Test System and Setup Don't bother if you don't have a good graphics card driving this display

• Leadtek Winfast GeForce3 TD (with DVI connection)

• Intel Pentium 4 1.5GHz. Processor

• Abit TH7-RAID Pentium 4 Motherboard

• 256MB of Samsung PC800 RAMBUS DRDRAM,

• IBM DTLA307030 30Gig ATA100 7200 RPM Hard Drive

• Sound Blaster Live Sound Card,

• Kenwood True-X 72X CD

• Windows 2000 Professional

• Direct X 8.0 and nVidia reference drivers version 12.41

The MultiLink Adapter:

The SGI 1600SW requires a "break out box" of sorts so that it can interface to the standard display interfaces in place today, those being VGA and DVI.  Here is a brief overview of the "Multi-Link Adapter".

This unit is pretty straight forward.  The display connects to it via the DFP connector.  Then there are VGA and DVI input connectors that you connect to your PC.  All the cables required for virtually any type of connection, are included.  There is also a plug for the AC adapter power unit.

The MultiLink unit itself is fairly compact, even with all of the physical connections it incorporates.  However, it does take up some room on your desktop and in reality, the function it performs is integrated into most current generation flat panels on the market. 

Controls and DVI Vrs. Analog:
 

The on screen controls for the 1600SW, are fairly sophisticated and provide a good deal of configurability.  In DVI mode, the method in which we tested the display, the controls are a little more simplistic because the DVI connection sets many of the scaling and positioning parameters, for you.  However, you can still adjust backlight intensity, color temperature and a few other options. 

In VGA or analog mode, you also get the ability to tweak the display for phase, pixel clock and a myriad of image adjustments.  We were actually able to dial in a very nice image in analog mode.  However, there really just isn't a setting more crisp and clean, than in DVI mode. Also, of note is the fact that it took a fair amount of adjustment to get things right in analog mode.  DVI also makes life easier in that regard.  It is much more "plug and play", if there ever was such a thing.

Good Graphics Required:
Virtually all Flat Panel LCDs need to have reasonably good graphics cards driving them, in order to get any kind of decent image quality.  The NVIDIA based GeForce3 card we used for testing, is about the best you can do for this display.  Other cards like Matrox G400s, G450s and the ATI Radeon, should also produce good results. 

The best setting to use with this monitor and a GeForce3/2 card, would be to utilize monitor scaling, as we have shown here in the picture above.  Using the display adapter scaling setting, caused issues in clarity and font scaling.  However, when left to handle its own output, the 1600SW works quite well and the images are sharp and scale resolutions nicely.  More on this shortly.

Let's run this slick looking LCD through its paces.