As for the PC, that is a hardcore gaming PC and it uses some very nice parts and despite any assertions otherwise is an extremely nice computer that I bet the vast majority of people on this site would be glad to have.
I agree the vast majority of people on this site would be glad to have it; its fast and its new, the cpu/ram/video card is an upgrade for almost anybody; the 8800GT is only a few months old after all. And yes it uses -some- very nice parts. Its just too bad its doesn't keep the standards up throughout.
"Driving" a system like that with a cheapo generic mouse and keyboard is like driving a Porsche with a Honda steering wheel, and cheap vinyl seat.
As to your points: I could say somethign all but I wanted to keep this breif-ish.
Re the lite-on drives. If you compare them side by side to the (slightly) more expensive drives, I've found that the more expensive ones spin up/down quieter, and never sound like a jet engine. The lite-ons seem to be more hit and miss. Some are quiet, some aren't, some are loud on some discs but not others. I don't know why. And its been about a year since I last purchased a lite-on so perhaps they've corrected the issues. (?)
As to your point about a lot of people having an available xp license. Most people who buy a new *computer* keep the old one running (either they keep it around, give it to their parents/kids, or sell it, or whatever), so no, they can't legally install windows on the new one too. If they buy parts to upgrade sure, but not if they are buying a complete PC. It does happen that someone will gut upgrade a PC and replace the mobo/cpu/video card/ram and keep everything else... but its not exactly the usual case. Because a gut upgrade like that is most of the cost of a completely new unit.
As to your points about the monitor specs. What can I say? The ms speed rating is utter bullshit. "X ms GTG (grey to grey)" is the most bullshit statistic ever invented.
1) Is 2ms GTG the best case? Worst case? Average case? There are a lot of different greys, and LCDs take different amounts of time to move between different levels. A screen that has a 2ms GTG best case but a 30ms GTG worst case is an utterly worthless pieces of crap.
2) Is 2ms GTG accomplished using an 'overdrive' method. And if so, how bad are the sparkle artifacts (because it WILL have them)?
To improve monitor speeds between 'bad case' GTG transitions monitor companies found that one way they could improve the time without using more expensive panels was by OVERSHOOTING the target value, and then bringing it back down. Not every GTG transition takes the same amount of time, and it generally takes longer to make close transitions than far ones. (ie its faster to go from black to white than it is to go from dark grey to darker grey.
So what do they do? If they need to move a pixel from darker grey to dark grey they overshoot to light grey, and then bring it back down to dark grey.
e.g. say its 11 ms to go from darker to dark. But only 2ms to go from darker to light, and 3 more from light to darker. Clever huh? We've got it down from 11ms to 5ms transition. Only trouble is, for a couple ms it was light! So if your watching a screen transition from darker grey to dark grey you'll be able to see it 'sparkle' as it overdrives the pixels to light grey. End result is your picture quality is actually lower. Monitor overdrive is about as big a NON-feature as Nvidia TurboCache or ATI hypermemory.
3) 2ms is a pointless number to have anyway. What frequency do you run your LCD at? 60Hz? 80Hz? 100Hz? Most people are running at *UNDER* 80Hz. (60 and 70 are most common, IME) So assuming you run 80Hz this means you have a maximum framerate of 80. Even if your video card is delivering 160fps, you'll still only see 80, because your monitor only refreshed 80 times.
With that in mind, how fast does it need to be? 1/80th of a second or 12.5ms. So what difference does it make if you have a 2ms pixel transition or a 5ms pixel transition?Its VERY important that you're screen be better than 12.5ms, because otherwise it can't keep up. And a few years ago when we had 12ms screens and 8ms screens this was an issue, because 12 and 8 were 'best cases' and the worst case was up around 30ms and even the average case was up around 15 or 16. But if your monitor has a best case of 5ms and worst case of 10ms your fine. A best case of 2m and worse case of 15ms is actually the inferior monitor. And a best case of 2ms and a worst case 7ms, while 'numerically better' than on that is 5ms/10ms, it just doesn't make any difference at that point. As long as its faster than the refresh your fine. And both 2ms and 5ms are faster than your eye can discern.
And if the 2ms screen is getting its speed from overdrive, while the 5ms screen is getting its speed from more expensive panel elements, the 5ms screen will look better, because you'll be able to see the sparkle.
And contrast ratio? Another worthless stat. The only way to intelligently compare contrast ratios is if you standardize on a black point. A cheap monitor with a high contrast ratio might just be exceedingly bright, but unable to acheive a good black point.
Another important factor for monitors is how even the brightness is across the panel. Cheaper monitors tend to have bright and dim spots... or be dimmer around the edges... etc. Cheaper monitors are also often unable to properly display calibrated color properly. Does a 'hardcore gamer' care if the red he's seeing isn't quite the right hue, or the brightness isn't perfectly even? I care. Its less important than framerate and cpu/gpu specs... but I spend a LOT of time looking at my screens. I like them to be -good-.
All that said, I'm not saying your monitor is terrible, just that I suspect that based on its size and price, that its probably not as good as you seem to think. You might not notice or care about its deficiencies and like it just fine, and that's great... but again its a Honda part attached to a Porsche engine.
