So I've been using my TV as a Monitor, but now I'm thinking of getting a monitor.

While I have a decent knowledge of CPU's and some other working of the computers I know nothing about Monitors.

I'm looking for an LED Monitor and everyone I search tells me a contrast ratio. Do I want one thats like 12,000,000:1 Dynamic Contract Ratio or one like 12,000,000:1 contrast ratio.

My price range is like 100-200

My system specs are

i5-2320
nvdia 560Ti Twin Frozr MSI

Idk if you need more than that.

Contrast ratios are a little difficult to determine with numbers and some people consider the whole contrast ratio comparison as a marketing gimmick. Just about all monitors manufactured today display black very well, it was only when LCDs first appeared on the market that you had to worry about contrast ratios.

What you do want to worry about is response time, especially with FPS or games that require fast reflexes. The faster the response time, the less 'ghosting' you'll encounter. If possible, it's better to see the monitor in person and judge which one best fits you.

I am personally using 3 of these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236059. They look amazing to play games on.

So the contrast ratio doesn't mean that much? I assume I want a monitor with a low ms response ranking right? I'd assume that meant millisecond?

Right, the lower the number in milliseconds, the faster the response.

response time more important than contrast ratio, IMHO. For that price range, I'd recommend not going above 22"...better a decent 20" than a refurbished POS 23".

What about the hz?

I"m putting togethet a rig ( just posted the specs for review in the CD tech thread) and after watching a vid on newegg about video cards, they mentioned TVs having 120hz and how monitors are just now being released with 120hz, as they have been behind in the tech at 60hz.

Does that mean a TV at 120hz will perform well as far as response time?

The frequency means how fast the display refreshes the image every second. With a 120Hz monitor, the image is refreshed 120 times per second (similar in the way moving pictures work with slides). Anything above 60Hz on an LCD isn't detectable by your eye (CRTs are different, you can notice the difference in refresh rate).

That being said, I'm not aware of any LCD monitor that refreshes below 60Hz and remember that frequency isn't the same as response rate. Response rate has more to do with how quickly the screen readjusts (lack of a better word) to accomodate the next image. With a high response rate, the next image can transpose over the previous image, causing what's called ghosting.

Thanks I think I'll go with that ASUS Monitor. In my price range and has a low ms time. Thanks

Hz and response time are pretty much unrelated.

HZ is the screen's refresh rate. There are 2 reasons to have higher than the 'standard' 60 and 75 hz refresh rates:

1) 3D - 3D requires twice the refresh rate to get the same as 'normal' refresh...there 120hz @ 3D = 60 hz 2D
2) motion smoothing - you know that 'soap opera' smoothing you see in the electronics store applied to the movies you know an love? Well, that is an artificial digitally imposed smoothing that is a "feature" (I use the term very loosely) allowed by higher refresh rates...each company has a different term for it. That smoothing allowed 'new' frames to be guessed and imposed on the picture on what would normally be a 24fps film shown at 60hz refresh...now your eye is seeing anywhere from 30-60fps on that same film. Some people like it, I guess. I fracking hate it, and many film directors hate it even more because many of their special effects that use lower framerates to mask the effect now have the same scenes look artificial.

Ah...I may need to rethink my options here. I planned on dropping a lot of cash on a new TV. I my opt for a monitor instead. The card i have selected supports eyefinity, but I just don't like the image broken up like that.

TVs aren't very good at responding to rapid changes in visuals without ghosting, and generally the higher the resolution you're running, the slower the response. I've never had a good experience hooking my PC up to a TV for gaming for that reason. Monitors are much better for fast-paced gaming.

very very very true...if you are serious about the visual quality of your pc gaming, stick with a good quality 21-27" proper monitor (only go higher than 22" if your gpu can handle the upped resolution that will go with it). Leave the TVs to the POS consoles.

With my specs
(first post)
Can I handle going above the "22? I'm going to get the "23 ASUS listed above.

I want to go big. I just checked the monitors at newegg and a 40" has 8m. The TV I was looking has 5m. I seen some smaller 27" monitors with 2m, but I would want a lot bigger than that. Will there be that much difference in 2m and 5m?

Ya you should be good with that gpu and that monitor:)

Anything under 10ms BTB( Black to Black, not 'GTG' or Grey to Grey which is the manufacturer's newest way to cheat their stats). I'll warn though that you may not really like the 40". As you get into bigger and bigger displays but the resolution stays at the steady 1920x1080 you'll see those pixels stand out more the closer you are to it. For giggles I hooked up a 1080P 42" LCD I've got to my computer a while back and yah it was a neat novelty but sitting as close to it as you would some monitor half the size you'll get an overwhelmed feeling and the picture will look all stretched out because you're 'too close'. The other thing you'll find is that you want your eye level to be roughly above the half mark of the display and with a monitor/TV of that size it'll be difficult to achieve that while still keeping a reasonable height for your desk top itself. Now if you intend to say mount a display that big to a wall and have some sort of smaller desk in front of it you could probably get away with the ideal eye level vs the display, but again I bet you'll find yourself trying to get further back from it, defeating the whole purpose of the really big display The other factor in these sorts of displays is the dot-pitch, which is the distance between each pixel, the bigger the display often the larger the dot-pitch value which in turn relates back to how the pixels are visibly spaced out from one another when you're that close.

When I was exploring that sort of option back before getting my current monitor setup I'd concluded at least for me that about 30" is roughly as big as I'd want it without getting into much higher resolution.

I have one of these as well wish I had a few more great monitor great price.

They are really nice monitors. Fairly good price too considering that they have speakers.

Can't beat a good PC monitor. Big TV's are overrated and they lose fidelity the bigger they get.

Thanks for the info and help. You guys are the best. I guess I still have a decision to make in regards to my space and what i want to do with it.

Sorry, this really needs to be in the CDTT I will continue it there, thanks again.

Anything that is getting 5 eggs on newegg with over 50 reviews is probably a good purchase. I tend to stick with ASUS and Samsung but you can get a good monitor of just about any brand. In the 100-200 price range however you definately want to look at the reviews as some companies charge more for their name than the components and specs of the actual monitor.