I need help picking a monitor! Please :)

[Miszxamanda19]

I am buying a monitor for my boyfriend who plays GW2. Which is the better monitor?

BenQ XL2420T or ASUS VG278HE

He uses a GTX 670 ftw graphic card but I also might get a second one for him so he can SLI them.

 

[Labrynthian]

Does his set up have an SLI slot? And if you're getting a second one, try not to get another GTX 670. It won't make sense to put the same card in two SLI slots. If you're going to throw in another card, I'd recommend a Radeon. The best output is normally with one NVIDIA and one Radeon, for SLI.
Anyway with regard to your monitor, while the BenQ is smaller, (24 inches) it definitely performs a lot better, especially in 3D. The Asus (27 inches) is a good screen too, with a massive refresh rate of 144Mhz, but at the same time, it's 3D support is less impressive. In either case, the BenQ XL2420T comes out on top for gaming.

 

[Miszxamanda19]

Thanks!!


This is his information:

Processor-Intel Core i7-2600-3.4gHz
Memory-16gb
System Type-64 bit operating system
1 SSD-Sandisk Extreme 240gb + 2 HDD's
Motherboard- Asus P8P57 Pro
Graphic Card-GTX 670 FTW

He does have an SLI slot. I thought that you needed the same card though? So I was just going to get another 670FTW.

He currently has a 1920x1080 24 inch 60hz monitor - after research it seemed that adding a second graphic card to SLI would basically be over kill with this type of monitor........SO.....I decided to upgrade to one of the two I mentioned in the post (asus or BenQ).

He plays Guild Wars 2 and wants to see improvement in FPS, no lag, smoother, etc. If this his goal what do you think the best options are? Is it true that the monitor will help to see the full effects of a second graphic card?

Thanks a lot!

 

[Devastater6194]

Amanda you are right you do need the same card for sli. Ignore the other person. Both the monitors are the best in their size (24" & 27") so both are a good buy. However the extra fps probably won't be very visible. My advise would be to see if you can find somewhere that you can try the monitors out first.
Also what you could do instead is by two more monitors of the same kind as he has already got provided he has the space. This would provide more of an upgrade and give more performance out of an sli setup.

 

[Miszxamanda19]

Thank you!!

He is not really into the whole more than one monitor thing so I didn't really want to go that direction.

Is the monitor itself going to make a difference without getting the 2nd card?

My options are -

Keep the 1920x1080, 60hz, 24" monitor and buy a second GTX 670 FTW
Buy one of the better monitors (either ASUS or BenQ) and buy a second GTX 670 FTW
Buy one of the better monitors and just stick with the one GTX 670 FTW

What option would you suggest?

and also if you had to chose between the asus or benq which one would you get? (I know the benq says it has "5ms (2ms gtg) and the asus just says 2ms gtg, so I don't know if that was a negative about the benq or what?).

Thanks for your help

 

[Labrynthian]

Yup. I was wrong. You can't do SLI with two different cards. My bad.

The GTX 670 is a medium level class 1 GPU. It's a really good card that can handle almost all games on High/Ultra.
I still say you should get the BenQ XL2420T because in spite of having a lower refresh rate and being smaller, its actual gaming capabilities are superior. For max performance, you should also include another GX 670 as well. 2 cards are always better than one.