New PC Monitor Advice? [2020]

I think you should go to rtings.com, tftcentral.co.uk, and pcmonitor.info and look at their reviews. Toms Hardware occasionally also reviews monitors and they use consistent sound methodology to do it objectively.

Thats about it, there are alot of shills in the monitor space and mostly everything you read is going to be bullshit.

Aside from the high refresh and variable sync stuff there has been almost total stagnation in the monitor market as well. There are some full array local dimming sets but they are very expensive, well over 1000 dollars.

There are edge lit models, but they don't really do HDR justice at all. Further HDR is very poorly supported on the pc by Microsoft, its garbage basically. Years behind televisions (which at least for broadcast tv, are still total shite).

My recommendations are https://www.amazon.com/Pixio-Profes...44hz&qid=1578634384&s=electronics&sr=1-2&th=1

144hz IPS 1440p for clearer motion in games, at the expense of some contrast.

or
https://www.amazon.com/GN32DB-32-In...p+32&qid=1578634612&s=electronics&sr=1-2&th=1

144hz VA 1440p for better contrast at the expense motion clarity (purple smearing in dark transitions)

There are still no really great monitors at this time so you have to make a choice between good viewing angles, high refresh rate, IPS glow, VA glow, and grey to grey transition times which are always totally made up, for example if they say the response time is 2ms, its probably closer to 12, so for 120hz its gonna have artifacts even with overdrive.

Just the nature of the beast, consider this purchase a stop gap until better things come along.
 
snarfbot said:
I think you should go to rtings.com, tftcentral.co.uk, and pcmonitor.info and look at their reviews. Toms Hardware occasionally also reviews monitors and they use consistent sound methodology to do it objectively.

Thats about it, there are alot of shills in the monitor space and mostly everything you read is going to be bullshit.

Aside from the high refresh and variable sync stuff there has been almost total stagnation in the monitor market as well. There are some full array local dimming sets but they are very expensive, well over 1000 dollars.

There are edge lit models, but they don't really do HDR justice at all. Further HDR is very poorly supported on the pc by Microsoft, its garbage basically. Years behind televisions (which at least for broadcast tv, are still total shite).

My recommendations are https://www.amazon.com/Pixio-Professional-FreeSync-Certified-Compatible/dp/B07CNDK2XG/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=32"+ips+144hz&qid=1578634384&s=electronics&sr=1-2&th=1

144hz IPS 1440p for clearer motion in games, at the expense of some contrast.

or
https://www.amazon.com/GN32DB-32-Inch-Monitor-FreeSync-DisplayPort/dp/B07HHV3LR2/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=144hz+va+1440p+32&qid=1578634612&s=electronics&sr=1-2&th=1

144hz VA 1440p for better contrast at the expense motion clarity (purple smearing in dark transitions)

There are still no really great monitors at this time so you have to make a choice between good viewing angles, high refresh rate, IPS glow, VA glow, and grey to grey transition times which are always totally made up, for example if they say the response time is 2ms, its probably closer to 12, so for 120hz its gonna have artifacts even with overdrive.

Just the nature of the beast, consider this purchase a stop gap until better things come along.
Click to expand...
1440p 144Hz is a very sweet spot. I went the 240Hz route and 1080p is okay with me at 27"., but a high refresh rate monitor in the future at 1440p is the next goal, by future I mean 4-5 years.

It's quite surprising that the Pixio has a VA panel being a flat screen, VA is typical of curved screens. Good stuff. VA are much much better than TN in almost every regard.
 
snarfbot said:
My recommendations are https://www.amazon.com/Pixio-Professional-FreeSync-Certified-Compatible/dp/B07CNDK2XG/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=32"+ips+144hz&qid=1578634384&s=electronics&sr=1-2&th=1

144hz IPS 1440p for clearer motion in games, at the expense of some contrast.

or
https://www.amazon.com/GN32DB-32-Inch-Monitor-FreeSync-DisplayPort/dp/B07HHV3LR2/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=144hz+va+1440p+32&qid=1578634612&s=electronics&sr=1-2&th=1

144hz VA 1440p for better contrast at the expense motion clarity (purple smearing in dark transitions)
Click to expand...

You first link is VA panel.
 
green.pixel said:
You first link is VA panel.
Click to expand...

