Vega's *Heavyweight* display and computer; edition 2012

[Liam_G]

Hey Vega, few questions for you. you have probably answered this one before but i haven't read it.... What made you move away from the 3 Samsung S27A750's in portrait? That was a great mod you did to remove bezels and trim the frame down. Were they no longer structurally sound enough to continue using or was it some other reason?

I would also be interested in your opinion what it was like to watch movies on the PPP setup, were the bezels distracting when you were further back from screen watching video? Also i do a lot of CAD work, mostly Solidworks these days and was wandering if it is annoying with those sorts of programs?

I am interested because it seems like the only viable option for 120hz (not for 3d, just true 120hz with good resolution) with so much screen territory apart from your CRT setup, not really keen on the Freznels either, like you seem to have discovered....

Also I am not particularly fussed with backlight issues, screen viewing angles or colour gamut etc, what I do want is 120hz and large screen area with minimal bezels, which brings me to my last question. Do you think there is more width to be removed from the samsung bezels by trimming the screen itself (i'm not afraid to kill the monitor in trying), or do the electrics prevent any further reduction?? What I want is to trim the dead screen edge off the middle screen on both sides and off the insides of the outer monitors, and then to give it some structural integrity make a custom aluminium frame to sandwich it all together around the outer edge, and add in some sub 3mm vertical bezels in between the screens if necessary. I saw that curved screen by Ostendo (http://www.pcworld.com/article/18320...g_display.html) or whoever so it is possible if designed that way, it was basically 6 small screens in one frame, just hope i can retrofit the Samsungs to do the same thing or similar at least, more height, less width, 1/4 the price and 120hz :P

Any thought's would be welcome and I will happily learn from any lessons you learnt along the way.

[UrbanSmooth]

Oh, snap!

This thread just caught my attention again.

[Callsign_Vega]

Hey Vega, few questions for you. you have probably answered this one before but i haven't read it.... What made you move away from the 3 Samsung S27A750's in portrait? That was a great mod you did to remove bezels and trim the frame down. Were they no longer structurally sound enough to continue using or was it some other reason?

I would also be interested in your opinion what it was like to watch movies on the PPP setup, were the bezels distracting when you were further back from screen watching video? Also i do a lot of CAD work, mostly Solidworks these days and was wandering if it is annoying with those sorts of programs?

I am interested because it seems like the only viable option for 120hz (not for 3d, just true 120hz with good resolution) with so much screen territory apart from your CRT setup, not really keen on the Freznels either, like you seem to have discovered....

Also I am not particularly fussed with backlight issues, screen viewing angles or colour gamut etc, what I do want is 120hz and large screen area with minimal bezels, which brings me to my last question. Do you think there is more width to be removed from the samsung bezels by trimming the screen itself (i'm not afraid to kill the monitor in trying), or do the electrics prevent any further reduction?? What I want is to trim the dead screen edge off the middle screen on both sides and off the insides of the outer monitors, and then to give it some structural integrity make a custom aluminium frame to sandwich it all together around the outer edge, and add in some sub 3mm vertical bezels in between the screens if necessary. I saw that curved screen by Ostendo (http://www.pcworld.com/article/18320...g_display.html) or whoever so it is possible if designed that way, it was basically 6 small screens in one frame, just hope i can retrofit the Samsungs to do the same thing or similar at least, more height, less width, 1/4 the price and 120hz :P

Any thought's would be welcome and I will happily learn from any lessons you learnt along the way.

No, the 3x Samsung's worked excellent. I actually didn't realize just how nice and small those bezel's were once they were taken apart compared to other LCD's. I basically sold off that setup as I had 6990's running it which didn't play too well.

As for the bezel's, I think that is entirely subjective. Some people absolutely hate them and some like me they don't bother. I am currently testing the feasibility of using 5x 27" 1440P Catleap's over-clocked in the 90 Hz range with 2x 7990s. Testing 3x Catleap's with my GTX 680's at the moment.

I had the Samsung's down to 1/4" bezel and you wont be able to go any smaller. The edge of the LCD glass-substrate is the limiting factor. You touch that and your LCD is ruined. People don't realize that the "lit" pixel's don't go all the way to the edge of an LCD panel. There is a gap to seal off the panel around the image area. It is impossible not to have this. That Ostendo thing is a piece of junk.

[Liam_G]

Ok cool. It did look like a sweet setup!!

Yeah I've heard about those Catleap's but I didn't realize they were 2560x1440, I think I need new pants ... Are they running well on the GTX680's? That's what I will run mine on, maximum 3 monitors though. One of the Catleap forum threads says Nvidia cards will do 100hz, whats your experience? 90-100hz is plenty, especially at that resolution, that was my only qualm about the Samsung setup, low res for 27".

