# Price Check



## LonelyFox (Aug 29, 2008)

2 Gigs of RAM
a quad core processor
and a good high def screen that can handle max resolution settings


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## Archibald Ironfist (Aug 29, 2008)

What kind of RAM?  DDR?  DDR-2?  DDR-3?

What kind of quad-core CPU?  Intel?  AMD?

What resolution of monitor?  'Max' means something different for every videocard.





Note too that you'll need a motherboard to go with that CPU+RAM, if you don't have it already.  You'll also need a videocard for that monitor.  I reccomend against using onboard video that comes with the motherboard.


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## Archibald Ironfist (Aug 29, 2008)

Here's some cheap 1GB RAM:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227058
$19.99 ($7.49 after rebate)  /  $26.98 ($14.48 after rebate)
So buy two


For the monitor, I need you to specify CRT, or LCD.  (LCD is generally higher quality.)
Also, do you want the monitor for gaming and movies (faster picture/refresh, cheaper), or for color quality and viewing art or pictures? (Better color, sharpness, contract, brightness, and picture, but more expensive)


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## Runefox (Aug 30, 2008)

> 2 Gigs of RAM


DDR2 and DDR3 generally cost about the same for the value stuff. 1GB at maximum should cost about $40 (CAD) if bought at a shop or much less from an online dropship like NCIX or TigerDirect. I would recommend two 1GB modules for performance unless you're looking to go for more than 4GB later on (with a 64-bit OS).



> a quad core processor


Since you're not picky, an AMD quad core should go for roughly $200 CAD, versus an Intel would go for around $240. This is entry-level, mind you. It gets much more expensive.



> and a good high def screen that can handle max resolution settings


High def and max resolution don't mean anything, but sure.

You're probably looking for a 22" or 24" monitor. A good 22" (LG, Samsung, ASUS) should run you about $250, while a 24" would run you probably about $350 or higher. A 22" would run at a resolution of 1680x1050, while a 24" would run 1920x1200 (technically higher than 1080p). Larger screens exist, but you're getting pretty insane with the cost, and whatever video card you use probably won't be able to keep up with the resolutions.

For the record, the "max" resolution a modern video card is capable of is about 2560x1600 ("1080p" is 1920x1080).



> LCD is generally higher quality


Not really, but LCD is all you can buy nowadays, and they're generally made in both standard (well, 5:4) and widescreen (well, 16:10) form factors. CRT's are always better than LCD's for image editing, video editing, etc. They have a much better colour gamut, and provide instant response time. Many graphics design companies still use CRT's because of this, even though LCD's are good enough for consumer markets. Drawbacks include bulk, power consumption, flicker/eye strain (partially avoidable by setting a higher refresh rate), mean time to half-brightness, analog signal, and the fact that they're all but phased out. Positives include a wide colour gamut, instant response time (screen refreshes as fast as its refresh rate is set, no ghosting), true resolution switching capability (LCD's run internally at a single resolution only, and upscale/downscale as necessary), and they work extremely well with VGA in comparison to LCD's (since LCD's and CRT's refresh differently, and VGA was designed for the refresh of a CRT; LCD's can sometimes see jittering in VGA signals compared to DVI signals).

...

End tech rant.


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## Archibald Ironfist (Aug 31, 2008)

I beg to differ.  My Samsung Syncmaster 920p is significantly better than even the most expensive of CRTs, and costs only a fraction as much.  The color is brighter, more vivid, contrast is better, picture sharper, and it uses less than 1/4th as much wattage.

I've yet to see a CRT outclass a mid-grade LCD.  Although low-grade LCD can indeed be poor.  Any LCD with 6ms or better response time will generally be ghost-free too.


Also, noone uses VGA anymore.  DVI is standard even for many CRTs now.  Most newer cards don't even have a VGA (Which, btw, is usually called a D-Sub) port.


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## Runefox (Aug 31, 2008)

Begin the wall of text!



> I beg to differ. My Samsung Syncmaster 920p is significantly better than even the most expensive of CRTs, and costs only a fraction as much. The color is brighter, more vivid, contrast is better, picture sharper, and it uses less than 1/4th as much wattage.


Indeed those are the advantages of LCD technology. If an image is displayed at its native resolution, it's indeed quite sharp (so long as the DPI is good, as most modern LCD's are). Colour vibrancy isn't an issue with LCD's, either - However, the colour _gamut_ is (as is its tendency to wash out in sunlight, since it's backlit and not producing its own light). I won't argue with you that consumer-grade LCD's almost completely outclass consumer-grade CRT's in today's world, but CRT's (especially CRT's with a low dot pitch), as I've said, are still widely used in industry and graphics arts due to their much wider colour gamut (the range and variety of colours that can accurately be displayed on-screen), and hence have a much greater commonality in their gamut with CMYK productions (print), which of course means more accurate printing from the monitor's colour space. LCD's are slowly filling this gap, but the technology still isn't there. Arguably, a high-end CRT (or rear projection) is still quite crisp and directly comparable to an LCD. In fact, DLP, the logical progression of CRT technology, happens to power some of the highest quality displays.



