what hardware are you going to buy in 2006...?

[Cyborg]

You don't need to bother with the stability tests. Any problems will show through normal usage anyway. Play a game instead of leaving your new computer for a whooping 24 hours.

[Andrew]

LG 20.1" Widescreen LCD Monitor

Does this look good? 1/2 decent price for a 20 inch LG. I remember someone said either get a 19 inch or 21 inch LCD, as 20 inch is no better resolution or something.

Has a very high contrast ratio and low response time.

Just browsing monitors because my 19 inch crt takes up my entire desk. Hoping it dies so I have to buy a new one :P

EDIT:

Also are widescreen better than regular?

And if I were to get a monitor like this one, do I need a better video card to run it? are there hardware minimum requirements for LCD monitors? Does it affect the performance of my computer (P4 1.7 ghz, 512 ram, 32 mb shitty vid car)

Is there a difference between 20.1 inch and 20 inch?

There are 20 inch LCD for $50 less, but they have lower contrast ratios and higher response times (and not LG brand:P).

[GhostHunter]

I work at Circuit City (tech store in case we're not up in Canada).

We actually have that exact model on display. And yes, it looks very nice.

Granted you could still get some better monitors, however. Plus the fact it's a widescreen.

EDIT: WS streches the screen to give a cinematic feel. Typically, people who enjoy the boxy width an d heighth of CRTs prefer standard over WS. No, it won't affect the performance and no you won't need a new card, though the more powerful the better the picture'll be.

[Andrew]

Cool!

Of course there are some better monitors :P and there are some worse monitors. Looked like it was kinda middle of the road, cheap for the quality.

In Canada we might have some circuit city, but I think they are mostly The Source by Circuit City (Radioshack got bought out?)

Looking at The source website, none of their 20inch monitors beat the LG one from Futureshop.

Circuit city has it online as well LG Monitor (L204WT)

What's really wierd is that it is only $20 cheaper than at futureshop, and that is in USD. (so same price)

I presume widescreen would be better for movies (dvd) and other video. I could only imagine watching my Dune dvd collection with it :D

EDIT:

Just measured my desk area where montior would go. The LG 20.1 inch is 46.6 CM wide, so that takes up 60% of the back of the desk. 63% of available height (probably doesn't include the stand! actually it probably does include the stand now that I think of it).

Hmm, for widescreen is  the 20inch measured from corner to corner, or at a 45 degree angle from a corner (if it were corner to corner the 20 inch would be incorrect, compared to a square 20 inch monitor)

On the comments page of the futureshop website, someone said they ahve it hooked up to theri PC and xbox260. Is this easily possible? PS2 work? :P

The sale ends Thursday. Should I wait until Christmas/Boxing day to buy a monitor?

EDIT:

HardForum user review stuff. Most seem impressed with it.

[veK]

Does this look good? 1/2 decent price for a 20 inch LG. I remember someone said either get a 19 inch or 21 inch LCD, as 20 inch is no better resolution or something.

I said that though you mixed sth. up there. I said get a 17" or a 20" - but no 19"

Because 19" have the same resolution like 17" (1280x1024)

nothing wrong with a 20" though  :)

[Andrew]

Ok, that is what I was quoting. :) Since I currently have a 19 inch crt, I doubt I would go with a 17 inch LCD (although crt are measured different than LCD, so maybe a 17 inch LCD isn't so small)

Thanks!

I presume the LG 20 inch LCD will produce less heat than my 19 inch CRT? Maybe better with power consumption? :P According to these comments and wikipedia they use less power.

[veK]

try emperor on 1600x1200 with the apo minipatch and you'll love your 20" forever  ;D

[Andrew]

I don't own or play emperor :P

Will it screw up old games between 1995 and 2001? (that run at 800*600 or so?)

How does it show those up? Is it stretched? Or just the black spaces at right/left of screen with 800*600 in middle of screen.

[veK]

no emperor... shame on you  ;D

I don't know about older games. I guess it depends on the specific game how it will show up. but you had a 19" crt before - I doubt you had that running on 800x600 so you should know how the games show up. I guess some of them will be stretched, some might also run in a 800x600 window and might have black space around it. but it depends on the game I guess...

[erjin999]

They should all stretch.

[veK]

in one week there's a nvidia will probably give detail information about it's upcoming 8xxx series which will be launched in about 1 month from now. I'm excited about the specs and and about the pricing. I don't know yet if I buy the card this year or maybe wait some months. I saved the money for it but right now it's not really necessary. so maybe it's better to wait a bit till windows vista and dx10 games like crysis & co are available... I hope I can use my psu for the new card and don't have to buy a new one again...

I'm really happy right now with my new pc, looks nice, performance is great and it's very very silent - though it's overclocked and has the temperatures not very high.

[Cyborg]

Scroll a little bit down on this page to see a list of the most likely specifications.

The page is in Norwegian, so it might be difficult to understand the page text...

[veK]

there are lot of pages with the most likely specs... in the hardware forum I'm in there's a 80 page thread about it with all the news gathered from around the world - but I want the official specs presented by nvidia on which everybody can rely on then  :)

[Cyborg]

You actually read 80 pages?

