to DVI or not to DVI

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Edmister
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J

John Edmister

Hi everyone, I have a stupid question:
I bought my wife a Samsung Syncmaster 730B 17" LCD monitor for Christmas,
and it has both analog <currently used> and DVI ports.
I went to the local Staples to get a DVI cable, and wow was I shocked.....
$50 and up for a bloody cable. I love my wife dearly, but, she plays no
games, and I'm not sure if it would be worth it to spend that kinda cash on
a cable, especially if she does no gaming, or video editing.

John
 
The consumer stores sell cables for ten times what you can get them for
online. You can get a 6 to 10 foot DVI cable for about $10, give or
take. Try www.compgeeks.com, or dozens of other online stores. (FWIW,
I've seen USB cables for $30 at Best Buy, so this applies to all kinds
of cables).

DVI is significantly better than analog. But you don't need to "spend
that kind of cash".
 
John said:
Hi everyone, I have a stupid question:
I bought my wife a Samsung Syncmaster 730B 17" LCD monitor for Christmas,
and it has both analog <currently used> and DVI ports.
I went to the local Staples to get a DVI cable, and wow was I shocked.....
$50 and up for a bloody cable. I love my wife dearly, but, she plays no
games, and I'm not sure if it would be worth it to spend that kinda cash
on a cable, especially if she does no gaming, or video editing.
Click to expand...

Might, depending.

The online price for DVI cables is under 15 bucks.

Never buy a cable from a big box store unless you absolutely positively
gotta have it _now_ or you need to look at it before you're sure it's the
right one. Markups on cables are ludicrous. Best "big box" prices I've
seen on cables are at Home Depot but they're still high. You can try Best
Buy--they may have a "geek squad" cable that's reasonably priced--they
don't show them on the Web site though.
 
John Edmister said:
Hi everyone, I have a stupid question:
I bought my wife a Samsung Syncmaster 730B 17" LCD monitor for Christmas,
and it has both analog <currently used> and DVI ports.
I went to the local Staples to get a DVI cable, and wow was I shocked.....
$50 and up for a bloody cable. I love my wife dearly, but, she plays no
games, and I'm not sure if it would be worth it to spend that kinda cash
on a cable, especially if she does no gaming, or video editing.

John
Click to expand...
John

I have the 930B and had the same experience as you when I went cable
shopping. I went to New Egg.com and bought a cable for 16.95 last April. The
difference was not earthshaking but the screen does somehow appear a bit
cleaner. That's the only way I can describe it. The cable, in my opinion,
was worth the money. The picture from TV card is much improved also.

PWY
 
See the other posts about getting cables online. Remarkably, even
"superstores" like Staples can charge double the price for small items like
cables compared to an online retailer.

And if you thought DVI cables are expensive, take a peek at HDMI...
 
If one experiences ghosting using analog, then dvi is well worth it.
By necessity, I had been using various 15' analog cables all of which
experienced ghosting until I finally got a dvi-capable panel (Dell
2405) and wow all ghosting totally is gone via dvi.
 
See my series of posts on 12/26 at 11:05 Re: 9600 XT fuzzy image on LCD.

Most people with analog monitors have no idea just how bad their image
is, compared to what it could be with DVI, or even with a really good
analog cable and proper dot-clock adjustment.
 
My Viewsonic VX924 came with both VGA and DVI cables. Difference between the
two is VERY notable. Now using DVI cable.
 
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