> Any LCD with 6ms or better response time will generally be ghost-free too.


That depends. Nowadays, our screens are typically rated by their gray-to-gray (the time it takes for a pixel to go from gray, to black, to gray again) refresh rate, rather than black-to-black (the time it takes for a pixel to go from black to white to black again), which was common in yesteryear, which is incidentally why we saw a great leap in response time measurements in a short period of time). Many monitors that claim 2ms gray-to-gray may actually be 8ms black-to-black. That's not to say that their performance isn't still phenomenal - The focus on gray to gray response time is arguably quite a good thing, as most high-motion video tends to occur in midtones. A similar transition occurred in this manner in the calculation of contrast ratios (which seemingly instantly jumped from 800:1 at maximum to around 3000:1), wherein we are now most often shown the "dynamic" contrast ratio of a monitor, rather than its static (real) contrast ratio (usually still in the range from 800:1-1000:1 for consumer desktop monitors). Normally, contrast ratio is in simplest terms the steps a pixel on the monitor can take from completely black (off) to white (fully lit), or the difference between the two (varying methods are used by different manufacturers). "Dynamic" contrast can be done by modulating the backlight depending on the content by deepening the blacks and darker colours while keeping lighter portions lit normally; Another way of doing it is to modulate it quickly to create an optical illusion to this effect (more common), similar in how temporal anti-aliasing works in ATI Radeon graphics cards. This creates the illusion of there being a higher contrast than there really is. Wikipedia says "Thus the ratio of the luminosity of the brightest and the darkest color the system is capable of producing simultaneously at any instant of time is called *static contrast ratio*, while the ratio of the luminosity of the brightest and the darkest color the system is capable of producing over time is called *dynamic contrast ratio*." - In other words, LCD technology really hasn't taken off to the point where manufacturers would have you think, and most of it is really a lie. They sure are pretty all the same, though - Much better than those $500 15"ers that ghosted like crazy. I personally like my NEC MultiSync 90GX2 and its high-gloss finish. Even if I know the monitor doesn't have a great contrast ratio (700:1) or colours, the glossy finish deepens it and for all intents and purposes, it's as good or better than my CRT was for just plain viewing. The pros outweigh the cons for LCD's and flat panels in general over the old CRT technology, though I'd sure like a DLP sitting on my desk...



> Also, noone uses VGA anymore. DVI is standard even for many CRTs now.


Lots of people still use VGA - Just not for LCD's, since the difference in the way lines are displayed (full-screen refresh) and the way lines are sent over the wire (line-by-line) cause flickering from time to time. CRT's naturally use the line-by-line method, and thus take VGA quite well. Indeed, VGA has quite good quality, especially for such an old, analog standard. Very little discernable line noise can be detected even on a good screen and at a high resolution (like "1080p"). DVI mainly gathered momentum due to the rise of LCD's and other digital devices whose refresh mechanism suffered in quality due to the VGA spec. It's been in the pipe for a while, since it provides for higher resolutions and uses a digital stream, but the fact of the matter is, you probably won't notice a difference between the two on a consumer-level CRT monitor.

VGA cables can also be strung for insane lengths, making it ideal for projection, as well. That said, I don't think I've seen a CRT *monitor* with a DVI port. CRT TV, yes.



> Most newer cards don't even have a VGA (Which, btw, is usually called a D-Sub) port.


It's usually better to use the DVI connector with a VGA dongle simply because it's cost-effective and provides for two LCD displays if desired. With great foresight, the DVI spec actually was designed to have pins for both an analog VGA output and digital (HDCP-capable) output, which means all that dongle is really doing is rearranging it to the shape of that DE-15/HD-15 jack.

The VGA port (as it has always traditionally been called in IBM/PC systems) is considered a D-Sub (D-Subminiature) port by its design type (which is in simplest terms, a D-shaped connector with retention screws). This is a generic term; Gameports, serial ports, parallel ports, and AUI ports all use D-Sub designs.


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## Archibald Ironfist (Sep 1, 2008)

I don't really have the energy to produce a counter-argument right now, but what you're saying sounds all fine and nice... in 2002.  CRT is obsolete, and the 'color gamut' issue is a non-issue as many LCDs now have 8-bit panels and up, capable of the same color depth as LCDs.  In fact, some are acheiving the tens of billions in color for LCDs now, something that even ten-grand CRTs struggle with.