My bad the one on the middle right, the px7 is the IPS, although you could probably do better I think the same panel is used in acer and nixeus models.

Pixio used to make a px277 that was more reasonably priced but I cant seem to find it available anywhere.
 
Cyan said:
1440p 144Hz is a very sweet spot. I went the 240Hz route and 1080p is okay with me at 27"., but a high refresh rate monitor in the future at 1440p is the next goal, by future I mean 4-5 years.

It's quite surprising that the Pixio has a VA panel being a flat screen, VA is typical of curved screens. Good stuff. VA are much much better than TN in almost every regard.
Click to expand...

Yea they're okay, personally I went from a TN to a VA and while it's def better for web browsing and casual gaming, in CS or other really fast paced shooters the poor response time is noticeable in darker scenes. Not the end of the world and I'm not into it enough to care but I can see people being disappointed.

The high refresh rate IPS screens that are coming out are pretty much good enough though I think, and you get much more consistent color and contrast.

That said TN isn't that bad anymore so if hard core gaming was all you did there's nothing wrong with them they just aren't selling for like half the price these days like they used to, at least relative to other 144hz monitors with VA or IPS panels.

Back when you could get a 144hz TN panel for 250 and a high refresh VA panel costed 1000 then they were much more attractive comparatively.

I think theres some 240hz VA panels looming on the horizon as well, something to consider!

I have never had the pleasure of trying one, how do you feel the 240hz compares to 144?
 
snarfbot said:
Yea they're okay, personally I went from a TN to a VA and while it's def better for web browsing and casual gaming, in CS or other really fast paced shooters the poor response time is noticeable in darker scenes. Not the end of the world and I'm not into it enough to care but I can see people being disappointed.

The high refresh rate IPS screens that are coming out are pretty much good enough though I think, and you get much more consistent color and contrast.

That said TN isn't that bad anymore so if hard core gaming was all you did there's nothing wrong with them they just aren't selling for like half the price these days like they used to, at least relative to other 144hz monitors with VA or IPS panels.

Back when you could get a 144hz TN panel for 250 and a high refresh VA panel costed 1000 then they were much more attractive comparatively.

I think theres some 240hz VA panels looming on the horizon as well, something to consider!

I have never had the pleasure of trying one, how do you feel the 240hz compares to 144?
Click to expand...
I can't exactly compare because I went straight from 60Hz to 240Hz, but I made my tests and 240Hz is slightly smoother than 144Hz, although not as noticeable as going from 60Hz to 240Hz. With games running at 240 fps the difference with 60 fps is night and day, a lot less choppy -60 fps being good enough in most cases-. There are games like King of Fighter XIII where you directly break the game, it's so fast that you end up laughing but can't see anything on screen using variable framerate instead of fixed. The biggest difference though is going from 30Hz to 60Hz.

As I mentioned in another post, this is the monitor I got. A few months ago it was the first curved 240Hz monitor ever made. And it is fast, according to this review, the fastest monitor they tried.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-27-crg5-240hz-gaming-monitor

t’s also the first VA monitor we’ve tested that runs at 240Hz and the only one we know of currently in the market. That means not only is the monitor built for speed, it should boast high contrast, our most valued metric in image quality. Better yet, our benchmarking reveal it to be the fastest monitor we’ve tested, and it’s color-accurate to boot. There’s a lot to like here.
Click to expand...

Contrast is really a thing, it makes games look a lot better, and while not as good as an ips colour wise, it does the job and colours look like 100 times better than in my 4k 60Hz TN screen -which has its uses after all, but not color accuracy or image quality-.
 
Cyan said:
I can't exactly compare because I went straight from 60Hz to 240Hz, but I made my tests and 240Hz is slightly smoother than 144Hz, although not as noticeable as going from 60Hz to 240Hz. With games running at 240 fps the difference with 60 fps is night and day, a lot less choppy -60 fps being good enough in most cases-. There are games like King of Fighter XIII where you directly break the game, it's so fast that you end up laughing but can't see anything on screen using variable framerate instead of fixed. The biggest difference though is going from 30Hz to 60Hz.

