Has anyone heard anything distinctly bad about this monitor: 19" Iiyama VM Pro 455 (MM904UTA), Diamondtron, 15pin D-sub, 0.25dp, 1600 x 1200 ?
If so could you speak up as I am looking for a new monitor to replace my aging old one that is starting to play up.
I can get this one for £160 roughly but is it worth it? or do you think I could get a better one for the same price range?
Sterling.
I had the previous model before I went TFT (19" Sharp LL191AB), Iiyama are top monitors IMO and even better after sales service.
Also worth considering is Hyundai ImageQuest Q995 19’’ for around £140
I assume you don’t want to go TFT ?
Aria are doing a 16ms 17" TFT (virtually same visible screen size as 19" CRT)for £133 a 14ms for £156 and a 12ms for £169, I picked up the 16ms for the wifes PC, and its cracking value, great monitor for the cash.
Thanks for the reply Majik.
I haven’t really thought about going to TFT.
Howcome the viewable size is so small with 19"?
I might aswell get a 17".
Sterling.
Its to do with the fact a 19" CRT actually has a viewing area of around 18" (17" CRT of 16" viewable etc) but a 17" TFT actually has 17" viewable … when you take into account the measurement is taken diagonly form corner to corner, the difference between a 17" TFT and a 19" CRT is hardly noticable.
There are drawbacks to TFT’s … possibility of an odd dead pixel (most manufactures only give returns if there are 3 or more dead pixels, varies a bit but thats the general rule of thumb) but thats not as common as it used to be.
The main drawback is max res is (on most 17" TFT) 1280x1024, and resolutions under that don’t look as good as the TFT has to “scale” the image, that issue is also highlighted by the fact, in their nativeresolution, the images for TFT’s are noticably sharper than a CRT can display.
Although in game wouldn’t be as noticable as it would surfing or doing office work on the desktop, its still a cosideration, if you have hardware capable of running your games in that res, its not an issue, but its something to be aware of, and some TFT’s scale better than others.
If you go TFT … look for something, at most 20ms response, preferably 16 or less, although there are different ways the manufacturers measure it, so a bit of research, preferably user opinions of the models you are considering, always pays off.
Thanks again Majik for the information.
In the end I decided not to buy the monitor and instead go for a new CPU & mobo because a) I have the cash and b) because I think it is the CPU that is bottlenecking my current system.
So anyway in the end I have gone for the AMD64 3500+ Winchester 939SKT and the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum mobo. I read a little in to the specs of the mobo and it provides me with enough upgrade-ability when I need it later via CPUs. It uses AGP, so I can transfer my current card to the new mobo and rank up the settings now I have a CPU that can handle it, hopefully. 
Also though I hope with most of the new motherboards now being exclusively PCI-express I can pickup a cheap ATI X850 for cheaper than PCI-express counter-parts - we’ll see about that one though, maybe it doesn’t work out as in theory.
Sterling.
well … not sure about the agp theory … but that mobo and cpu are a great set-up … its what I have 
just remember to go into bios, disable fastwrites, set agp to 4x/8x not auto, set cpu voltage to 1.525 as the neo2 undervolts a bit, and hope the memory you have likes A64’s
Nice Sterling,
Ditto what Majik said. Same specs here and no problems so far - touch wood. I’ve not adjusted the CPU voltage and all appears well.
Disabling AGP Fastwrites is what fixed the stuttering for me with HL2.
WB.