Next monitor upgrade - agonizing choice

Tech
#1

Not so much tech support, as my eternal dilemma of next monitor upgrade. My 27" TN G-Sync 1440p 144Hz monitor is slowly dying. There is some discolouration in the top right corner. So, best to replace while it’s working, rather than have downtime.

I use it for work, both on the gaming pc, and on a docked laptop. Obviously, I game on it too. Room is very sunny during a work day, and basically a dungeon during the evenings. On the one hand I wanted to try OLED, but the non-standard pixel layout would be bad for reading text, not to mention the burn-in problem. So, most likely IPS then. While I don’t really do competitive gaming (eg. CSGO, Valorant, Apex Legends, bla bla), I do like to hit 140+fps with all the games, with mostly very high settings. So, that’s 4K out, I guess. But… 4K would be pretty nice to work on, all the real estate in the world, especially if I go 4K 32" instead of 27". USB KVM is a must. On the other hand, another 27" 1440p would ensure, I always get the frames I want out of any game, and quality can pretty much max out (or close to max). What bothers me is, I like to feel like I upgraded. :joy: Monitors have the potential to really level up your computing experience, be it, work or gaming or just media consumption.

So, I guess, the options that I’ve been puzzling over are:

  1. 4K 32" IPS adaptive sync, lower framerate, gorgeous looks, more pixels for more work windows, compromised graphics settings, RIP Cyberpunk, new Star war games and Kingdom Come: Deliverance will run like honey booboo
  2. 1440p 27" IPS adaptive sync, performance peace of mind, not really more real estate for work, great for gaming. Quite frankly, this is the least exciting choice :thinking:
  3. 1440p 34" ultrawide (3440x1440) IPS adaptive sync, performance might be impacted, fantastic monitor for work, 21:9 aspect ratio is straight up going to screw up some games. I’ve actually had so many issues in the past with this. But that was at least 2 years ago, and maybe things have changed.

Pinging for thoughts and comments, because I have gone back and forth on which to choose, for the past month. Ironically, I have the thumbs up from the Minister of Defense.

I haven’t really listed models, cos I’ll just find the best price of one of the category. I thought it better to first decide on what combination of features. Which actually monitor you buy from where is a simple math problem, a 6 year old can solve. That all said, if someone has experience or sees an actual monitor somewhere that fits, please do share.

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#2

With upscaling tech like DLSS and FSR maybe you can have your 4K cake and eat it (at high enough frames)

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#3

Coincidentally finished Cyberpunk last night. It was running with high graphics settings, DLSS, and that fancy new raytracing, and bouncing up and down from about 90-140 fps. Considering 1440p (3686400 pixels) is less than half of 4K (8294400 pixels). I don’t think the same graphics settings will scale well. So a drop in quality would have to happen. But, you do have a point, and Cyberpunk is just one game. Need to go look up some benchmarks for my graphics card. :thinking:

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#4

Don’t you have the 49” DQHD AOC? Either way, why not go with a 43” Samsung QLED TV? Like the Q90B that EveTech is currently selling for R10k?

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#5

I keep the simrig hardware separate from the main desk. That would be almost comical, with a monstrous 49". Can’t say I’m keen on a TV, and it’s also too large, since the plan is to downsize the desk too. There’s also the slight hiccup of, me using a disport KVM switch, so HDMI won’t work so nice. I believe most TV’s don’t have display port.

Ah, it’s a VA panel. I’d prefer an IPS this time around.

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#6

To each his own, I suppose. I’ve had 2x 27” Samsung VA panels (240Hz) previously which I replaced with a 49” Odyssey G9 Neo, also VA 240Hz. RIP my electricity bill on full brightness with that monster. Their QLED tech is great for HDR though - almost on par with OLED. I have a 65” LG CS OLED TV to compare it to and, while you can see some blooming on the Sammy, it’s really very good and compares favourably to the gold standard in HDR tech - OLED.

