Monitors: Dual VGA or a single DVI?

[coolbeans11]

I have a 19 VGA monitor already, and adding another to have dual monitors doesn't sound bad. But then again, it still is VGA quality. I could pay more and have a 20.1 DVI setup instead... Is DVI's quality really worth giving up the screen real estate?

 

[The General]

VGA and DVI look exactly the same.

 

[coolbeans11]

You're kidding me.
There has to be some difference in color accuracy, brightness, etc?

 

[Preacher]

Hey i just got a Samsung 960BF and i connected it Vga and then my dad told me to connect to DVI so i did didnt c a diffrence

 

[Nitestick]

this issue comes up frequently. the blunt answer is unless you are an imaging genius you will see no difference. essentially they provide an identical signal however one is analogue and the other is digital. that basically means a DVI-I cable can be extended further without the problem of signal loss

 

[b1gapl]

Talking about extension....will a 15ft DVI cable between the monitor and case, decrease anything performance or signal wise?

 

[Trifid]

Talking about extension....will a 15ft DVI cable between the monitor and case, decrease anything performance or signal wise?

For comparison sake, what will that length on extension do when using VGA?

 

[Nitestick]

not really sure, at least not right now as i can barely see the screen . my understanding is that anything over say 3m will start to result in signal loss on an analogue monitor cable although it shouldn't be particularly noticeable. i know that my primary school had a projector permanently linked to a PC via about 6-8m of VGA cable and while the signal didn't seem quite perfect i was probably the only person who could tell.

Talking about extension....will a 15ft DVI cable between the monitor and case, decrease anything performance or signal wise?

should be no signal loss as long as the signal can overcome resistive power losses. in other words theoretically you could send a DVI signal around the world if you liked but you would require repeaters to reproduce the output intermittently along the line otherwise the power lost would result in the signal not making it.

 

[The General]

I switch between VGA and DVI (4-5 foot cables ) and the only difference I see is on VGA, sometimes you need to adjust the pixel clock cause if you don't the text can be greyish and blurry, but 95% of the time the "auto-adjust" feature gets it right.