LCD Panels

Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD's) have the advantage of being a completely digital setup, whenused with the DVI-D digital connector. When running at the screen's native resolution, this canresult in the most stable and sharp image available on current monitors. Many LCD paneldisplays are sold with an analog 15-pin VGA connector or, rarely, with an analog DVI-Iconnector. Such displays will be a bit fuzzy, and are generally best avoided for a similarlysizedCRT. If you want an LCD displays, be sure to choose a digital setup if you can; however,manufacturers have chosen to use this feature for price differentiation.


The prime disadvantageof LCDs is "dead pixels", which are small failing areas on your monitor, which can be veryannoying, but generally aren't covered under warranty - this can make purchasing LCD displaysa financial risk. LCDs are generally OK for fast-paced gaming, but you should be sure that yourscreen has a fairly fast response time (of 25 ms or lower) if you want to play fast games. Nearlyall flat panels sold today meet this requirement, some by a factor of 3. When picking an LCD,keep in mind that they are designed to display at one resolution only, so, to reap the benefits ofyour screen, your graphics card must be capable of displaying at that resolution. That in mind,they can display lower resolutions with a black frame around the outside (which means yourentire screen isn't filled), or by stretching the image (which leads to much lower quality).Running at a higher resolution than your monitor can handle will either make everything on thescreen smaller, at a significant quality drop, or will display only a part of the screen at a time(which can be annoying).Cathode Ray Tube DisplaysThe other key type of display is the CRT or Cathode Ray Tube display. While CRT technologyis older it often outperforms LCD technology in terms of response times, color reproduction,and brightness levels, although LCD displays are quickly catching up. There are two types ofCRT displays, shadow mask and aperture grill. An aperture grill display is brighter andperfectly flat in the vertical direction, but is more fragile and has one or two mostlyunnoticeablethin black lines (support wires) running across the screen. CRTs are generally 2-4times as deep as similarly-sized LCDs, and can weigh around 10 times as much, but thisnormally isn't a concern unless you will be moving your computer a lot. If you purchase a CRTdisplay over the internet, shipping is much quicker, which is good for gaming, however, cancause headaches in some people at lower rates, so it may be ideal to pick a screen offeringhigher update frequencies at whichever resolutions you intend to use. Most people who haveproblems with low frequencies (60Hz) find it preferable to have at least 80Hz at the intendedresolution. Some won't be bothered by this at all however.Note that sometimes the CRTs with a flat screen instead of curved are called "flat screens" sothis is not to be confused with the term "flat panel" used to refer to LCDs.Speakers