Any scope to remove the bezels on the Catleaps, have you had a look under the bezel?

And yeah I wasn't sure how far you had trimmed the Samsung's, I was hoping there might be a few more mm's to be shaved off. I guess I'd get used to the bezels, and if it annoys me in movies I can just grab an LED TV as well.

EDIT: Just realized the Catleaps are IPS panels, I'm in love!!

[Callsign_Vega]

Ok cool. It did look like a sweet setup!!

Yeah I've heard about those Catleap's but I didn't realize they were 2560x1440, I think I need new pants ... Are they running well on the GTX680's? That's what I will run mine on, maximum 3 monitors though. One of the Catleap forum threads says Nvidia cards will do 100hz, whats your experience? 90-100hz is plenty, especially at that resolution, that was my only qualm about the Samsung setup, low res for 27".

Any scope to remove the bezels on the Catleaps, have you had a look under the bezel?

And yeah I wasn't sure how far you had trimmed the Samsung's, I was hoping there might be a few more mm's to be shaved off. I guess I'd get used to the bezels, and if it annoys me in movies I can just grab an LED TV as well.

EDIT: Just realized the Catleaps are IPS panels, I'm in love!!

Ya, the Catleap's are awesome screens. Almost double the resolution of 1080P, 27" is a sweet size, IPS viewing quality, and going from 60 Hz to 90+ Hz is a huge difference. I will post some de-bezeled pics later.

[Callsign_Vega]

Some pic's:


The panel is about 1/2 inch in thickness. Here is a pic comparing the size of the Catleap vs FW900:





Metal LCD panel retention bracket top corner:




Bottom corner:





Retention bracket removed, lit pixel at 2" mark to side just over 1/2 inch:





Top lit pixel line to edge where panel ribbon cables connect wrap over to connect to PCB just over 1/2 inch:





The bottom LED bar nemesis that sticks out almost 1 full inch:





Bottom right corner as installed in housing:





Testing 3x 2B catleap's in portrait (notice how small my trackball, G13 and keyboard are):




Man I forgot how big 27-30" screens are in portrait! I may have to try and get two more just to see the OMG factor of five of these in portrait. Obviously the bezel gaps would be much smaller once I gave it the Vega treatment! The left side of each panel would overlap the large LED bar of the panel next to it, so each screen would have a slit angle to it. Not a huge deal with IPS viewing angles. Once properly done, the bezel gaps would be around .55 of an inch.

[Liam_G]

Hmm, doesn't look as ideal as the samsung, but as you say, give it the "Vega" and we could be good to go :P Did the samsung have the bigger bottom edge as well? I think having the left of each panel overlapped might annoy me, I'd have to try it out to know though.

Hazro might be worth checking out, the 27" and 30" monitors have nice thin bezels, they are ccfl though. there are also 2 led 27" monitors but the bezels look similar to the catleap.

[Callsign_Vega]

Hmm, doesn't look as ideal as the samsung, but as you say, give it the "Vega" and we could be good to go :P Did the samsung have the bigger bottom edge as well? I think having the left of each panel overlapped might annoy me, I'd have to try it out to know though.

Hazro might be worth checking out, the 27" and 30" monitors have nice thin bezels, they are ccfl though. there are also 2 led 27" monitors but the bezels look similar to the catleap.

The Samsung's had the LED's tucked up under the edge of the panel which made it much smaller. Granted the Catleap's are only 1/2 inch thick so the angle from side to size really isn't as bad as you think. Especially when you have five of them curving in front of you.

The best part about the Catleap's is that they are IPS so the viewing angles really aren't a problem like 5 TN panels in portrait. The resolution increase is also ridiculous lol. CCFL panel are a no-go, they are too thick. I think most people will be pleasantly surprised if I get my hands on another two 2B catleap's all given the treatment. Of course I'd need a 7990 and a f*load of adapters to get it working haha.

[Utnorris]

I have a Catleap and love it and for the price you cannot beat them. Did you get the special edition models that are overclockable, the 2b series?

[Callsign_Vega]

I have a Catleap and love it and for the price you cannot beat them. Did you get the special edition models that are overclockable, the 2b series?

Yes. But in SLI the drivers limit you to 102 Hz refresh rate because of the 400 MHz pixel clock limit.

[Utnorris]

Still, 102Hz is better than 60Hz or 65Hz which is the highest mine will go. Even at 65Hz it was a great bargain. I actually gave up mu three monitor setup for it and haven't looked back.

[Callsign_Vega]

Still, 102Hz is better than 60Hz or 65Hz which is the highest mine will go. Even at 65Hz it was a great bargain. I actually gave up mu three monitor setup for it and haven't looked back.

Ya, this screen is pretty sweet.



