Monitor recommendations. What's good?

Quick update... Finally got my XB270HU. Everything good and it's great. Would recommend.

I've had an XB270HU for a couple of weeks now and it's been great so far. Haven't played any twitchy multiplayer FPS on it but certainly not noticed any response problems on Fallout 4, for example.

So I have some questions that maybe someone with more experience calibrating monitors can answer.

I've been looking online for recommended settings for the XB270HU and it seems that they've updated their OSD between the version I have and the version that most of those recommendations were based on.

For instance... for the colour adjustments they have RGB 3 settings that seem to have a midpoint of 50, whereas I have 6 settings with a midpoint of 127 (RGB CYM). So I'm not sure how to go about it. Also it seems like most of them under really quite low brightness settings.

Ordinarily I wouldn't be too concerned but I do mess around with lightroom on the side so I'd like to have somewhat accurate colours if possible. Any suggestions?

NVM... Had to dig around because the settings were re-arranged a bit but I found the right location to make the adjustments. I am still not sure about the RGB CYM saturation adjustments but I guess that's not necessary for now.

Edit: Also, is there any reason*not* to set my desktop refresh rate at 144hz and just leave it there?

Tyops wrote:

Edit: Also, is there any reason*not* to set my desktop refresh rate at 144hz and just leave it there?

I feel like there was a driver bug where running the desktop at 144hz would prevent videocards from actually going into low power mode and that would keep their fans going a little louder than you'd expect just sitting at the desktop.

I have no idea if that's still a thing though. And FWIW the "fix" at the time was just to run the desktop at 120hz instead because it was still high enough to maintain that smooth motion that you get used to, but also was not bugged in the drivers so the videocards would stop using extra juice.

As I recall when I saw the news story about it it applied to my at-the-time GTX 970's and I'd been running them at 144hz since I got them and it hadn't been enough for me to even notice. *shrug*

Yes I had read about this. Installed GPU-Z to confirm that this is still the case but also thanks to a bit more digging it seems the issue has been acknowledged and a fix is in the works.

Now if only I could find a way to disable the power LED for the monitor.

Yeah, over-bright LEDs are the worst. I wish they'd at least use red LEDs so they didn't illuminate a dark room so much. I generally stick a layer or two of masking tape on my LEDs, but that's not the prettiest thing in the world if you care about cosmetics.

So I just reserved an LG 34UM67-P
2560x1080 60 Hz

It has Freesync but I won't be making use of it. There is a way to bump the 60hz to 75 by enabling freesync in the On screen menu then bumping the Hz in the Nvidia menu. I'll be picking it up tonight.

Anyone have one? The reviews have been very favorable. I can't really handle the 1440 resolution yet as I'm not ready to upgrade my video card. That will happen later. Then I may upgrade my monitor again.

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/...

Just out of curiosity, why go for that resolution rather than straight 1440p?

Edit: nvm, I assume this has more to do with having a 34" wide screen.

Tyops wrote:

Just out of curiosity, why go for that resolution rather than straight 1440p?

Edit: nvm, I assume this has more to do with having a 34" wide screen.

The price was right as well. $600 CDN instead or $1200. Easier to swallow. It's the same resolution I have now except wider format. I'm on a 27" now and the 34" has the same height as my 27 so yes, it's all about the length.

I'll be back with my observations, maybe I'll do a fancy recording of a game or 2.

Space is now officially an issue

Keyboard is now down on the tray. I was using the tray for Joysticks. I'll need another solution for that.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/yVJr8hS.png)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/r6cEFaV.png)

Ahh, room for the IDE and search window in the middle, your API reference and/or tailed log on the right, and a movie on the left. Good stuff.

I may have a coronary from looking at that tangle of cables. For the love of all that is holy, get yourself a roll of velcro or twist ties or something.

Mr Crinkle wrote:

I may have a coronary from looking at that tangle of cables. For the love of all that is holy, get yourself a roll of velcro or twist ties or something.

I know. I was hoping you wouldnt notice!
I may do that tomorrow when I pick up a DP cable. I'll be back with a short recording. I'm not using freesync so it's all 60HZ for me, though my last monitor was also 60 HZ so i wont miss anything.

I got the 34UM95C a couple months ago and I love it. This was in lieu of a multiple monitor setup, because frankly I just don't want to deal with a second screen unless it's a Wacom Cintiq (and that's not gonna happen any time soon...). I'm also running it at the maximum 3440x1440, which is a super-crisp resolution, but I still need to get used to the tiny icons Elite: Dangerous runs smoothly at Ultra settings on my GTX 770, and Wolfenstein: The New Order was smooth on Ultra settings as well, but I haven't played much else on it yet.

nice. The next one up was a little rich for me so I decided to try this first. I'm liking it so far. I also misquoted my vid card and it's capabilities. the 780 can handle up to 4096x2160. I may still return the monitor and hold off until I can get the higher resolution though, why? This seems great so far.

Yeah, if you're good with 1080p on a personal level, I wouldn't hold out either. Honestly I was a hair shy of getting the same monitor that you did (coming from a 28" 1080p as well). I got the UM95 on a Black Friday sale when it barely cost more than the UM67 at the time, though, and I figured I could use the extra pixels for my art work. Without a sale like that, though, I wouldn't say you're missing much over the savings.

what am i missing out on not having a display port cable and the 75 Hz? Should I go get one?

