Monitor recommendations. What's good?

Jonman wrote:

Is there a consensus on best panel type?

My very basic take:
TN: bad color accuracy, fast response, bad viewing angle
IPS: good color accuracy, slow response, good viewing angle
VA: kind of in the middle of those two

Not quite.

TN: bad color accuracy, fast response, bad viewing angle, lowest price
IPS: good color accuracy, middling response time, good viewing angle, backlight bleed ("IPS glow")
VA: middling color accuracy, worst response time, middling angles, great black levels

In reality, some of these differences have become much narrower over time, while other differences have remained about the same. TN still looks like crap when put up next to the other two, full stop. But the response time gap has tightened significantly, hence why when you look at any up-to-date "best gaming monitor" list, it's going to be pretty dominated by IPS panels, as well as an increasing number of VA panels, along with TN panels sitting in the "absolute fastest refresh rate" and "best budget monitor" categories.

I haven't yet put eyes on the latest gen of VA monitors, only older ones that suffer from bad response time. But I own 165hz IPS and 144hz TN panels on my gaming PCs. Motion blur really isn't meaningfully better on the TN panel, but image quality very much is on the IPS.

(Also, periodic reminder that "AHVA" = IPS, not VA. IPS is a trademark of LG so some IPS monitors from other companies list their panel technology with the non-trademark name AHVA (Advanced Hyper Viewing Angles), which bears no relation to VA (Vertical Alignment) panel tech)

https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/ips-...

The majority of HDTV's are VA panels.. not sure why exactly but I would guess the benefits of VA outweigh the benefits of IPS once you get past a certain screen size.

TheGameguru wrote:

https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/ips-...

The majority of HDTV's are VA panels.. not sure why exactly but I would guess the benefits of VA outweigh the benefits of IPS once you get past a certain screen size.

My guess is the better contrast is typically more important in a home theater environment vs viewing angles, because you're usually sitting further from it. At a PC, you need better angles so the screen corners/edges don't lose contrast/color accuracy. Color depth is pretty similar across both.

Anyone have a good source for monitor reviews? I don't know who to trust at this point or if Amazon/Newegg Reviews are about as good as I can get.

manta173 wrote:

Anyone have a good source for monitor reviews? I don't know who to trust at this point or if Amazon/Newegg Reviews are about as good as I can get.

If you're looking for "what's the best monitor to buy", I defer to Rock Paper Shotgun.

If you're looking for "what's the best general electronic device to buy", I defer to The Wirecutter.

If you're looking for a review of a particular monitor, I defer to RTings.com

For specific monitors https://www.tftcentral.co.uk/

manta173 wrote:

Anyone have a good source for monitor reviews? I don't know who to trust at this point or if Amazon/Newegg Reviews are about as good as I can get.

www.rtings.com. They've been doing monitors for a while now but also recently added mice, keyboards, printers and of course vacuums?

This is awesome! It just needs to come down in price... a lot! (its $999)
Its a dual mode 100 in touchscreen short throw projector with a android tablet capabilities and sound system.
https://www.amazon.com/Puppy-Hachi-I...

I just got back from a "shopping trip" to my office to snag some gear. While I was there, I grabbed the monitors from my desk, since I've been wanting a bigger second monitor anyway. They're nothing special, just 27" 1080p, but still an upgrade for my crappy second monitor that's basically broken.

The problem is that our office is all monitor arms, and the stands are long gone. So I need a dual monitor mount. Suggestions? I'd like to keep it under $100 if possible. I'd probably prefer something that clamps to the desk, and the more articulation, the better. This one seems like it should do what I need it to, but I don't know if there are better options.

Chaz wrote:

I just got back from a "shopping trip" to my office to snag some gear.

My home work monitor is two years older than God and about to die, so I should have done shopping at work like you, but instead used it as an excuse to retire my existing gaming monitor and use that for work, and get a new sh*t-hot monitor for gaming.

RE: monitor arms, I used the Wirecutter as a guide, and it did test the Vivo that you linked, but recommended a different one instead, albeit that the dual arm is $160, which more than you wanted to spend.

Yeah, I saw that article. I've potentially got a small $100 allowance from work for home office stuff, so spending $100 of work money plus $60 of my own isn't the craziest. But if I can go cheaper and still do the job, that's better. As long as I can find a good position for them, and they stay there, that's probably all I really need.

Chaz wrote:

Yeah, I saw that article. I've potentially got a small $100 allowance from work for home office stuff, so spending $100 of work money plus $60 of my own isn't the craziest. But if I can go cheaper and still do the job, that's better. As long as I can find a good position for them, and they stay there, that's probably all I really need.

My takeaway from the research I did was that mostly what you get for more money in a monitor arm is better reliability.

