LCD Monitor Question

[torquehead]

I will be purchasing a 15" LCD monitor in the near future and have a question about the differences between an analog LCD versus a DVI type. My video card will support both types of monitors. There is a big difference in price and I could'nt find anyone to tell me the real difference. I do a little CAD type work and my son does play a few games although we have another computer with a CRT for that. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Dave

[RJ]

Hi,

if your graphics card has DVI output (and you said it does), then I'd say stay away from the VGA only TFTs.

A TFT displays the picture digitally. When connected via VGA, the image will be converted twice. In the graphics card from digital to analog and in the monitor from analog to digital. This is unnecessary and you'll lose quality.
Connecting the TFT to DVI means no quality loss. Although the difference is in most cases only small, it is noticeable. Actually I haven't noticed much when I switched from VGA to DVI, but then I connected it again with VGA the image looked a bit blurry to me.

With DVI you don't need to adjust anything. You'll get a perfect and stable picture.

There is no big difference in price between VGA only TFTs and hybrid ones. Only difference would be that the cheapest ones mostly don't have DVI, but are mostly also low quality.

BTW, what video card do you have ?

RJ

[glc]

Here's a case in point for DVI - a friend/customer of mine with more money than common sense bought TWO 19" KDS flatpanels, and we hooked them up to his new P4 using a Matrox G550 dual head. This particular card can only use DVI on the primary display, the secondary has to be VGA. Well, I set both displays to 1280x1024 (native resolution). About a week later he called me and complained that the secondary display was hurting his eyes. I went over and I personally couldn't see any real difference, but then again I don't sit in front of HIS machine 8 hours a day. We ordered up a G550 dual DVI model and he is now very happy.

[RJ]

The difference is not very noticeable. Actually you need to get used to a TFT if you want to see the difference with the other connection.
When I switched from CRT to TFT I saw the image crystal clear. It was connected via VGA. After about 1 year I switched to DVI. Well, for one single program I had to connect it to VGA again. I wrote what I encountered. Maybe you won't notice a difference now, but you certainly will when you get used to a DVI image.

RJ