I could be wrong, but I believe HDMI can't carry enough bandwidth to support resolutions higher than standard HD (possibly refresh rates too, but I'm even less certain on that). What I *do* know is that at least with my monitor, the HDMI cable was preventing it from displaying 3440x1440. There is apparently an upper limit on the resolutions an HDMI cable can carry, but I'm not certain what it is off the top of my head.

I'll be picking up the DP cable tonight. I can't get any higher than 1080 on this monitor anyways but I want to see the higher Hz. Upon doing some googlage I found that it will offer a higher refresh. People who have done the "hack" is happy for it.

So after deciding to keep the monitor, I hooked up my old one on my son's desk. He said "I wan't 3 monitors like you!
Oh, and Mr. Crinkle, I took your advice and bought a roll of 100 velcro ties and tied up what I could under there!

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/rXu6ZDO.jpg)

OK, here's my scenario -- looking to upgrade from this 8 year old thing:

http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...

I'm considering a 27" upgrade, but something that will bridge my current set-up and a future rebuild. Here's what I've been eyeing:

BenQ XL2720Z
ASUS VG278HE
Dell U2715H

Background/concerns:

  • Current rig is an i5-760 with a GTX 760. I see a full rebuild in the next 18+ months when I've exhausted the backlog of stuff that runs nicely with my current setup. So for now, 1080p is more than OK for me (unless that's foolish at 27")
  • Work from home, including some SQL coding, so I have concerns about going 1440p (and even 1080p) on a larger screen -- but also, is it crazy to consider a D-Sub connection from one of my 2 work laptops? Is that going to be painful on a 27" screen?
  • Looking to also connect consoles to the new monitor -- maybe rotate between my 360/PS3/PS4 -- so 2 HDMIs on top of D-Sub + DVI would be ideal.

I have a friend who swears by that Dell, but I'd love to keep this in the <$350 range. Or is that just being naive?

Also -- 144hz necessary at this stage to help future-proof?

Thanks folks -- much appreciated!

After more digging, I'm starting to think I should just go with a 24" @ 1080p for now, and then later pony up for a 27" @ 1440p.

I think going from this ancient 22" to the 24" will make a justifiably decent difference. Maybe?

Well if you're planning to re-upgrade soon, then I'd say spend as little as you can on this hop.

You need a high-end GPU to drive any resolution above 1080p. Unless you're planning on picking up a 980 or better, I'd stick with 1080p. Though if this is a dual purpose work/gaming rig, I could see getting a 1440p and running it at a lower resolution for gaming.

Personally, I have a 970 and recently picked up a 24" 1080p g-sync monitor for my gaming system. I (and my tendency towards motion sickness) absolutely love it.

Tyops wrote:

Well if you're planning to re-upgrade soon, then I'd say spend as little as you can on this hop.

Agreed. I was hoping to buy a monitor that might bridge the gap while barely future-proofing, but now I'm thinking it's not wise.

complexmath wrote:

You need a high-end GPU to drive any resolution above 1080p. Unless you're planning on picking up a 980 or better, I'd stick with 1080p. Though if this is a dual purpose work/gaming rig, I could see getting a 1440p and running it at a lower resolution for gaming.

Personally, I have a 970 and recently picked up a 24" 1080p g-sync monitor for my gaming system. I (and my tendency towards motion sickness) absolutely love it.

Good call. If/when the rebuild happens, I was aiming for a 970.

But it's definitely not happening today, and I'm almost more excited to have a monitor w/ HDMI in for a console in my office than the PC rig / work upgrade implications.

I'm sure I'll sweat through another week or two of analysis paralysis before pulling the trigger. Thanks all for the info.

Foxua wrote:
Tyops wrote:

Well if you're planning to re-upgrade soon, then I'd say spend as little as you can on this hop.

Agreed. I was hoping to buy a monitor that might bridge the gap while barely future-proofing, but now I'm thinking it's not wise.

I was in the same situation a few months back and I went the other direction. I picked up a 24" 1440p IPS G-Sync monitor tThe Acer, and G-Sync is amazing). The 970 struggles with frames on some games but the G-Sync makes it barely an issue. I expect in about 12-18 months I'll pick up one of the new NVIDIA cards and I'll be set for a long while.

Tyops wrote:

I was in the same situation a few months back and I went the other direction. I picked up a 24" 1440p IPS G-Sync monitor tThe Acer, and G-Sync is amazing). The 970 struggles with frames on some games but the G-Sync makes it barely an issue. I expect in about 12-18 months I'll pick up one of the new NVIDIA cards and I'll be set for a long while.

Interesting. Maybe that's the small hop I take -- go 24" 1440p, pending GPU upgrade. Let me talk this over with my tax return...

So to follow up on my previous post, I've been working and gaming on my Acer XB270HU for the last month or so. I'm definitely very happy with it. The colour is amazing compaired to my old monitors (one of which remains as a secondary screen), there were no dead pixels, and overall the quality of the monitor build is very nice indeed. The resolution is 2560x1440 at 144hz, and I'm driving it with that GeForce 980Ti. G-sync seems to work very well.

Bottom-line is that this is a recommended buy!

Is this 4k monitor as sh*tty as the price suggests?

I couldn't find many reviews out there, but the one I did makes it sound like a fairly decent deal. All of the gripes the reviewer had with it had nothing to do with the screen quality, but stuff like no USB and it not having multiple of each connection type.

The reviews of the non-refurb version seem decent given the price point.

http://www.techradar.com/us/reviews/...