Widescreen is superior for work (obviously) but not necessarily good for games. It all depends what games you play I guess. Most newer games do support it and I'm sure in many games it's a nice feature to have.

I personally don't want to buy a widescreen monitor for home right now simply because some of the games I still play (Quake, Diablo 2, etc) don't natively support widescreen, so I'm left with the choice of stretching the image and breaking the aspect ratio (unacceptable to me) or having the borders on the edges.

If you have an Nvidia card your drivers can automatically do this (have 4:3 images centered or letterboxed), but if you're an ATI user then I find this feature is absent or doesn't work: e.g. on this 24" widescreen at work, I have to go into the monitor's clunky menu and tell it to maintain the aspect ratio of the image every time I load a game and want a 4:3 resolution. At least this monitor has that option, some don't, so you'd be fucked in that case.

Plus, using a large widescreen resolution is obviously going to make your video card work harder, which might slow your framerate unless you have a $600 video card, which I don't. 

Naturally if you don't need or want widescreen for whatever reason, having 2 monitors instead can kinda give you the best of both worlds, and might only cost the same price as a widescreen monitor would anyway (could even be cheaper). Sometimes it's better (having 2 monitors) and in some situations having the extra room on one monitor can be better also, it really depends what applications you use I guess.

I have a dual 4:3 monitor setup at home and find it's good for games and work. Occasionally I do wish I had the extra room that a widescreen monitor provides, but usually the 2 monitors are sufficient.

I have one of those 24" Dell widescreens at work along with a 19" 4:3. I have to say that I don't often use the 2nd monitor as the primary is big enough for work stuff in most cases. I don't like the widescreen monitor for games though, for the reasons outlined in the previous post - I still choose 4:3 most often even when the game supports widescreen, and it's a pain to get it to preserve the aspect ratio on an ATI card. 

i still have one, in fact i got a new one on the 2nd week of december. its one of those huge apple studio display monitors (21") (for it got $25! haha).

i like crt monitors much better than lcd ones. i havent seen one in a store (except for those damn apple ones) that make me happy. maybe its the store lighting? i dont know. but i havent seen one that looks good yet. but its weird, because the screen on almost any notebook looks great to me. :)

i do crave the madness of widescreen monitors though, but until i find one that makes me happy, i don't think i'll get one so soon. 

(for it got $25! haha). --> hehe, sound so dumb. i meant to write "got it for $25" but yeah. :)

anyway... 

I think tube monitors are always going to look better. I have one at home (not because I wanted one particularly, but because it was given) and I think you get a better picture. Because the monitor also acts as a light source, the picture is always gonna look brighter!

At work Im using a 21 inch Xerox LCD (4:3) and a HP w1907v, which is a fairly large widescreen LCD, both of which give a satisfactory picture, I play games on the Xerox all the time, and it gives a great picture for Quake!!

For me the biggest attraction of an LCD monitor is that they save space, and use less power (I think). The space saving factor is a big one! A 21inch tube screen is gonna take up a hell of a lot of room!

Hah! If youve got $300 (dollars, Necros?) you wont quite have enough money to just go out and buy a HDTV!! Which is a shame! You could get a 32inch LCD HDTV for about £300 (pounds) over here, if you look in the right places, and they all seem to have PC connectivity! 

Budget of about �600

Ive been looking at the Dell XPS systems, with Quad-core processor (2.4Ghz?) and a 256Mb NVidia 8600 GTS...

Any other suggestions? 

...I could get a 8800 GT 512Mb...

? :-o 

pcoption(dot)co.uk can do a 2.6Ghz Core 2 Duo with 2Gb and a 512Mb 8800 GTS for about �600

Hmmmm.....

The 512Mb 8800 GTS seams to be the most attractive single graphics card, � for �...

Anybody got another angle here??! 

do indeed get a 512MB graphics card, not a 256MB one. 

Im a bit confused. Im looking at this page here, seems the most attractive option to me at the mo:

http://www.pcoption.co.uk/pcbaseunits/index5d_8800slip4con.htm

and one of the sites features is system benchmarking! Which you would have thought would give you a good idea of what to/not to get. However, each system starts as one basic core, with customisable features, and as people request different components, they benchmark each system as they come of the line.

Check out the inconsistancies here
http://www.pcoption.co.uk/gamingbenchmarks/index.htm
and you'll see what I mean! I think its cause they tell you what the systems processor and graphics card were, but not the motherboard, PSU etc.

I just worry that my choice might me one of the anomalously low ones... 

LCD monitors are way more eco-friendly than CRT (use less than half of the enevery a CRT does) = cheaper electricity bills. 

there is also the waste produced, resources used, and energy used during manufacturing, and the waste produced when you dispose of the monitor (of course nowadays the law requires them to be collected and recycled, at least in places like california.) But then, even recycling takes energy and resources and produces waste.

On the plus side, I think LCDs are less likely to give you cancer... maybe? 

Is there really a reason to use vsync with lcds? 

As Lun said, the tearing that occurs is more visible on lcd's. 

but usually I have it on.

And I can notice ghosting on my 4ms screen, although only in exteremly fast movement games like sport ones where there's horizontal panning all the time due to the camera. 

I have taken the plunge, and ordered (and paid for) a new PC :D

8800 GTS 512
Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz
2Gb Ram

Crysis here we come... I hope.

:D :D

Now I just have to go home and reflect on what I have just done to my bank balance! And sweat over being ripped off by an internet computer company! And wait for like a week or something for it to arrive.

Just wanted to share with people. 

starts showing corrupt graphics even at the default settings, its likely to be dying yeah ? 

Well, it certainly doesn't sound promising.

You could try underclocking it, which doesn't sound particularly appealing, but it would be interesting to see if the problems disappear by doing so.

How old is the current card? You could use this as an excuse to buy a nice new one! :) 

yeah good idea actually, I'll see if underclocking below the default has any effect.

its a 7900GT, so probably around 2 years. 

 

starbuck posted above about nvidia replacing their 8800gt line with newer faster model without renaming them.

bah, it should be a lot easier than this :) 

If I were going to buy a new card right now I'd go for the ATI HD3870. Supposedly the performance is about on par with the 8800 cards, and the price is pretty reasonable.

Of course, I haven't heard about these newer 8800 cards so perhaps that isn't the case anymore. 

contains the g92 bits, very fast card, good value!

OK, there are

Old:
8800 GTS 320/640MB - erm 90nm chips, still more expensive than faster new models with similar names.

8800 GTX/Ultra - 768Mb - pretty fast, still quite expensive - not sure of chipset.

New
8800 GTS 512Mb - 65nm G92 chip - faster than old GTS 640Mb!!

Also
new 8800 GT. *not GTS* 65nm G92 chip - almost as fast as new GTS 512 but less expensive. GOOD VALUE FAST DX10 SUPPORT!! :D :D

ATI - Apparently the newer ATI cards support DirectX10.1 which NVidia cards dont. But I think NVidia cards are faster for the money.

There are others and stuff, I dunno..... 

9600GT g94 21.02.08 estimated price 160�

8800GS g92

Both a bit slower than 8800gt
But less expesnsive. I think I'll buy a 9600gt 

Ati has the better cards for less money at the moment.
3850 a bit more than 100� !!! but not tooo much slower.
3870 as fast as the 8800GT and also as expensive.