Cheap ones will fail in a couple years, more expensive ones will keep on trucking.

I wound up getting this one. I got everything set up this morning. So far, mostly good. The weight of the monitors pulls the arm forward, which means rotating the arm forward and back has a lot of friction to overcome. Half the time, instead of the arm moving, it rotates the support that attaches to the vertical pole, so the other monitor moves too. It's doing a good job holding the two of them though, so I'm pretty happy so far.

What I did discover is that one of the monitors is actually a 1440, except it only takes that resolution over DVI dual channel or displayport. Since my other monitors are 12 and 5 years old, I haven't needed to upgrade from single channel DVI or HDMI cables, so I had to put in an order. Once those come in tomorrow, I can actually finish tying up all these cables.

I suspect that having a 1080 and 1440 monitor right next to each other is going to make me want to finally accept the inevitable and get myself a 1440 monitor.

Our family has a 27" 1080p monitor that gets dual use as both a PC monitor and as a TV. I'm thinking of an upgrade to 32" and have noticed that this is where TVs (at least, FHD ones) start significantly undercutting monitors in terms of cost. Are there any pitfalls I should aware of if going this route?

TVs do funny stuff with color spaces over HDMI. You're typically better off with a device that supports a DisplayPort connection, whatever size that might be. Getting the color to work right with an HDMI TV can be a real pain.

Okay, so I made a mistake in borrowing that 1440 monitor from work. Now I think I want one of my own, and my wife okayed it, so now I need recommendations. Here's my slightly weird dilemma.

My current PC is getting pretty old. It's got an i7-4790k, and an RX 480 8gb in it. So far, that's done me pretty well at 1080p, especially since I'm super forgiving on framerate. As long as it's above 20, I'm pretty happy if I get to crank the detail settings. I definitely don't like spending $300-500 on video cards every three years or so, and don't really see that changing.

Lately, I haven't really been doing all that much gaming on my PC. I've been more in the mood for gaming on the couch, on the giant 4k TV I have up there. I do use the Steam Link to play PC games up there pretty regularly, but now that I've got an Xbox One X that'll actually output in 4k HDR, I've kind of switched to preferring the Xbox version of anything that'll benefit from super pretty graphics and doesn't require FPS aiming. So PC gaming is probably going to shift more toward slower paced things, indies, etc. I know my current system isn't going to be able to handle 1440 on anything graphically intensive. But I'm also thinking semi-seriously about doing a complete rebuild, and would probably be willing to spend a bit more and get a 1440-capable card, as long as it'd still be able to last me 3-5 years.

A big chunk of the monitor's time would be hooked up to my work laptop doing basic office stuff, so it'd need to be good for that too. I keep a second monitor hooked up too, and that could either be this 1440 monitor I've got from work, or could be my old 1080 monitor.

So I think I want a 27" minimum 1440 monitor, that has a 144hz+ refresh rate, and supports freesync. Theoretically, that'd let me get the benefit of the high refresh rate on anything I can run that fast, and the VRR should hopefully cover me for anything I can't? I know the VRR doesn't kick in until you hit a minimum FPS, but some monitors can compensate for that. Since there's a chance I'd be running sub-40fps, does that compensation work, or is it real bad?

Is it dumb to be even contemplating a 1440 monitor if I'm not committed to buying the XX70-equivalent every three years? For gaming, I don't mind 1080p, but for office work, I really like the extra pixels.

Is it worth looking at a 32" monitor, or maybe even one of the ultrawides? I don't think I've got the budget for that ridiculous 48" one, but I could see the extra real estate being kinda nice.

How much is a reasonable amount to spend? I've historically been a cheapskate and gotten sub-$200 monitors, but this is probably a thing where it makes sense to splurge a bit and get something good, since it'll last a long time. I've been reading the rtings reviews, and they recommend a bunch that are in the $500-700 range, then ultrawides that are up around $1000. They've also got positive reviews for some that are around $400, that they say are better than the ones in their "Best of [class]" lists, but then I'm like "so why isn't this in your list?"

So what 1440 monitor do I get? If I hold off on upgrading the PC for a year or more, should it be usable with what I have now for the kind of stuff I'll be using it for, or is it going to be painful enough that I shouldn't bother with a 1440 monitor until I'm building the PC to actually handle it?

I don’t have the answer, but have been thinking almost the exact same thing this past week. Would like to rebuild maybe in the next year or so, and am currently with an older cpu and a gtx1060.

Thanks for asking that so much more eloquently than I could have.

So what 1440 monitor do I get? If I hold off on upgrading the PC for a year or more, should it be usable with what I have now for the kind of stuff I'll be using it for, or is it going to be painful enough that I shouldn't bother with a 1440 monitor until I'm building the PC to actually handle it?

