Importance of having DisplayPort?

[Grimezy]

I was just wondering how crucial it is to buy a monitor with a DisplayPort? My monitor choices have been narrowed down to the Benq XL2420T 120hz, Benq XL2411T 144hz or the Dell Ultrasharp U2312hm IPS 60hz.

The winner seems to be the XL2411T as it is an updated model of the 2420 and has fixed some of the overshooting problems they were having and also slightly tips it with 144hz rather than 120hz. It's also about £50 cheaper than the 2420 which seems like a no brainer. My main issue I'm having is the range of connections. I believe the XL2411 has 1 x Dual-DVI, 1 x HDMI and 1 x VGA. The XL2420 has 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x Dual-DVI and 2 x HDMI. The Dell has 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x DVI and 1 x VGA I believe.

I see no sign of me going for a triple monitor setup in the near future although I may consider dual screening (possible with one of the benq's with the dell IPS next to it). Is the Displayport critical enough to pay the extra for? I know that I'll only use the Dual-DVI for now but Displayport is surely only to get more popular? And I don't want to sell myself short in a few years time if I choose to upgrade my graphics card or something and they're more focused on Displayports than DVI. If I'm spending over £200 on a monitor it would seem silly to buy one without the latest connections wouldn't it?

Also a bit of topic but regarding 120hz displays. I run a single 670 which would be fine for things like BF3 online because I turn my settings down. And on older games I get consistently over 120fps. But am I going to find myself turning settings down on demanding games just to make the most of my monitor's capabilities? I don't really want to SLI yet so that's not really an option. I also don't want a rubbish image for the sake of some extra smoothness if I'm not really going to utilise it all of the time. Would I be better going for the Dell and being capped at 60hz with superior colours and not worrying about having to run at 120fps all the time? Or would the 120hz be beneficial regardless of if I'm only getting 60fps on something?

 

[steaky360]

I'm sure you can get display port to DL-DVI connections so I dont think a lack of display port on the monitor will pose an issue. If your concern would be around if you upgrade in the future you might not get DVI compatibility with the graphics cards, I can't see nvidia (at least) moving away from display ports entirely anytime soon.

Also regarding the frames, do you notice the difference between 60FPS and 120FPS? I'm not sure I can tell when any game I'm playing dips below 120Hz (which I guess is often as I play with vsync on). I wouldn't however consider turning down the graphics if I was getting steady 60FPS but was not getting 120FPS (mostly because I cant tell the difference and I'd rather see a better image than a perhaps unnoticeable increase in framerate) - That's just me though, you might be able to tell the difference! Saying that though, I would say getting the 120Hz would be better for the games which you can get better framerates on.

Damn I've just realized I've kind of not helped at all... Bah, anyway maybe you can make some sense out of my jibber-jabber.

 

[Grimezy]

Yea I didn't think they'd move away from DVI that soon but obviously DisplayPort is becoming more and more common.

And i'm not too sure, I've never tried 120hz.. My 7 year old samsung at the moment is 75hz so the difference between that and 60hz is very slim. From what I've heard 120hz will make the world of difference but I haven't been that convinced. I've never been killed online and thought "ahh, he definitely had a better monitor than me".. but I assume it is generally about the smoothness that it produces rather than the advantage it gives you.

I may just go with the XL2411T without the displayport and man up a little bit. I'm sure it'll be much better than what I'm using at the moment regardless of what fps I'm getting. Plus the games that I'd see an advantage from using 120hz would like I said, be online games or old games where I know my graphics card can run that high anyway. At least for now...

I'm starting to hate all this research. At the end of the day I'd probably be happy with whatever I picked. It's just a lot of money to splash out x) My current basket total for Monitor, keyboard and mouse is £382.00... Gah.