On another note:

This is one of my favorite motherboards ever. Doing some setup:

[Liam_G]

That is a nice board! I'm kind of hoping Asus brings back their "black edition" board for the RIVE, i hate having colours on the Mobo that don't match the theme of the case, and i don't like red/black :P I would like a black PCB and all black slots, can tolerate a bit of grey or whatever for dimm slots... My next build will be white case and purple dye in watercooling loop. so red would just throw that off, even though you can't really see it all the time. Black case green water would look nice with that gigabyte though, throw some green sleeving on your norprene tubing n that would look sick.

[Callsign_Vega]

Great news about the Accell 330MHz DP to DVI adapter: http://www.accellcables.com/products...dp330_dvid.htm

They must have used a nice chip in here as I can overclock this bad boy to ~425 MHz pixel clock, or about 108 Hz on the Catleap. It's good to know that I can make one of my monster Eyefinity setups now and be at pretty good refresh rate.

Now all I need is one more 2B Catleap monitor, three more of these adapters and 2x 7990's and my 18.4 million pixel de-bezeled 5x1 portrait Eyefinity build of ownage can commence.

[Callsign_Vega]

"It was one of the scariest moments of my life, but it had to be done. It takes some guts to take apart a 19" LCD screen that cost $120."

LOL, a read for a good laugh: http://blog.fieryferret.com/labels/display.html

[Callsign_Vega]

Did some more extensive testing. With the monitor running at 60 Hz, the center of the ribbon cable operates between 130 to 175 F. So it looks like they are designed to get pretty warm. This is with a 71 F ambient temp. With the monitor overclocked to 120 Hz, the ribbon cables operate at 150 to 245 F. So a nice increase there.

Temp readings are in the center of the cable where the electric traces converge to the middle where the red arrow is:




Is anyone an electrical engineer or know of one to see if this is detrimental or not? Who knows, maybe this special type of ribbon cable is perfectly fine at these temperatures. Just don't accidentally touch one like I did while adjusting my de-bezeled monitor as they burn!

As for the rest of the electronics, everything seems A-OK. The display controller chip, 220V chokes, capacitors, LED bar, everything else stays 110 F or lower at 60 Hz. Testing the same components at 120 Hz everything stays below 120 F (in my open air setup). That isn't much of a rise so no worries there. It's those cables that show an appreciable rise in temp. Since I haven't heard of any failing and the temp's level off and I see no damage to the ribbon cable, I am sure it will be fine. Just caught me off guard that a cable could get that hot!


Some more pics:

This is one bad mojo stand (I love it).











Time to set up the de-bezel assembly line for the rest.

[Levesque]

Vega. Why the strange move from the great 3X ZR30W you had before to the cheap Korean displays? Short on cash?

Or else, I don't see any other valid reason to go from some of the greatest 30'' on the market to some really cheapo-random-luck-for-a-good one Catleap...

Just curious.

[metachronos]

Because he got the catleaps you can overclock, read the thread dude.

[Callsign_Vega]

Because he got the catleaps you can overclock, read the thread dude.

lol

[Liam_G]

"It was one of the scariest moments of my life, but it had to be done. It takes some guts to take apart a 19" LCD screen that cost $120."

LOL, a read for a good laugh: http://blog.fieryferret.com/labels/display.html

ha, just saw this and had a quick scan through, would be funny to see the look on his face if he knew what you were up to. i like that bit about separating the lcd panel from the backlight though, makes me think that with the right monitor, or maybe through a company like hasro that does custom stuff, i could make or commission a 3 x 2560x1440 in PPP 100hz monitor with about 2mm dead space/bezel in between panels for the ribbon cables to attach, i guess the real width would be the number of pixels that aren't activated at the edge, the backlight could be fulled back and joined behind the panels so there is no dark spots. could be fun to play with.

[UrbanSmooth]

Keep us posted.

[Callsign_Vega]

Just a quick update, three 2B Catleap's de-bezeled portrait at 102 Hz:





Loving the gloss IPS viewing angles and colors in portrait! Time to test these bad boys out in some games.

[Liam_G]

oooooooh, pure sex, lol. looks good man!!!

EDIT: plus a quick question, can't remember if i asked this before but can you rotate the far right screen 180* and overlap the smaller edge of right screen over the middle screens bezel. that little angle difference you get by always overlapping the right edge just drives me nuts, i know its such a nit picky thing but that stuff gets to me. if you can't surely it would only take a small driver change by AMD or Nividia to achieve this, as you can already rotate displays any way you want for portrait right, so should be able to have them in opposite rotation and just change the specific monitors settings. not sure how that works in eyefinity or surround though.

[LeoAndrade]

Nice monitors! Any update on the amazing cooling system you planning to install?

[MadHacker]

water cool it and then overclock them more