A New 30" Contender: HP ZR30w Review
by Brian Klug on June 1, 2010 6:30 PM EST
Display Lag and Response Time
For gamers, display lag is a very real concern, and display processing is a nebulously reported (if at all) specification for just about all LCD displays. We’ve been over this before, but ultimately, what matters isn’t GTG, full on, full off pixel response times, or what’s reported on the spec sheet, but the holistic latency of the monitor compared to something we can all agree is lag-free. We previously used a baseline LCD and compared with it as our benchmark of no display lag. Previously we were using a 17” Princeton CRT - some of you were a bit underwhelmed by that monitor.
I spent some time visiting (I kid you not) almost every thrift store in town, and found myself a veritable cornucopia of uh... lovingly cared for CRTs to choose from. I settled on a much more modern looking Sony G520 20” CRT supporting a higher resolution and refresh rate. It’s still not what I’m ultimately looking for, but it’s better. Oh, and it cost a whopping $9. ;)
As I mentioned earlier, the only downside is that this means our old data is no longer a valid reference.
To compute the processing lag, I do two things. First, I watch for differences in the clock between the CRT and LCD, noting these whenever they are visible. I did this for 10 captures of the same sequence. Second, one can compute the processing difference by taking into account the FPS and the frame number difference.
We’re still evolving what we think the best way to measure processing lag is, and even using a CRT isn’t foolproof. In this case, I set the LCD and CRT refresh rates to 60 Hz so both in theory grab the same frame from the GPU’s framebuffer. In practice, it’s likely that they just aren’t, explaining the difference. As we process more LCDs, we’ll be able to tell, but the processing lag we’ve measured from all three monitors this far is totally acceptable.
I played a number of FPS titles and RTS games on the display, and never noticed any display processing lag or ghosting to speak of. If you’re going to use a 30” panel for gaming, the ZR30w seems to be just as good as any.
In the ghosting images I snapped, I usually only saw two frames. The dominant frame, and the preceding frame. This is very surprising, since we’re used to seeing three. But all throughout the images I snapped, only two frames are visible. This is very impressive panel response.
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B3an - Friday, June 4, 2010 - link
Anyone?Brian Klug - Wednesday, June 9, 2010 - link
It depends on what you mean by colors. For real world color gamut, just compare the gamut to the 3008. I don't think we've tested that one yet.Otherwise, this is a 10 bit per channel monitor, so if you have an aware application you can drive more colors.
fenry - Friday, June 4, 2010 - link
The HP LP3065 had lower power specs! These are the numbers from HP:LP3065 ZR30w
176 185 Max Pwr (Watts)
118 139 Typical Power (Watts)
Maybe they mean it's more efficient when it's OFF (<2 Watts).
How do they get away with this being part of their advertising???
I've been paying careful attention to power draw of large monitors from some time, so I am extremely disappointed at HP for this misleading advertising. Check it out for yourself!
xismo - Friday, June 4, 2010 - link
I'm looking forward to the updated review. And honestly the workstation video cards are not that expensive. It's not like you need to get the Quadro FX 5800 to test 10-bit support in photoshop or maya. Like I mentioned earlier almost all of the workstation video cards have native 10-bit support so getting a Quadro FX1800 will actually cost you less or the same as 5870. Also ATI Firepro are generally cheaper and are just as good. NVIDIA hasn't updated their workstation cards for a while, while ATI released one just recently. But obviously if you'd like to get $3000+ high end card like the 5800 I can't stop you :)ProDigit - Saturday, June 5, 2010 - link
I don't care if it's a big screen, I just don't find a lot of justifying a screen that consumes about as much as my common desktop (The EeeBox for instance consumes roughly 20-25W, this screen 150-180W).Personally they would have done better with a LED backlit screen!
The price is also too much!
The last monitor you reviewed was a $300 26" screen, this one is only 4" larger diagonally, and boosts the 1080p resolution to 1600p, but still no reason to be almost $1k more!
Sorry to say, but this monitor is not a good buy; and unless you're busy professionally, you're better off buying 4x $300 26" monitors instead!
jiulemoigt - Sunday, June 6, 2010 - link
Considering even though they are only 10-12 bit displays I would have expected that any monitor claiming to have good color accuracy would be compared to the LCD3090W-BK-SV or LCD3090WQXi-BK.doclucas - Monday, June 7, 2010 - link
HP claim that there is no IC available for 30" is plain bullshit! There are many 30" that come with excellent OSD, such as my Dell 3008WFP (I also own HP LP3065 which I don't like compared to the Dell). Dell still make the best quality (affordable/mainstream) monitors, period.Gilbo - Tuesday, June 8, 2010 - link
Those monitors can implement OSD because they also have scalers.Scalers for 30" monitors have high input lag unfortunately, which makes them less desirable for some people.
CannibalisticH0b0 - Monday, June 14, 2010 - link
My main problem with this review is the inconsistent competitors used for comparison in the tests. The main thing I wanted to compare with other 30" monitors was input lag... yet no 30" monitors were compared with the new HP on that page. I agree that the figure looks low, but it would be nice to have that same exact test done (and shown) with the Dell 3007WFP, for example, which I believe is/was still the king of 30" monitors for gaming.mcklevin - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link
I would like to see how this fares against the apple cinema display. I recently purchased and returned the LG 3000H-BN because of a signal defect. However when it did work, I did notice that the anti-glare screen coat was highly distracting at the corners and off angle on a dark screen, especially in a dark room. Is it the same way with this display? In a lit room is a black screen noticeably gray?