Are T8 bulbs considered to have good CRI? Or is that strictly a LED thing? Thinking of putting some fixtures in my computer room. 2 dual bulb fixtures should do the trick. I have a lamp stand with a single LED bulb now but not quite as bright as I'd like it. I do plan to do some YT stuff in there as well.
The modern bog-standard tubes have a CRI of >80 and are pretty good, but not as good as the more expensive tubes that have a CRI of >90.
Tubes with a >90 CRI are available from Osram and Philips. I have them in both T8 and PLL form factors. Pretty sure you can get them in T5 as well.
If you go to proper lighting supplier you should be able to select an exact product and the specification will be listed with CRI, colour temp etc (as opposed to a hardware store where the only options will be something vague like 'T8 Tube').
Two lamps which claim a CRI of 90 can be very different in their illumination properties, so don't be too trusting of CRI scores. CRI is very gameable, which is why the industry is trying to move away from it, and use TM-30 instead. Both white LEDs and fluorescent tubes use phosphors to generate white light, so they are subject to similar limitations when trying to achieve a high CRI or TM-30 score. Phophors do not give black body type spectra. A mixture of phosphors is used to fudge an approximation to a black body spectrum. However, even the best fudging results in quite a spiky spectrum. How the peaks and troughs of that spiky spectrum align with peaks and troughs in the reflection pattern of an object can significantly affect its perceived colour.
This is good, accurate information.
However, given no other concrete data I would absolutely buy an LED bulb with a 90 CRI rating over a 80 CRI or an unspecified one. About a year ago I bought a few "90+" CRI LEDs and I was quite impressed with the color rendition and just general look/perception of the light. In fact I was so impressed that I went back and bought many more and replaced nearly all the other working LED bulbs (and a few CFLs) around my house with these new ones. I was lucky that they came in many form factors, including normal E26 frosted bulbs, flood lights, and candelabras, as well as GU10 floods. I used them all.
I recently acquired a Spectrophotometer (thanks, Santa/
DW), so I thought I'd take a few measurements. My favored "90+ CRI" bulbs measure at 91.6 CRI according to my device (and ArgyllCMS software). Every other LED around the house measured less than 81 CRI. The most pleasant white temperature to my eye is 3000K, but I'll qualify that: that is at night (no sunlight mixing), and it happens to be the white temperature of the nice 90+ CRI bulbs. Some other bulbs with 2700K or 3300K also have a poorer CRI so that may bias my opinion. For reference, a small 20 W halogen desk lamp measures 99.2 CRI, with a white temperature between 3000 and 3300K (I forget exactly, but I'll update this post with the number). That halogen lamp sits next to my color printer in the office. Guess why! If anyone is interested I can post the actual spectra of the various LEDs.