You can always use a lower resolution for gaming; there are a very few games that demand to be run at desktop res, but you can always turn your desktop resolution down before launching, if you must. (most of those games don't need fast graphics anyway.) With the vast majority, you set them to be fullscreen at the resolution and refresh rate you want, and away you go.

Your 580 should drive 1440p okay for desktop use, and you might be able to play few games with it, but you'll probably be happier at 1080p for gaming. In this next card generation, the new 3070 should keep up beautifully at 1440p, and should be able to manage 2160p(4K) with settings lowered. AMD should announce their new video cards at the end of October (CPUs are Oct 9, but I think GPUs are late in the month), and at that point you can make a reasonably informed decision about whether or not to upgrade that.

A 4790K is going to bottleneck anything in this generation at least a little. A solid current-gen video card will be much better than what you have, but if you want to go to high-framerate games, that CPU may not be enough, and you'll probably eventually want to replace that too if you like high-Hz gaming.

You can absolutely upgrade piecemeal. If you do the monitor first, run your desktop at monitor res and drop to 1080p for gaming. When you do the GPU, raise the res, and try to raise the refresh rate if you can... it'll probably run faster than 60Hz, but will probably have trouble reaching 144. Then you can upgrade the CPU to raise those framerates. You can stop anywhere along the way if you're happy with what you have.

We won't know for sure until post-announcement, but I would expect that you could probably drop back two steps from AMD's fastest card and get really solid 1440p performance.

As far as what actual monitor to get, we have a monitor thread you might want to peruse. I'd probably be shooting for something with both DisplayPort and HDMI 2.1, to keep your options as open as possible for what you can connect to it. And I'd definitely look for something that does 120 or 144Hz and, ideally, can completely defeat the onboard scaler and just pump pixels straight from the source without adding latency. During your 1080p phase, this won't help much (although you can scale on the video card if you choose), but you'll probably appreciate fast- or no-scaler options once you go full-res.

edit: I'm assuming that AMD cards can do scaling onboard, without needing the monitor to do it. I've only used NVidia for quite a long time, so that could be wrong.

Malor wrote:

As far as what actual monitor to get, we have a monitor thread you might want to peruse.

You mean....like this one? I read back a few pages, but there weren't a ton of recent recommendations, so I figured I'd see if there were more current recs.

I definitely won't be upgrading piecemeal. At this point, I'd rather keep this machine together, and build a brand new one in a single batch. I know I could do it, and maybe if I saw a really good deal on a current gen card, I might, but I think it'll either be upgrade everything, or sit on what I have for a while. Even if I have a 144Hz monitor, I don't think I'll be specifically aiming at trying to max it out. Heck, I don't really put much effort into maxing out my 60Hz monitor now. I'd like the higher refresh rate for desktop stuff, and then was hoping the VRR would smooth out uneven framerates with an underpowered card, so I could get some immediate value out of it, then decide if I want to upgrade my PC, or just live with what I have for longer, and get an Xbox Series X in the shorter term.

Oh, duh, I thought this was the general help thread. Sorry!

You can definitely get some immediate value from a new monitor; the better desktop resolution. The VRR can be helpful sometimes, but it really depends on the quality of the Freesync implementation; those are apparently all over the map. You need to check very carefully about what rates it will support, because many work only in narrow ranges that aren't very useful.

If you get a Freesync monitor that supports VRR from 30Hz on up, I think it would be pure win with zero loss. Just set your games to 1080p, enable VRR when you can, and you should be in better shape than you are now.

Finding the Freesync range can be troublesome, though. Maybe folks will have recommendations? I haven't shopped for a monitor in years.

While we're talking VRR, just wanted to make sure I'm not missing a trick, as I just got my first GSync monitor a couple weeks ago.

I've turned GSync on in the NVIDIA control panel.
I turn V-Sync off in-game, and set the framerate cap to 144Hz (if it exists in the in-game settings)

Things certainly seem to be working, I'm getting framerates > 60, and up to 144 where I've got the grunt for it (which isn't a lot of places as I'm due a 1070 replacement with a 3080.

Am I missing anything else?

Jonman wrote:

Am I missing anything else?

You didn't mention V-Sync outside of game (eg. the NVIDIA panel). Generally speaking, you want that ON, because some of G-Sync's anti-tearing operation depends on V-Sync. (But we turn it on in NVIDIA panel instead of inside of games because some games make the V-Sync toggle enable additional things we don't want).

Although you don't necessarily need to do this unless you actually experience tearing. But if you encounter the common "why the hell is there tearing near the bottom of the screen, I'm using G-Sync!" experience, this is why. (Probably will apply more once you have a stronger GPU, as this is more behavior that happens when you're hitting the top end of your G-Sync range)

Also, at some point you may want to set up an external frame rate limiter, particularly when you get that 3080 and play games that lack an in-game limiter.

