look as good when set at anything but their native res;
2) you need a pretty high native resolution to get a good video definition and avoid a grainy effect on a 24" (more than 1680x1050);
3) Having a higher resolution will not make it look that much sharper since you are running it on a larger monitor;
4) The higher resolution means your hardware is finding it harder to cope faster (it means you need a SLI solution for sure, or even a Quad SLI)
5) Therefore you may need to turn off some Graphic Quality options in order to get the desired FPS, whereas you may not have to on a smaller monitor running a lower resolution.

In conclusion, on a 24" you need a higher resolution which will not make it necesseraly look sharper since your monitor is bigger. In the end, the image quality may be less than a solution with a smaller monitor since it is easier to run high graphics settings at a lower resolution. Newer games coming onto the market with more demanding vid requirements means I might feel compulsed in the future to upgrade my rig more often and spend at the top of the cost ladder more often since I am "stuck" with running games at 2048x1536 or 2560x1600.

These charts illustrate: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2006/08/08/get_quad_sli_before_it_is_hat...d_uk/pa

Comments?

1. Sometimes displays look OK at other than native, you just have to try them out and see. Still, native is almost always best.

2 & 3. Displays on 24" are usually very sharp. Native is 1920x1200, and pixels, while not the smallest, are still small... .27mm.

4. Well, when you're drawing lots of pixels at a high frame rate, it does take a lot of video card grunt.

You'd probably save yourself some aggravation by not trying to press your gaming to the max display (at least for now, but maybe it will be better later)... jmo.

As for "not worth it"... 24" is a good all-around size, especialy if you have HDMI peripherals and/or HDTV tuner. It's really the widescreen version of 20.1", UXGA and good for many apps.