dovah-chan :
You can't really fully benchmark response times accurately as it varies amongst monitors such as the overall overclocking headroom varies by CPUs that are even of the same model.
The part I like the most about "benchmarking response times" is that even with minor variations between each monitor, the numbers are very useful in finding out if a particular model is any good.
(Personally, I think that the variations between monitors of the same model may be so minor, that testing is still very useful, but I would need lots more data to say with more certainty 
).
However, instead of me just making comments, I think you may appreciate a good explanation, since I failed to provide one before; sorry about that.
So... here goes.
To be clear, the problem that I was referring to with tomshardware's benchmark was basically this:
tomshardware tests only one out of thousands of transitions, which may tell you nothing about the monitor's real response times!
The best way to understand what I am referring to (and why it is so important) would be for me to try and explain the details.
Consider these details about transitions & response times:
1. An 8bit monitor uses 256 shades of grey to produce each color. 0 = black; 255 = brightest color (white); 22= very dark grey, etc...
2. Response time is the measure of how long it takes to change from one shade to another. Say from 0 (black) to 156 (greyish).
3. A little bit of math shows that if you have 256 shades, there are 65,280 possible transitions.
[ (256*256) - 256 = 65,280 ]
4. Each transition has a different response time; that means an 8bit monitor has over 65,000 different response times!
5. Consider this example:
source:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monitors/display/zalman-zm-m240w_4.html#sect3
Notice how the 255 to 0 transition (white to black) has a response time of ~2ms.
However, look how many other transitions are maybe 14ms or more!
Sidenote: overdrive:
1. Long ago, they dicovered that they could increase response times by applying more voltage to certain transitions (or maybe less in some cases?? not 100% sure).
2. This "overdrive" method can improve response times a lot (you want it on a monitor). However, if not tuned correctly, too much voltage may be applied and it may "overshoot" the correct color and create bad image problems that are sometimes worse than having slow response times.
3. This means any response time testing
must also test for overdrive errors (commonly called "RTC error").
The problem with tomshardware (and most sites):
Currently tomshardware tests only the 255 to 0 (white to black) or the 0 to 255 (black to white) response time and ignores all the other 65,000+. As you can see from the earlier picture, if you test only one transition and not the others, you may end up with a response time that is 100% useless and misleading.
Also, tomshardware does not test for overdrive errors, which, in some cases, can sometimes be more important than response times
The correct way to test response times:
Obviously, you don't want to test all 65,000+ transitions. However, you can test a range of them. Xbitlabs tests 9x9 transitions or 72 transitions scattered evenly around ((9*9)-9 =72).
This testing reveals some very interesting things. Consider these examples:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monitors/display/20inch-6_15.html
This monitor has a white to black transition of 2ms and a black to white transition of 6ms, but 55+% of the time it is really 16+ms! Tomshardware would have reported false (low) response times if they had tested this monitor using their current method.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monitors/display/acer-gd245hq-lg-flatron-w2363d_9.html#sect0
The response time on this one varys a lot, but you'd never know that without the tests done like on xbitlabs.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monitors/display/20inch-4_23.html
This picture is actually not response times but overdrive errors that I mentioned earlier. What this shows is how MVA panels often have MAJOR image problems when dealing with 0 to 96 and/or similar nearby transitions, but is good most other times. AKA, it means you'd see bad glowing on some dark scenes but a good picture the rest of the time. Note how tomshardware tests reveal none of this important data.
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