Besides those minor things to watch for, no, not really missing anything.

Talking about it with my wife, she thinks I should get something that's a size upgrade, so that'd be a 32" or bigger. Going mostly off of reviews at rtings, there's not a ton of 32" models reviewed, and most of them are VA. My current monitor is an IPS, and I like the way that looks, but I haven't seen newer TN panels.

At the 32" size, this Samsung seems to be the highest reviewed. It's got a VA panel. The other IPS panels they have reviews for in that size are ultrawides that are around $1000. Since I'm already unsure about taking on a 1440 monitor, upping it to a 1440 ultrawide seems like a bridge too far.

If I stay at 27", this Asus seems to be one of their favorite options, though the availability seems pretty spotty.

So are the IPS panels that much better than VA that I should go for a smaller monitor to get one of those, or just go big? And are there any 32" IPS ones that are good but rtings just hasn't gotten a review up?

Well, the VA panel on that Samsung, plus the curved screen, will mean that it will only look right in one very exact viewing position. It's not a monitor you can share.

Other than that, it looks amazing. The latency is particularly impressive.

I definitely won't be sharing, so horizontal viewing angle doesn't bother me. Vertical is a potential worry, because right now, I have to move my monitor up about 2" when I'm using my laptop so it fits underneath, though I can probably make up for that by tilting it down a bit.

I'm kind of thinking maybe my best move is to get the monitor now, a 3070 in the next few months (or splurge on the 3080 in hopes it lasts longer), then build a new computer in another year or so. Which also makes an ultrawide more realistic in the short term.

I haven't been following monitor prices for a while. In the build your PC thread, someone mentioned that prices are up across the board. Is that the case? Should I hold off on a monitor until they come back down?

I haven't really been monitor shopping so I don't know what prices are doing right now. Many goods seem to be scarce, however. Between supply chains being slowed and demand for computers going way up because everyone's suddenly stuck at home, prices can be downright crazy sometimes.

You can usually find something for retail price if you're willing to wait. IIRC, Newegg has an 'alert me' function for when things come back into stock, so you could maybe do quite well there if you're patient. (just make sure to buy from Newegg, not other people selling through their site.)

I might have it narrowed down to a handful of options that are all around the $500 mark. Still haven't decided what I want for size and form factor.

27" 16:9 Asus that's highly regarded at rtings.
32" 16:9 Dell that Tom's really likes and rtings thinks is good but the response time might be a bit slow.
34" 21:9 Viotek that Tom's really likes a lot.
Another 34" 21:9 that Tom's likes.
34" 21:9 Monoprice. I didn't see any reviews of this model specifically. However, Tom's reviewed this 35" ultrawide and gave it solid marks. The 34" runs at 144Hz and supports newer input standards, while the 35" is 100Hz and older input standards. No idea if the extra 44Hz will actually matter.
Or, if I'm feeling super saucy, Monoprice has this 49" monster for $900. But I'm pretty sure that'd need a 3080 to run like it should be.

I bought this 27" 1440p 144Hz monitor (LG 27GL83A-B) back at the end of April, based on glowing reviews from folks around here (and elsewhere online), for about $370 (MSRP is $380; currently showing as $485 by filthy scalpers). I couldn't be happier with this monitor - it's gorgeous.

merphle wrote:

I bought this 27" 1440p 144Hz monitor (LG 27GL83A-B) back at the end of April, based on glowing reviews from folks around here (and elsewhere online), for about $370 (MSRP is $380; currently showing as $485 by filthy scalpers). I couldn't be happier with this monitor - it's gorgeous.

That’s exactly the one I’ve been reading about a bunch today. Seemed like it kept popping up everywhere as a really good option. Glad to hear you like it.

I also just stumbled on a Dell s2721dgf, which I think just came out in the last couple of months? They both looked pretty similar to me.

vlox_km wrote:
merphle wrote:

I bought this 27" 1440p 144Hz monitor (LG 27GL83A-B) back at the end of April, based on glowing reviews from folks around here (and elsewhere online), for about $370 (MSRP is $380; currently showing as $485 by filthy scalpers). I couldn't be happier with this monitor - it's gorgeous.

That’s exactly the one I’ve been reading about a bunch today. Seemed like it kept popping up everywhere as a really good option. Glad to hear you like it.

I also just stumbled on a Dell s2721dgf, which I think just came out in the last couple of months? They both looked pretty similar to me.

I picked this one up earlier in the year, and it's easily been the best monitor I've had. (Granted, my previous monitors largely sucked.)