Also, DLP =/= CRT.


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## Runefox (Sep 1, 2008)

I didn't say DLP was CRT, I said it was the logical progression of its technology. Whether you like to believe it or not, LCD monitors aren't the be-all-end-all of display technology, and neither is DVI/HDMI (aside from having this wonderful thing called DRM attached to it). I'm not saying that CRT's are still the way to go for home users, because that would just be silly. No consumer-marketed CRT, if they even still exist, would be able to compete with an LCD in picture quality, price, and bulk. Modern LCD's typically have higher contrast ratios than CRT's, as well, which sweetens the deal. However, regardless as to what you have to say to the contrary, CRT's still find homes in a LOT of places that deal in graphics arts. Today's ten-grand LCD displays aren't a huge jump (if at all) over yesteryear's ten-grand CRT displays for things like video editing and print media. The colour gamut is still limited on most modern LCD's except for those with LED backlighting (Which neither yours nor mine has; Like most everyone else's in the world, our LCD's use CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent lamp) backlights), because it will always be limited to the extents of the spectrum emitted by the backlight simply because the LCD screen is a passive display. Very little to no light is actually emitted from the LCD itself. Furthermore, an LCD monitor's black will for that same reason never be as deep as a CRT's (since a CRT is an active display device, and colours are produced by shining light on a phosphor, black is the absence of said light, versus an LCD always has the backlight to contend with. Again, LED-backlit LCD screens are less susceptible to this).

In short, LCD's are absolutely fantastic for end users, but no matter how many bits per channel the display accepts and attempts to render, its backlight will always have an effect on the final product, which makes professional use difficult. They're seeing more and more usage as the technology improves, yes, but until LED-backlit LCD's go mainstream and we get the amazing new chameleon-LCD screens, it's just not going to happen. Gamers should have nothing to fear from LCD's nowadays, though, which _was_ a point of contention for LCD adoption in 2002 until about 2005.


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## Archibald Ironfist (Sep 1, 2008)

Might want to look up OLED displays.  Unless I misunderstand you, they're the on-market proof-of-concept product of what you just claimed doesn't exist.  Non-backlit due to each pixel being effectively a multicolor LED.  It uses an organic light-emitting diode, hence the name, OLED, which can be printed quite rapidly like a sheet of paper.  It uses less power than LCD and is many dozens of times brighter, and has no need for a backlight in most cases.  It support a better pixel pitch than either LCD or CRT, and supports 1.06 Billion colors as a general rule of thumb.

As well, a simple newegg search reveals a $3700 LED backlight LCD, 1.06 billion colors, 30-bit panel.   http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824176097

Also a $2200 16.77million color of much larger screensize, without LED backlight.  (I beleive 28-bit) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824002419

And countless more 16.7 million color LCDs, with and without LED backlights, some under $1000.  (Ranging from 7-bit/dithered to 24-bit/non-dithered)

The poor quality LCDs, of which you mention, are typicall 6 and 7 bit.  AKA 16.2 and 16.0 million colors.

Plus, almost ALL of these support 1280x1024 at minimum, most supporting 1600x1200 and up, which even extremely high grade CRTs tend to top out at.  (In fact, a search fails to yield a single CRT above 1600x1200)


There are your, many, proofs of concept that evidence what i'm saying.  Your information is outdated.  LCDs have effectively replaced CRTs, it's as simple as that.  They're capable of the same color depth (provided it has an 8-bit panel or better, which roughly 10-15% of consumer grade sub-$2k monitors have) and even better (in the case of 24-bit panels).  What you're mistaken is that we're still in the era of 6 and 7 bit panel displays capable of 16mil only by dithering.  This age has come and gone, my friend.  Even graphical arts and video editing has gone LCD.


Also, DLP is not a progression of CRT.  It uses a tiny series of LCD-like refracting lenses to focus beams of light through a concentrator onto a screen.  Technologically speaking, it's like an LCD with a mirror and a super-powered image lens focusing it onto the canvas.  It's biggest drawback is a much slower response time than LCD in terms of black-to-white fade, and only slightly poorer grey-to-grey.


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## Runefox (Sep 1, 2008)

> Might want to look up OLED displays. Unless I misunderstand you, they're the on-market proof-of-concept product of what you just claimed doesn't exist. Non-backlit due to each pixel being effectively a multicolor LED. It uses an organic light-emitting diode, hence the name, OLED, which can be printed quite rapidly like a sheet of paper. It uses less power than LCD and is many dozens of times brighter, and has no need for a backlight in most cases. It support a better pixel pitch than either LCD or CRT, and supports 1.06 Billion colors as a general rule of thumb.


