Performance Comparison with CRT
Performance.
As I mentioned earlier, whilst LCD monitors have always had size, weight and power-usage advantages when compared to CRT monitors, they've often suffered when it came to performance. And CRTs (especially consumer-level) aren't without their problems either, often suffering from focussing issues, geometric instability, moire problems and issues with colours becoming washed out or inconsisent across the entire screen. With typically slow response times, troubles displaying true (24bit or 32bit) colour and issues viewing them at any angle other than straight on, many users have found LCD monitors to be unacceptable for all but the most basic of computing tasks. The 172x attempts to address all of these issues - we'll see just how well.
Test System:- Intel P4 2.6C
- Abit IC7-MAX3 motherboard
- 1GB (2 x 512MB) Corsair XMS3500 DDR-RAM
- ATi Radeon 9700/PRO video card
- 80GB WD "JB" HDD
- A-Open 4x DVD drive
- Sony 40x/12x/48x CD-R/W drive
- 3 x 120mm, 2x 92mm Panaflo fans
- Chenbro Genie case, modified by Coolcases.com.
Unfortunately, I could not source a Samsung 172T or any other LCD monitor for comparison with the 172x. If I source one in the future, I will publish an addendum to this review.
For testing, the following applications/tests were used.
Response time:- Movie: The "Lobby" scene from "The Matrix"
- Game: Unreal Tournament 2004 Demo
- Game: Battlefield 1942 (v1.6.19)
- Game: Dark Age of Camelot: Trials of Atlantis (v1.68)
Colour Reproduction:- Movie: "The Matrix"
- Movie: "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring"
- Game: Unreal Tournament 2004 Demo
- Game: Battlefield 1942 (v.1.19)
- Game: Dark Age of Camelot: Trials of Atlantis (v1.68)
- band.JPG - courtesy of Fred from the forums.
General Monitor Issues:BF1942's maximum screen resolution is 1280x960, and so was used not only as a standard test, but also as a test to see how the 172x would perform at resolutions below its native resolution. Resolutions of 1280x960, 1152x864 and 1024x768 were all tested.
Response time.
The "Lobby" scene from "The Matrix" - This scene was picked as I believe it is contains more action per second than any other movie scene in my movie collection. As expected, my 955DF was faultless here - no signs of ghosting were present at all. To my delight, the 172x was faultless here too - I couldn't pick any ghosting at all, in both DVI and Analog modes.
Unreal Tournament 2004 Demo - Again, no issues with my 955DF - nor are any expected. And again, the 172x performed admirably - ghosting being non-existant - making for an incredibly playable game.
Battlefield 1942 - No issues with the 955DF. 172x again performed flawlessly, with no noticable ghosting at all.
Dark Age of Camelot - No issues with 955DF. *Slight* issue noticed with the 172X when spinning in one spot - especially with in-game text (names above characters heads). This was present in both 1280x1024 mode and 1152x864 mode. I found it quite strange that this was the only game with issues of this sort, especially considering it is a much slower paced game than either UT2004 or BF1942.
Colour Reproduction.
"The Matrix - Colour reproduction with the 955DF was generally excellent, though slightly washed out and inconsistent in some scenes. Given the age of this monitor (2+ years), this isn't at all surprising. When viewed close up, the 172x in DVI mode suffered from some banding and "granular" textures, especially dark textures. Whilst this wasn't quite so noticable when using the analog connection, it was still slightly noticable. Otherwise, colour reproduction in both DVI and analog modes was excellent, with objects in shadows especially being quite well defined, whereas they appeared to blend in with shadows a little when viewed on the 955DF. I found that using the preset "Entertain" MagicBright settings to be a bit bright for my liking, and whilst they did help to make it easier to distinguish action occuring in dark and/or shadowed areas, I found the "Internet" settings to be more than adequate for this task.
"The Lord of the Rings: The Followship of the Ring" - Again, colours on the 955 were generally excellent, but slightly washed out and inconsistent in parts. I attribute these minor negative issues to the monitor's age. In both DVI and analog modes, colour reproduction was excellent, with none of the banding or "granular" textures seen in "The Matrix" noticable.
Unreal Tournament 2004 Demo - A very brightly coloured game, the 955DF's colour reproduction was more than adequate. Having said that, in DVI mode especially, the 172x shone, with colours being bright and well defined.
Battlefield 1942 - An old favourite of mine, I've played this game plenty of times on the 955DF, and have experienced no issues with it at all in the past, and during my testing there were again no issues. The 172x performed brilliantly again, except for one curious issue - in both DVI and analog mode, the dust kicked up behind vehicles had a distinctly green tinge to it. This could be due to the resolutions this game is being run at are lower than the native resolution of the 172x (1280x1024), and that the aspect ratio of the resolutions possible in BF1942 is 4:3 while the 172x's native resolution gives a 5:4 aspec ratio, but I can't be 100% sure of that, since it wasn't possible to run this game at the monitor's native resolution or aspect ratio.
Dark Age of Camelot - No issues were present with the 955DF. Well, they're not issues, so much as inferiorities when compared to the 172x. In both DVI and analog modes were excellent, with rich colour reproduction. Again, DVI mode shone in dark areas, with better contrast between dark textures. I play a lot of DAoC (I even run a fan website for it), and I simply LOVE the 172x's performance in this game.
band.JPG - OK, you're probably asked what in hell's name band.JPG is. Well, here it is, all 144KB of it. Quite simply, this is a graphic featuring a gradual and smooth change from black in the top left corner to white in the bottom right corner. On a CRT screen, this change should be COMPLETELY smooth, with no banding present (assuming you have your video card set to display something more than 256 colours). On LCDs however, there is some banding present - noticable steps in the gradient from black to white. On the 955DF, the output was as expected - a nice smooth black-to-white gradient, with no banding. On the 172x, however, there is some noticable banding present - the bands run across the gradient, appearing to run from top right to bottom left. However, changing brightness/contrast levels seems to change the amount of banding visible - in "Text" mode, there is banding all the way through the graphic, yet if the "Internet" or "Entertain" modes are selected, the banding is reduced - in my preferred "Internet" mode, there are only three evenly spaced bands present, with the rest of the gradient being smooth. My guess is that this is a case of the brightness overcoming the banding with outright intensity, rather than the screen really performing better. All up though, in general usage, banding is not evident, and it's only in extreme cases (like in this picture specifically designed to highlight banding) that banding becomes an issue.
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