The 43” Q90B is very gaming focussed and supports up to 4K 144Hz, I believe. It has the same QLED tech as the Odyssey range AFAIK. So all in all it would be a great option. If you VESA mount it to a desk arm or the wall, you free up loads of space on the desk and you have a ton of real estate to work on if you don’t apply any display zooming, i.e. take advantage of the full 4K res in “native” pixels.

You’ll have slightly more space than even the DQHD, which I find is phenomenal from a productivity perspective. I run an IDE, browser window, Teams and either Slack or WhatsApp all at the same time on the screen, all with generous sizing applied. It’s setup as a 3 column layout, with the right-most one split horizontally for the IM apps. With 4K at your disposal, you have slightly more pixels to play with and can find a productive layout to replace traditional multi-monitor 1080p or 1440p layouts.

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#7

That’s a lot to unpack. More analysis paralysis :sweat_smile:. Maybe I should just be happy I can upgrade, what with SA going to hell, lately.

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#8

Enjoy! It’s the part I enjoy the most out of large purchases - the agonising and never ending research before pulling the trigger and still dealing with buyer’s remorse for a week afterwards.

Edit: To throw some more confusion into the mix. I find LG’s OLED care built into their TV’s to be great. Stuff like pixel shift and static content protection is great for preventing burn-in. My LG OLED is now 9 months old and sees a ton of gaming, as my son and I couch co-op at least 10-14 hours each week with loads of static elements on screen. I don’t see even hint of burn-in or image degradation. And the image quality, HDR, upscaling and motion smoothing are really something to behold. I’m completely sold on OLED panels now and prefer gaming on it above my G9 Neo.

Edit 2: Oh, and DLSS on a 4K OLED TV is pure bliss. I’m currently playing God of War all maxed out at 4K with DLSS Quality mode on my Blade 14 Laptop (with a 3070 mobile GPU) and I’m having a great experience. Frames are smoothed out thanks to all kinds of VRR support, including G-Sync!

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#9

Went with LG Ultragear 34" ultrawide. Now to absorb that buyers remorse :joy:

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#10

Good choice! I’ve read lots of good things about it…

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#11

It came super quick. I was expecting to wait another week.

First impressions are marred by some oopsies. Laptop is a little long in the tooth, so long story short, graphics doesn’t handle 3440x1440 normally. Once I switched drivers, it only went up to 50Hz :man_facepalming: Also struggled to get my usb’s to detect. But that’s totally my fault, it wasn’t plugged in all the way.

Not a train smash. I’ll just use the desktop, rather than the laptop. Screen is beautiful, vibrant, accurate, and smooth. KVM’s is fine, but a downgrade, because the old screen has 4 usb ports. Still enough though, since I use the screen’s usb ports to connect a webcam and mic :man_shrugging: I thought the audio passthrough was busted, thankfully that only needed a reboot.

Gaming wise, I ran the cyberpunk benchmark a few times. It’s gorgeous, and it was fast, once I made some graphic settings changes, to get the frames back up to 140’ish. I will say, I can tell the lack of black blacks, compared to the TN panel I had before, while I was running around in Night City. Should have waited till day time. I imagine, I’ll get used to that, and eventually, it’ll be the same like living next to a train line: I won’t notice it at all. I booted up Borderlands 3 for some colour vomit. It did not disappoint.

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#12

At least you ended up buying something!

I’ve been on the border for a while now. I really want to pick up the Alienware aw3423dwf, but with my chrome / excel habits of leaving things for a long time on screen I’m not sure I can adapt to keeping the screen free of static images and prevent burn in.

Hoping for something to come close without the worry of burn in for usual desktop use alongside gaming.

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#13

I wanted to join the OLED hype train. But it just would have burnt in. Not to mention the bad text clarity :see_no_evil: Maybe one day, if I have wads of cash laying around to split work and fun hardware completely.

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#14

The split setup would be ideal :+1:t3:.

The text thing may be overhyped, I’ve played on one (Dota and Spiderman mainly) and it didn’t stand out to me. Although I wasn’t doing the usual browsing.

The burn in is definitely scary though!

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