OLEDs are fantastic, but they aren't LCD displays, which is what I was referring to. OLEDs actually do give off their own light, and typically have a great response time, plus like CRT's, they emit no light when showing black; Therefore, they have a fuller range of colours than LCD's and fixed-resolution aside are better than CRT's in every way. The only problem is that at the moment, they're prohibitively expensive and not widely available in the consumer market (though that is rapidly, _rapidly_ changing, as just a couple years ago, they were a curiosity). The main reason they aren't taking off right now aside from the price, would be the small sizes of available OLED screens and their low lifespans in comparison to LCD's.



> As well, a simple newegg search reveals a $3700 LED backlight LCD, 1.06 billion colors, 30-bit panel.
> 
> Also a $2200 16.77million color of much larger screensize, without LED backlight.  (I beleive 28-bit) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824002419
> 
> And countless more 16.7 million color LCDs, with and without LED backlights, some under $1000. (Ranging from 7-bit/dithered to 24-bit/non-dithered)


That's nice. No, really. But at the same time, that first monitor has a 6ms gray-to-gray response time. That's not very good for a monitor of that price range, and not very well-suited to high-motion video. However, I can't see any professional design studios using any standard CCFL-backlit LCD, no matter the contrast ratio or colour channel bit depths, due to the limited gamut provided by the CCFL and muted blacks caused by the fact that it's backlit to begin with. Again, LED backlighting will mostly eliminate the problem, and as you pointed out, they are coming down in price, but according to the screens I've looked at on Newegg and elsewhere, aren't very impressing with their specs yet. That said, the colour gamut alone would probably be enough of a sell, simply because it dramatically increases the covered range (up to and beyond that of wide-gamut LCD screens that attempted to fill that niche for years).

But again, consumer-grade LCD's with typical CCFL backlights are usually good enough for most usage that an end-user would use; Gaming, movies, etc. LED backlit LCD's are great, but are still very expensive.



> Plus, almost ALL of these support 1280x1024 at minimum, most supporting 1600x1200 and up, which even extremely high grade CRTs tend to top out at. (In fact, a search fails to yield a single CRT above 1600x1200)


That's the problem with LCD's, though - They're stuck with whatever that resolution happens to be. Any other provided input resolution is simply scaled up, usually with blurry results, whereas a CRT can realign and display any resolution in its range without scaling.



> What you're mistaken is that we're still in the era of 6 and 7 bit panel displays capable of 16mil only by dithering. This age has come and gone, my friend. Even graphical arts and video editing has gone LCD.


No, I don't think I was mistaken about that. I'm not talking about the colour depth, I'm talking about the range at which this depth takes place, and the effects of CCFL-backlit LCD's (which most of said 8-bit to 24-bit panels use) limit that, and severely limit the depth of black available. No amount of colours can help it in this regard - LED backlighting is the only solution for that, and since it's still a backlight, it still doesn't get to the root of the problem. I see OLEDs taking over the market from LCD once the technology evolves well enough to compete in the same price ranges.



> Also, DLP is not a progression of CRT. It uses a tiny series of LCD-like refracting lenses to focus beams of light through a concentrator onto a screen. Technologically speaking, it's like an LCD with a mirror and a super-powered image lens focusing it onto the canvas. It's biggest drawback is a much slower response time than LCD in terms of black-to-white fade, and only slightly poorer grey-to-grey.


Actually, nothing about refracting lenses is LCD-like. LCD's are an overlay over a backlight; DLP is the shining of light onto an array of lenses which is then projected onto , which happens to be very similar to the way a CRT display works, except CRT's use a magnetic field to direct the electrons that make up the display. I think what you're referring to is LCoS (Liqud Crystal on Silicon).


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## Archibald Ironfist (Sep 1, 2008)

Due to enormous RL drama I don't have time for another lengthy reply right now.

I reccomend checking out a Samsung Syncmaster 9xxP series.  They're usually in most CompUSA and Best Buy displays, so finding one should be easy.  Do a side-by-side comparison of this $400 monitor with a $19,000 Sony DLP and you'll see real fast that the color on the LCD is crisper, sharper, more vibrant, and less blurry despite the incredibly massive difference in prices and alleged quality.  It's why I went with a Syncmaster and the entire reason I abandoned the 'CRTs have better color' train like you're on.  I was simply wrong.


Still I note, you claim no LED backed LCDs exist, I provided a link to one, and you still make up a flaw with it to support your beliefs.  Obviously, arguing this numerically is pointless.  So a side-to-side for yourself is the best way to find out.
I assume you have at least a sliver of doubt, else I can see no reason why you'd discuss it except to educate, which my rebuttal should make clear that ignorance of the topic is not my weakness.


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