[veK]

not really difficult... I was into that discussion right from the beginning. It started in February 2006  :)

[veK]

I just ordered:

1x Western Digital Raptor 74GB, 16MB Cache, 10.000 rpm, 4,5ms (very expensive but I really need a fast system hdd now)

2x Samsung SpinPoint SP2504, 250GB, 8MB Cache, 7.200 rpm, 8,9ms (for data storage, I already have 3 of these. they are full now)

1x Raidsonic HDD Mobile Rack (for switching the Samsungs (they are not all installed inside) - I already have 1 of these too, this is the second)

and I'm currently considering to sell my 20" dell lcd and buy 2x20" widescreen lc-displays instead.

because I need another lcd at work and my company isn't going to spend any more money on hardware this year and I'm not too sure they will next year - because if 1 person gets a second lcd, everybody else also wants 2. currently I'm working with a 17" lcd and a 19" crt at work but the 19" really sucks. the quality is very poor and not very good for my eyes. so I think I'll buy my own "display expansion pack" - so why am I considering byuing 2 of them then? because if I stop working there I have 2 matching displays at home. also because my dell is not the best anymore regarding its specifications. the only problems are: I don't know how much money I will get from it and how much I have to add to buy the 2 new displays I want. and the second problem is: widescreen lcds stretch games which don't support widescreen resolutions and they don't look very nice then. newer games also support widescreen resolutions and it rocks... but what about my beloved cs 1.6 and emperor  :'(

well, I haven't bought them yet... but maybe I will.

I really spent a lot of money on new hardware this year. the next generation gpu has to wait till next year...

[erjin999]

How does the raidsonic rack work ?

Are they accessable from outside (external) ?

[veK]

the raidsonic rack is great, that's why I ordered a second one (so I can copy from 1 "external" drive to another without having to save the data on the data disc which is installed inside. it's trayless and supports hot swap. so all you have to do is install the rack and you can put in whatever s-ata hdd you like without doing anything else. by closing the door they are presses onto the contacts of the rack (which you have of course connected to your mainboard) and by opening the door the hdd is pressed out again. very very easy and a very big help if you have a lot of data storage hdds but only need them from time to time (e.g. for backup) and don't want to put them into your pc and keep them running all the time.

here's a link: http://www.raidsonic.de/en/pages/products/mobile-racks.php?we_objectID=4343

[erjin999]

I did follow the link, but am too stupid to understand it properly. The drive stays external to the computer, or does it enter via the 5.25" bay ? And if it is external, which I doubt, does it connect via USB ?

[veK]

you install the rack in a free 5,25 slot (just the rack).

then you connect (internally) the rack to your psu and your board (via a s-ata cable). that's it for the rack.

now you take one of your many hdds and put it into the rack, close the door and lock it. the hdd gets pressed against the connectors of the rack (which again were connected to the psu and the mainboard earlier). so the hdd is connected like the hdd(s) which are installed inside your pc. if your mainboard and your harddrive supports hot-swap you can do this whenever you like... you just switch your hdds any time. if you unlock the door and open it, the small iron "arm" you can see on the animated picture presses the hdd away from the connectors and you can take out you hdd.

I hope you could understand it the way I explained it  :)

of course you can't take the hdd to a friend and connect it to his pc (unless he has such a rack too), because you only got the hdd itself - the rack is mounted inside your pc. so this is not like an external hdd with usb, firewire or esata...

but hey, did you never hear about thos hdd racks / hdd changers / hdd switches (whatever they also might be called) before? they are used very much... e.g. for servers.

[erjin999]

Yes, I have heard, so I had pretty much a good idea of what you said already, just wasnt shure it wasnt a USB external rack of sorts. Thanks for that info, might look into those as a way of increasing storage easily !

[gryphon]

mine looks like this.

Although I like yours veK as you don't need to buy a bracked for each hd you use.

[veK]

yes they're pretty new and very handy.

my stuff arrived today and I just finished setting up the new os, doind data transfers and stuff...

I have to say I'm absolutely amazed by the wd raptor drive which is now my system-drive... it's awesome.

1. it's not as loud as everybody keeps telling. actually it's really silent and I only makes some noise while writing or reading. but even that is not very annoying, I really had far worse "usual" drives. there are no loud vibrations or annyoing sounds and I can't tell by just listening that it runs with 10.000 rpm and not 7.200.

2. it's so damn fast... booting up takes such a short time now. I was really amazed when I tried photoshop which usually takes a good while to start. I couldn' believe it: it just takes a few seconds and I'm ready to start working with ps. awesome!

now finally the true potential of this awesome new intel cpu can be put to good use. the hdd was really expensive and did cost as much as two of my 250gb drives. but it's really worth it.

my next plans:

- new internet connection (6.000/600 will be increased to 16.000/800) best thing about this: it costs 15

[erjin999]

veK, you are the heartbeat of this thread :P

[veK]

I just love to tinker with hardware  ;D