As I mentioned in another post, this is the monitor I got. A few months ago it was the first curved 240Hz monitor ever made. And it is fast, according to this review, the fastest monitor they tried.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-27-crg5-240hz-gaming-monitor



Contrast is really a thing, it makes games look a lot better, and while not as good as an ips colour wise, it does the job and colours look like 100 times better than in my 4k 60Hz TN screen -which has its uses after all, but not color accuracy or image quality-.
Click to expand...

Whoaa I thought it was TN thats awesome man. I googled it, excellent contrast as well, the majority of the high refresh VA panels only get ~2500:1.
 
snarfbot said:
Aside from the high refresh and variable sync stuff there has been almost total stagnation in the monitor market as well. There are some full array local dimming sets but they are very expensive, well over 1000 dollars.

There are edge lit models, but they don't really do HDR justice at all. Further HDR is very poorly supported on the pc by Microsoft, its garbage basically. Years behind televisions (which at least for broadcast tv, are still total shite).
Click to expand...

From my experience both local dimming and edge lighting (both TVs and Monitors) are absolute trash on the PC. In any sort of dark scene if you also have a cursor you can just stare mesmerized (or in my case annoyed) at the blooming following the cursor around.

Even worse is that I prefer dark backgrounds for my desktop. Again, horrible with any sort of dynamic dimming because the dimming is on groups of pixels rather than per pixel. But in this case, it's no longer just the cursor that ends up being annoying but windows. Even dark gray windows on a black background will cause local dimming to pip on and suddenly the screen just looks like trash.

So, while my main monitor (TV actually) has numerous local dimming zones, I've disabled that. I'd rather have that always on IPS glow than black with IPS glow anytime anything causes a block of "black" pixels to be lit just because 1 pixel is in something that isn't black.

Hence, I really want to get an OLED set to do a long term test with. Unfortunately, none of the B9's hit the 1000 USD or less price point over Black Friday, so I'm still waiting. I've been tempted to grab a B8 as they regularly hit the 800-900 USD range, but I really want the option for 120 Hz whenever video card manufacturer's decided to support HDMI 2.1.

Regards,
SB
 
snarfbot said:
Yea that would be ideal.

Hows the current tv working out as a monitor did you get used to the size?
Click to expand...

Yup, there's a bit of an adjustment dealing with content at the edges, but it's no more of an adjustment than moving from one monitor to multiple monitors. Ideally, I'd like it to be curved, but curved TVs aren't that common, so I was unable to find a good used one to hold me until the B9 sets get down to a price I'm willing to jump on.

Basically unless it's OLED, I'm not going to pay for a new TV or monitor. I'd also throw micro-led in there, but I don't have much optimism that the price of those will drop into consumer territory within the next 10 years.

Regards,
SB
 
Only advice I can give is to buy from a retailer with a good return policy.

I'm admittedly quite anal about everything I buy, I realise I'm not the typical consumer, but It drove me insane to find most of the screens I bought having horrible quality control issues. Color shifts (usually a gradual green or yellow tint shift across white surfaces. Apparently a common side effect on Innolux manufactured panels, but happens to others), uneven lighting leading to brightness variances, and dead pixels.

I've gone through a few screens at this point and have had to re-baseline my expectations. One of the first screens I got was actually excellent, but had severe dimming in the extreme corners without flaws in any other regards. But I was too anal at the time... Cue a bunch of displays later and I've settled on a low-end 4K Philips with slightly extended color gamut (125% RGB). Figured I'd buy something cheap. But I'm actually happy with it. Nothing exceptional, 27" 60hz 4K that MacOS is downscaling to 1440p for UI scaling etc, and the black levels are decent for IPS and pixels response times works for my slightly slower gaming preference.

Next screen I buy is going to be micro/nano-led or OLED. I hope. IPS, VA, and TN, seriously has to give way to better tech.
 
Leovinus said:
Only advice I can give is to buy from a retailer with a good return policy.

I'm admittedly quite anal about everything I buy, I realise I'm not the typical consumer, but It drove me insane to find most of the screens I bought having horrible quality control issues. Color shifts (usually a gradual green or yellow tint shift across white surfaces. Apparently a common side effect on Innolux manufactured panels, but happens to others), uneven lighting leading to brightness variances, and dead pixels.

