I'm looking for a new flatscreen monitor. What's a good resonse time for gaming? I know lower is better, but what's the minimum? Will 5 play TF2 without blurring?

I have a 19" wide 5ms response monitor and it is decent for gaming. I don't really notice any ghosting but some games I have to turn on vsync so that there isn't tearing.

Also response times are not always measured the same way as their is currently no standard. Some companies measure from black to a color and others measure from black to color and then back to black. So an 8ms monitor could actually be faster than a 5 ms monitor. If I were you I would read lots of reviews and newegg comments on the monitor I wanted to buy and see what people are actually using it for and what they are getting out of it.

I've rarely, heard of a monitor that does better than it's advertised response time. As a rule of thumb, I would probably add around 10-15ms on to the advertised response time, unless the monitor is high end, then it may be true. Look up reviews for your monitor on anandtec or tom's hardware. You'll get more information than you need, but the research should pay off.

You should be fine with anything 8ms and lower. I gamed on a 16ms lcd and never had issues and I was playing some fast paced games.

read carefully about response times. some manufacturers post the "old" method, Black-White-black (turn a pixel on and then back off), while others use a newer grey-grey or black-white (simply turn on or update a pixel) which is basically half the time of the older response time method.

for example: a 4ms GtG is the same as a 8ms BWB

and don't just trust manufacturer specs. research it yourself. some mfrs have shady testing methods.

I use the Samsung syncmaster 226BW. 2ms response and 3k:1 contrast... it's purty. Does nice with gaming.

Quoted for truth. Although that 3k:1 is only dynamic contrast. Actual contrast is something like 1k or 1100:1 (too lazy to look it up). My display had a dark pixel =/ but i honestly don't notice it. It is a big beautiful, purty screen.

Just make sure your system is cool with running at 1680x1050 because any other res looks retarded on it. Also, depending on your setup, there is the off chance that 22" is too big for your tastes.

My 20" Acer i picked up for $80 is 5ms and 800:1 and works really well with the 360 (would work better if they supported 16:10 resolutions) but it still looks sexy

When I first got my LCD (12 ms) I noticed a difference from the CRT. It wasn't exactly ghosting per se, but it was.....something. I guess it was just a different quality of video. Anyways, within a day or two I was used to it and back to pwning noobs in CS:S.