LED Screens? Dual Monitors? Can anyone recommend a great Desktop Computer Setup?

You can pick up a nice quad core HP at Best Buy, I have a Mac but my pc's have been HP only. I just don't care for the hp bloatware (though that goes for other makes), better to do a clean win7 install. The new Samsung LED screens for computers are flat out amazing.

I just recently upgraded...and found it totally worth it.

Right now, I'm rolling on an Intel quad core i5 processor (would not recommend going any higher as an i7 is total overkill), 4gb of ram, 1tb of hard drive space with a blue ray drive and a Radeon 5450. Moving from an AMD dual core laptop.....the speed increase was jaw dropping.

For my OS, I'm using Windows 7. This will come with any new system, and trust me you will totally appreciate that. Basically, it's Windows Vista with three extra years of spit shine...and it shows.

For my screen, I'm using a 32' LCD HDTV from Sony, which costs around $400 these days. Won't give you the immersive experience of multimonitors for gaming...but the obscenely high screen res available should give you plenty of real estate to run multiple tasks should you find that necessary (or you can do like I do and use the built in magnifier tool in Windows 7 which is yet another reason to use it).

Total cost, including a remote keyboard and mouse and wireless card....is right around $1,300. Mine was built myself, so if you buy a pre built system, expect to pay about $300 more for a total of $1600.

All an LED TV is, is an LCD TV with an LED backlighting system instead of a CCFL backlighting system. When I bought my last unit, LED backlighting was still very expensive, though now you can find them for not much more than the older ccfl backlighting systems. The advantages are obvious: Longer life (something to really think about when you are plunking down $400 to $500 for an HDTV), better picture, and less power comsumption (total power consumption averages about 75 watts vs 135 on mine ). Definitely something to look into.

On whether you should use single or dual monitors: Unless you are playing a flight sim or fps shooter and want the truly immersive experience multiple monitors provides, I really don't see much advantage in multiple screens vs just one large screen like I have. And doing that, you will need 3 screens (left side, right side, center) at a minimum, and that will cost you more than the massive single screen I currently own.

'Not really worth it unless you are a hard core gamer with the bucks to spend doing that. Beyond that, how many tasks can you really do at one time anyhow?

Well, that is my take on it all. Hope it helps.

its probably not the best way to do to it according to PC connoisseurs but i got the cheapest highest spec base unit i could find and then upgraded the graphics card and added an additional hard drive.

i got a HP Elite 5650f i7 920mhz w/6gb and GF9800GT graphics card for around $550 - it was discounted as win7 had just come out and this was a display model pre-installed with Vista but i got a free upgrade from HP to win7 so it never saw vista whilst i had it in my possession!

it allowed me to run two screens out the box i bought to 20" LGs W2061TQ - if doing it again i would have bought 22" or higher... however they have been awesome and still are i just find the resolution in height a tad too small - the colors, brightness, and contrast are amazing certainly in comparison to any other screens ive had or put next to them - ie Acer, HP, Dell you can pick em up for sub $150 now!

The system has been great i recently upgraded graphics card to ATI HD57xx for about $130 and win7 pro am now doing a tri-screen setup - (touch wood) system is solid as a rock and am on this particular machine typically 10 to 18hrs a day - 7 days a week!

I do stuff from photoshop, video editing, to playing BFBC2 and it handles it in its stride - even though slightly older line of HP if you get one of these used or refurbished i would still recommend it!

Good luck!

Just FYI only game i play is Battlefield and i use it one screen - i use tri-screen as i run my day to day business so to get an idea - typically i have a browser open in my left screen for surfing and testing things, my main apps ie photoshop, dreamweaver running center screen plus usually another browser session - dev tools and sykpe, im, outlook, onenote, ftp, emulators, etc running in my right screen! lol

ask me if i would go back to a single screen or even dual - never! lol

I appreciate the use of a big screen a developer friend of mine has a 40+" set up i guess you get used to it and comfortable with the way things are setup, he said he would never change it but when i went on it i was lost

I also went from a 5 year old compaq that i built the same way back in the day to this so i7 maybe overkill but am hoping it will last me another 5years one thing i hate is changing computers!

HI Cool Hand -

Dual screen systems are definitely awesome, and a great way to boost productivity too.

You could get a pretty decent system for about $1200, including two 21 inch monitors.

The key is to get a system with a video card that supports dual screens.

If you wanted to order from Dell - any easy way to get this would be:

1. Select the default Dell XPS 8300 system (showing for $949 right now).
2. Click customize.
3. On the video card options, select "ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB GDDR5", (HD 5780 is fine as well)
4. Add to cart.
5. Select a matching monitor (ST2220L - $199) and add to cart

Total comes to $1,279.98 plus shipping.

The monitors all come with the cables you need - so you don't need to buy anything additional. When you get the shipment from Dell, just plug the two monitors into the two DVI ports on the graphics card.

Windows 7 automatically detects the two displays. Then - in the Windows 7 control panel, there's an option to tweak your display settings for the arrangement you set. Most likely, you'll just have them side by side, like in your buddies picture there.

gjHi Cool Hand Luke,
In my opinion you can go for ViewSonic led screen. It works very well. I am working on it seven hours daily in my office but can't feel any stress on my eyes and as far as PC's is concerned, I'll suggest you to buy INTEL Core i3 or i5 processors. These are good and fast. I don't have any idea about Intel i7.

On a 30" screen you can have two A4 documents at full size so that will definitely be an upgrade from your laptop. I'll suggest you to not buy a HDTV or a LED screen. The TV has bigger pixels as they are meant to be 6-10 feet in front of you, while computer screens have much smaller pixels so better image.
Also, it would be good to avoid LED screens as most of them are just 'edge light', that will make the colors different on different parts of the screen. you can read a few details here.
Better go for a CCFL illuminated screen but make sure it has an IPS or A-MVA display. Do not buy a TN one, as it has bad angles.

So look for IPS or A-MVA display on a CCFL LCD screen if you want something bigger than 24". DELL has a few great ones, like the 30" screen, or the Apple 27" screen which I think is the best out-there, but that one is around $1,000.

get an LED LCD and surely buy a graphics card for special features during animations and gameplay.

I'll never go back to using multiple monitors unless I have a good enough reason to. It just resulted in eye and neck strain for me. I'd rather just use a single monitor of adequate resolution and virtual desktops.

sorry for the late response luke - i love my HP Elite, its completely silent and its been as solid as a rock!