I went to PC World today intending to buy a flat panel monitor for my PC. Virtually all of the flat panel monitors on display had response times of 5ms (the only exception being two sizes of one model of Packard Bell). Sales assistants were hard to come by (it was busy) but I did decide to ask one whether 5ms was acceptable for gaming and was told that 5ms was pretty poor and that I really need 2ms. A second assistant reckoned that 5ms was fine. The 5ms panels on display were happily showing fullscreen Disney films without any obvious problems

I decided to do a bit more research before parting with my cash and again the vast majority of panels on the internet also have 5ms response times. So, do I need a 3 or 2ms monitor to play games or will 5ms do? I assume that there’s plenty more to consider apart from response time such as quality, LED backlighting etc.

The 22″, 2MS, LED Packard Bell was £159 which is the top end of my budget so any suggestions for a decent monitor in that range would be appreciated (having the biggest display isn’t important).

my 19″ flatscreen is a few years old now and has a 9ms response time. I never feel its made any problems for me. If you look at a 20ms monitor you WILL see a big difference. Especially in fast paced FPS games.

If you were playing RTS’s and MMORPGs response time wont matter that much. If the majority are 5ms i would go with one of them.

google brought up

this

If you are playing “twitch” FPS games at LAN parties or competitively then the faster the better. For normal humans 5ms GreyToGrey is fine. The other thing to look at is Input Lag. This is just as important for fast paced games, but is mentioned far less.

I’ve apparently got a 4ms Neovo F419 and the ghosting can be a problem with Unreal Tournament which i still play regularly. In some maps its very noticable.
What gaming are you talking about?

/edit I say apparently as it seems pretty crap/slow for 4ms

I didn’t have a particular game or genre in mind, a bit of everything I suppose, I’d certainly like the ability to play high FPS shooters and also play video/DVD.

I get the feeling that it’s not just response time that matters though and there’s also a choice of LED backlighting over standard (which pushes the price up) and other technologies; image quality is obviously hugely important.

I’m finding it hard to pick a flat panel monitor from the miriad of choices so any recommendations up to about £150 would be great.

CHeck this 1 its on offer atm has hdmi input for games console or pc. Also has 2ms response time with a y yr direct to site warranty I have a very similar 1 and its been great

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-124-SA&groupid=17&catid=510&subcat=

I was just going to post the samsung then saw Tony had. I have the previous incarnation and recomend it highly. Overclockers are helpful and friendly too. I wouldn’t bother with a 5ms monitor when you can get a big name quality item like that. Well worth £10 over budget. Have fun with your gaming.

1 frame lag on that Samung which is pretty good.
Only downsides seem to be that it can’t display 1080p and has poor colour reproduction (pain for photo editing etc, but fine for games)

http://www.digitalversus.com/samsung-syncmaster-p2450h-p357_7269_36.html

5ms will be fine, I used to use an old Dell monitor with 18ms (inc. for online FPS competitive matches), can’t say I ever noticed ghosting etc.