guy-incognito

Ah, I didn't see you wanted 144Hz. In that case your options are the BenQ XL2730Z which has a flicker-free backlight and low blue light mode, or the ASUS PG278Q which has a flicker-free backlight but no low blue light, but with both of these you are stuck with a TN panel (although a pretty high-grade one). The ASUS MG279Q and Acer XB270HU both have IPS panels with flicker-free backlights.

I will switch to 4K when its two main drawbacks (imho) are sorted out:
 
1. The 60 Hz limit: I don't want to go back from 120/144 Hz to 60... no way..
2. Scaling in Windows. I hope Windows 10 will fix this for good (or the developers of applications that don't support scaling properly, get it sorted out...)
 
Until then, 1440p is where I want to be
 
(Bonus point 3.: when I can afford powerful enough graphics card(s) )

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Go for IPS, you won't regret it!
 
There are basically two objective reasons to get the ROG Swift and not the Acer:
You have an Nvidia 3D Vision kit and play a lot of stereoscopic 3D games. (The Acer does not support that.) You want a super-slim matte bezel and a more "elegant" design. (The Acer has a glossy bezel and a blue LED in the bottom right, which some say is ugly.) In all other aspects, the Acer XB270HU is better than the ROG Swift, or at least equal.
 
 
And yes, I know that the XB270HU has a slightly slower pixel response time, because it's an IPS panel. But thanks to its faster signal processing, this is a non-issue, as documented by tft-central. (See the section "Lag" / "Lag classification")

With a good monitor, and most importantly with good games, it is absolutely worth it in my opinion.
 
But the problem is, there are no more good games coming out that are optimized for 3D Vision.
 
The thing is, if the game is not properly optimized, you won't have a lot of fun. I tried many games and with many, I found myself turning 3D Vision off again pretty quickly. Especially lighting, shadow or smoke/fog effects often render incorrectly, which is a pain for your eyes.
 
But then there are the "3D vision ready" games (List). When everything is rendered at the correct depth and all the effects work, the overall experience can be spectacular! And this list is not complete. Notable games missing, that have perfect 3D Vision support are Tomb Raider (2013), Crysis 3 and Metro Last Light. Especially the Metro series... it's immersive like nothing you've ever seen... Will keep you on the edge of your seat.
 
So... is it still worth it?
 
If you already have a compatible monitor (with Lightboost!) and a strong enough graphics card (minimum 770 or 680 for 1080p), I'd say go for it. Especially if you have not yet played those games I mentioned. The extra investment is not that much, and as I said, for some games the experience is simply fantastic.
 
But if you'd have to make a bigger investment to get into 3D Vision, then it will probably be better to just wait for the next generation, i.e. VR. (Since almost no new games coming out 2015 will support 3D Vision anyway...) 

They all do it.
 
Every "240Hz" LCD out there.

Yeah, people tend to expect perfection on high ticket products. It's also due to the high price nature of the product that a larger portion of buyers are going to be enthusiasts which are active on forums. And of course it's that combined with the tendency to shout louder when you're unsatisfied...
 
 
13 is not enough of a sample size to say anything at all, especially since people are much more likely to be voting when they do have issues. If people don't have issues, they don't go Googling around to find out more about QC issues and how many other people have them. They only do that and find these threads and polls when they have issues themselves.
 
And ALL LCDs have backlight bleed to some extent... If you put a black image and turn off the lights, and can still see a glowing rectangle in the room, that's backlight bleed. It's inherent to LCDs so complaining about any backlight bleed at all is silly. The question is whether it's excessive or unbalanced or not.

The backlight bleed is perfectly normal, most IPS monitors have around the same level of it. Mine actually seems better than usual. If you have dead pixels then that is a warranty problem, this shit happens.
 
I do get a little annoyed when people dismiss an entire product line (or even brand) based on incidental and anecdotal evidence.

But that would be the XB270HA (1080p TN), not the HU (1440p IPS).
To answer op: I'd also go for the XB270HU. Mainly because IPS.

This is actually not true as explained in my mythbuster thread (number 8 )

You are right, a 4K monitor has smaller pixels, and therefor text in applications will appear much smaller compared to 1080p.
 
A 4K monitor at 24 inches would have 184 ppi (pixels per inch), while a 1080p monitor of the same size has 92 ppi. This results in a (potentially) much better overall image quality with great sharpness. But text will also be that much smaller...
 
That's why Windows has a built in scaling feature. For example, you can set scaling to 150%, and everything will appear with 1.5 times the size than it normally would. Text and images will stay perfectly sharp, so you still take advantage from the higher resolution display.
 
But there are also important drawbacks:
 
Important to note: Windows 7 ONLY supports 125% and 150% scaling. Windows 8 supports scaling to up to 200%.
 
Another caveat is: Not all applications support scaling properly. While everything native to Windows is not a problem, and Microsoft Office also works very well, there are a lot of third-party applications that are not optimized for scaling. It will work, but text and images in those apps will appear blurry. It's usable, but looks even worse than it would on a normal 1080p display.

I'd go for the Acer any time. (Unless you want support for stereoscopic 3D.)
 
Better viewing angles (no vertical color shift) and probably better overall color reproduction and contrast as well, thanks to the IPS panel.
 
(Although I must say, I have not seen the two side-by-side...)

I had a 24" TN monitor before, and I'd even notice a brightness shift when I changed position in my chair, so that's that... (sometimes I would sit a little bit lower, more "comfy", and sometimes I sit upright.)
 
Maybe it's not as bad with the ROG Swift, but still I'd never go back from IPS to TN.