New Monitor Advice

[Hrothgar]

The power went out here today. After it came back on, I checked to make sure everything still worked. It did. However, an hour late when I woke up my computer, my monitor started flashing some color test patterns. The on screen menu wouldn't work. After troubleshooting with Samsung support, they determined I needed to take it in to a service center to get it diagnosed. It's well out of warranty. It's probably not worth spending money trying to fix it given it's rather outdated feature set. It' s too bad since it still produced a great image. RIP old series 9.

Any recommendations for a replacement. It was 27" 1440p display. I probably wouldn't want to go smaller, but I don't have room to go huge. Right now I have an Nvidia card. That's G-sync right?

Thanks in advance.

[Pyperkub]

Yeah, that's G-sync.

[Kraken]

I periodically think about upgrading from my 15-year-old Samsung, but it still works as well as the day I got it. I'd hate to put it out to pasture just because.

[Hrothgar]

Well, I wasn't planning on upgrading despite all the new features and high speed, curved panels out there, but trying to work on a test pattern is highly unproductive. I had to bust out the even older Dell monitor. It's so small I feel like I'm eating at the kiddie table.

Apparently, Freesync is either cheaper or easier to implement because it's on almost all the gaming monitors. You have to move up a model or two to get G-sync.

Anyone have a curved monitor? Do you like it more than a flat screen?

[Lassr]

I bought an ASUS 2 years ago and it has been solid. The newer 165mhz are cheaper than the 144 and looks like they make a 1440, mine is 1080.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074J ... UTF8&psc=1

[stimpy]

Well, I wasn't planning on upgrading despite all the new features and high speed, curved panels out there, but trying to work on a test pattern is highly unproductive. I had to bust out the even older Dell monitor. It's so small I feel like I'm eating at the kiddie table.

Apparently, Freesync is either cheaper or easier to implement because it's on almost all the gaming monitors. You have to move up a model or two to get G-sync.

Anyone have a curved monitor? Do you like it more than a flat screen?

I have a 32" curved and honestly I hardly ever notice it.

[Kasey Chang]

You don't **have** to get G-sync monitor for NVIDIA card. I have a G-sync compatible monitor with my Asus 1080p 24 inch but I don't bother enabling g-sync, as when it loses sync it takes some finagling to get it back working and I can't really be bothered with. I used to really care about that stuff, no longer. Monitor does fine in 1080p 60 Hz and I don't need it to go 120 or 144 Hz.

[Hrothgar]

The Newegg deal of the day. I think it might be overkill. I'm not sure it'd even fit on my desk.

[Daehawk]

The Newegg deal of the day. I think it might be overkill. I'm not sure it'd even fit on my desk.

I thought you wanted G-Sync not Free Sync?

[Hrothgar]

That was sort of my point. Even this OLED 4k huge monitor doesn't have G-sync. Also, discount codes and a rebate aren't my favorite sales tactics. I wasn't planning on buying it. I did briefly get my hopes up when I saw the deal of the day was a monitor. Dell extended their President's Day sale. I'll have go through that to see if there are any interesting deals.

I still don't know the difference between freesync, freesync premium and freesync 2, but I'm operating on the assumption it doesn't matter since I don't have an AMD card.

[Isgrimnur]

In January 2017, AMD announced the second generation of FreeSync known as FreeSync 2 HDR. In January 2020, AMD Announced FreeSync 2 HDR was rebranding to FreeSync Premium Pro.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeSync#FreeSync_tiers

[Isgrimnur]

PC Games N: How you can run AMD’s tech with an Nvidia GPU

[Daehawk]

Ya you dont have to use either but you will get better performance if you do use the one made for your card. Im betting some monitors out there support both. But may be wrong.

Saw a 74" tv for $600 and something bucks today. Made me wonder why smaller monitors are more expensive

[Kasey Chang]

Saw a 74" tv for $600 and something bucks today. Made me wonder why smaller monitors are more expensive

Tighter dot pitch. Monitors are designed for close-in viewing and the pixels are a lot smaller physically.

I used to have a 28 inch monitor that's only capable of 720p. It's kinda funny to look at nowadays.

[Hrothgar]

I combed through a ton of monitor sales. Unfortunately, my monitor didn't die right before black Friday. I don't think there's a monitor shortage, but most of the sales were very small with the exception of monitors that retailed over $1200.