I've gone through a few screens at this point and have had to re-baseline my expectations. One of the first screens I got was actually excellent, but had severe dimming in the extreme corners without flaws in any other regards. But I was too anal at the time... Cue a bunch of displays later and I've settled on a low-end 4K Philips with slightly extended color gamut (125% RGB). Figured I'd buy something cheap. But I'm actually happy with it. Nothing exceptional, 27" 60hz 4K that MacOS is downscaling to 1440p for UI scaling etc, and the black levels are decent for IPS and pixels response times works for my slightly slower gaming preference.

Next screen I buy is going to be micro/nano-led or OLED. I hope. IPS, VA, and TN, seriously has to give way to better tech.
Click to expand...

or buy the pre-calibrated ones.
From my experience (N=2 of LG pre-calibrated monitors, hahahahaahaha.....), LG pre-calibrated monitor have consistent display quality. Dunno with other brands. Although for best bang for the buck, its not good. With the same money, you can get higher-specced, not pre-calibrated monitor, and do the quality lottery.

From my experience with bvuying the cheapest TV from Indonesia local brand many years ago, i tested the TV directly on the showroom and oh boy. The variance is crazy wide. Finally the showroom took 5 or 7 boxes of TV before I settled on 1 that looks the best (dont forget to have calibration app ready and a piece of A4 paper too, even better if you also have calori meter).
 
orangpelupa said:
or buy the pre-calibrated ones.
From my experience (N=2 of LG pre-calibrated monitors, hahahahaahaha.....), LG pre-calibrated monitor have consistent display quality. Dunno with other brands. Although for best bang for the buck, its not good. With the same money, you can get higher-specced, not pre-calibrated monitor, and do the quality lottery.

From my experience with bvuying the cheapest TV from Indonesia local brand many years ago, i tested the TV directly on the showroom and oh boy. The variance is crazy wide. Finally the showroom took 5 or 7 boxes of TV before I settled on 1 that looks the best (dont forget to have calibration app ready and a piece of A4 paper too, even better if you also have calori meter).
Click to expand...

Yea I would have loved to go with a calibrated monitor. But at that price I just can't stomach it. I would have loved to have gotten a Asus ProART display with dimming zones and all that jazz, but the same problem applies really. Quite overkill for someone spending most of their time with Excel, web browsing, and the occasional music making aside from Netflix. Oh, and the occasional PS4 gaming session. I simply don't have the needs to excuse that kind of outlay. Specifically as there doesn't seem to be much middle ground. Either you get the bare basic 1080p or 4K 60hz shovel ware, or you go "gaming" for 1440p and 250hz with incredibly variable QC even at the high end, or you go into reference monitor territory for professional photography and the like. And even then, like with LG, you're definitely not guaranteed a display that's decent in all areas.

I've seen plenty of people complaining about high end LG and Dell displays where brightness variances and leakage is just "accepted" as a flaw in modern displays. Where a lot of people who pay out their nose make it a habit of buying two or three displays with the expectation that they'll have to return a few. But most of these issues stem from materials choices. Plastic scattering- and light guide layers instead of glass, poorly insulated LED's leading to leakage, poor mounting of hardware inside the casing that make it susceptible to pressure induced variances, and of course what kind of quality that is chosen for the display controller and finally the panel itself. Thing is, a lot of people never notice, so naturally market forces move in a direction where true quality is both hard to find and/or exorbitantly expensive.

Sorry for the rant. Been keeping that bottled up for quite a while. Buying my monitor took a toll on my sanity.
 
Last edited:
Leovinus said:
Buying my monitor took a toll on my sanity.
Click to expand...
indeed. thats the harsh truth of reality for anyone that have a concern with picture quality.

Even when for me, when planning to buy the cheapest TV i could get... it really makes me want to pull my hairs. Especially when going to the showroom and the salesperson/marketing person stars to open their mouth filled with useless AND confusing info.
 
Remember the days when people said "dont worry about refresh rate, lcd's dont really have a refresh rate it's response time thats important"
 
Davros said:
Remember the days when people said "dont worry about refresh rate, lcd's dont really have a refresh rate it's response time thats important"
Click to expand...

I haven't actually used a CRT in ages. I did have a 19" behemoth growing up that I lugged around to LAN parties with friends though. I wonder how I'd perceive the difference between it and what I have now if it was still around.

And fuck you for reminding me of that argument. And that I fell for it. ;)
 
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