Re: Need Advice Buying a Large Monitor

Tom wrote:
Hi, I'm going to buy a 24" monitor to be used with my Dell SX-270 PC with 2gb ram and onboard video out.
The Dell 2408WFP seems to be the top rated 24" monitor out there. I went to a local best buy to compare monitors but they seemed to have low end monitors on display. (the 25.5 " monitor sure looks like).

I'll use the monitor for web browsing, displaying flight simulator and maybe watching movies.
The Response Time is 6ms which is somewhat slow when compared to other monitors. Will it display BluRay movies?
1 x HDMI - 19 pin HDMI Type A

I'm not sure this HDMI connection will display BluRay

Any recommendations for other large screen monitors at least 24" wide screen, though the Dell 2408wfp seems to get the best reviews. Any criticisms of the Dell 2408WFP?

The minotr sells for about $500.00 any sources for discount coupons or ther deals?

I'll want to upgrade trhe onboard video to a video card - any suggestions?

Thanks in advance


You're getting way way ahead of yourself.

First, I tried to look up the SX-270 on the Dell site, and
I got nothing there. Usually I can find a manual that gives
a picture of the motherboard in the computer, but this time
there wasn't anything to use.

So I went to Ebay. They show a picture of your motherboard here.

http://cgi.ebay.com/H1229-Dell-Optiplex-SX270-Motherboard+NEW-Caps+CD%3DDG668_W0QQitemZ220310869787QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20081112?IMSfp=TL081112113007r11237

That thing has *no* expansion slots that I can see. You
cannot add a video card. Verify that the connectors in
that picture, match what you can see on the back of your
machine. I think this is your motherboard. It has RAM
slots but no room for add-in cards.

http://i12.ebayimg.com/02/i/000/f2/8e/3d36_1.JPG

There are two video connectors on the back of the computer.
A VGA connector (15 pin). And a DVI connector (to the right
of the VGA one).

The 865G probably has a built-in output to drive the VGA.
To drive the DVI, they probably added the equivalent of
an ADD card to the AGP interface. That means it is possible
a high quality Silicon Image chip was used to drive the
DVI port. (They operate the unused AGP interface in an
alternate mode, which is a stream of bytes. Then, they
connect a TMDS transmitter chip to it, to drive the
DVI connector. Example of the chip that could drive the
DVI in the next link.)

http://www.siliconimage.com/products/product.aspx?id=6

The big unknown, is what resolution options the Intel driver
for your 865G chipset is capable of supplying. Can it
drive 1920x1200 to that DVI interface ? I don't know.
You have the equipment in front of you, and maybe one
of the control panels will give some idea of the upper
limits available. I definitely wouldn't use the VGA
for this task.

In this Wikipedia article, there is one 1920x1200 entry
in the "single link" specification table, and CVT-RB blanking
is listed as the technique. The DVI standard lists 165MHz as the
max clock rate, and the more pixels pushed and more frames
per second, the higher the data rate has to be. Not all
graphics drivers will know all those output options. The
purpose of some of the blanking options, is to reduce the
unused pixel times to about 5%, getting the max possible
from the cable clock limitations. (Back when CRTs were
all the rage, the blanking used up a much larger period
of time per frame. The alternate blanking options squeeze
out the wasted time, making higher res LCD display driving
possible. That is because an LCD doesn't have retrace time.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface

One reviewer for the monitor, thought the color stunk
on it. Too saturated. Maybe too many tricks in the
electronics ?

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Monitors/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=320-6272

So somehow, you need to learn what the upper limit is
on your DVI port. And I'm out of documents to
reference...

Paul
.

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