Fortunately, I'm a Costco member, and they had a pretty decent sale on gaming monitors. I kept coming back to the Samsung G7 series. I was going to get the 27" model, but Costco had the 32" model for the same price as Amazon's sale price on the 27" (and Costco didn't have the 27" model). I grabbed it.

This is the one I got.



I just got it set up. It's really nice. I'm still getting used to the curve. I don't notice it when I'm actively using it, but I notice whenever I open up a new app or window. It's like, oh yeah, it's curved. It's actually more immersive when gaming or watching video content. It really seems to draw you in.

It's got good viewing angles, but there is a sweet spot where things look best. That's only a concern when I want to show someone else something since my chair sits in the center of the sweet spot.

It has both Freesync and G-sync. I haven't done extensive testing. No problems so far. I couldn't think of a reason to set my desktop refresh to 240 Hz. It looks just great at 120.

I might just be old. I turned off the front and back accent lighting. I didn't see the point.

Thanks for all the help and advice.

[Octavious]

I have a Dell 32 inch curved monitor and would never go back to a smaller one. It feels a bit ob obnoxious at first but it's so great for gaming.

[TheMix]

I've been looking at the bigger ones. But I don't know. I use a 2 monitor stand that has my personal and work monitors side by side. The stand says that it can support up to 17 lbs. So, in theory, it should be able to support most of the 32" ones. But I'm not sure how it would look having the big monitor next to the smaller work one. Also, my personal monitor is a bit off set. I suspect that I'd need to try and center it a bit more if it was that big; and hope that moving my work one off to the side more wouldn't be a problem.

[Octavious]

I have a 24 next to my 32. It looks goofy. I want to get another 32 instead, but honestly I have so many other things I need that it's on the back burner. It's really the perfect monitor for me as I also hookup my consoles to it. It supports VRR so on the Xbox I can enable that feature. Which is a big deal for Elden Ring as it's performance sucks balls.

[Kasey Chang]

Before I got my current PC I put a 24 inch (I got off Craigslist for $50) next to my 17 inch laptop, and it's just weird. I'd imagine it'd be just as weird if you put a 24 next to a 32.

Right now I'm using 2 24 inch but I have a 3rd I haven't put up yet. And my RTX2070 can handle a 3rd no problem (got the ports and cable) but I keep saying I want to move my desk over and I keep putting it off.

[Kraken]

Wife finally decided that she doesn't need two laptops anymore, which means she doesn't need two monitors either, which means that I'm going to get a free upgrade. She has two recent Dells that are bigger and better than my ancient Samsung.

[rachel20mcadams]

It can be hard to spam effectively.

[Daehawk]

rachel has your car warranty expired?

[Daehawk]

Back in the day when I was looking it was TN vs MVA vs IPS



Not gotten to this one yet but 2 panels with the same specs but different prices seems interesting as to why.

[hepcat]

So I'm thinking of making the jump to a 38 inch ultrawide. 3480x1600. Any warnings? I'd be using it for gaming and for productivity.

[Kasey Chang]

If you have a big enough desk, go for it.

Right now I have a jerry-rigged triple 24" desktop. Frankly, it's a bit too wide for me. I do use a triple mount, but the 3 monitors are from different brands and behaves a little differently, even though they are technically the same size.

[Smoove_B]

Any warnings?

I know you just upgraded, but I've always worked "backwards" from the video card. See what hardware reviewers are playing/benchmarking on (resolution) for games you like or anticipate playing and then find monitors that are awesome at that resolution.

[hepcat]

My system will run a 3840x1600 at pretty much max on anything. So performance isn’t an issue. What I’m concerned with is will I see a noticeable downgrade in image quality going from 4K to that lower resolution?

Also, how important is refresh rate? The monitor I’m looking at will do 144 but at the expense of 8 bit color. But it will do 10 bit at 120. Would I notice any difference?

Finally, I was under the impression that 21:9 was perfect for video. However, it appears 3840x1600 will result in most streaming services displaying video with black bars.

But I do like the extra desktop space. I’m just worried I’d be giving up too many other things.

[stessier]

Depends what you do with it. Just doom scrolling will see noticeable improvements jumping from 60 - 120 Hz. Twitch gaming (think CS:Go or even Fortnite) will still see improvements up to 240 Hz. After that, the difference in how long between image refreshes gets kinda crazy. This is about a 500 Hz display, but at touches on all the lower refreshes and their benefits as well.

[hepcat]

Thanks Stess!

[gbasden]

I'm currently using a curved 5120x1440 and I don't notice any difference in display quality. I love the peripheral vision I gain though.