Are VA displays THAT bad? ?

[GamerBlake]

Hey guys. I was watching an LTT video where Linus was comparing TN, VA and IPS panels and he mentioned that IPS is the most premium display type and I’m wondering if VA is that bad?

 

I ask because I have a 27” MSI Optix MAG271CQR 2560x1440 144hz 1ms RT monitor but it’s a VA panel not IPS.

 

I got it for a really good price of $339 (MSRP was $389.99) and I’m wondering if I made a bad choice and should replace it because IPS is better? Or is VA pretty good still?

 

This is my monitor below.

[Dedayog]

How does the monitor look for you?  Compare it to other screens in your house, how does it compare?

 

Have you seen an IPS in person?

 

This is a subjective decision to make.

 

*looks at my own $900 VA panel*

[GamerBlake]

2 minutes ago, jstudrawa said:

How does the monitor look for you?  Compare it to other screens in your house, how does it compare?

 

Have you seen an IPS in person?

 

This is a subjective decision to make.

 

*looks at my own $900 VA panel*

I mean it looks fine, good even, to me.

 

But back in the day I also thought a 7200rpm HDD was good and that an SSD was a totally unnecessary waste of money.

 

Until I actually tried an SSD and couldn’t go back and realized it was necessary

[Dedayog]

6 minutes ago, GamerBlake said:

I mean it looks fine, good even, to me.

 

But back in the day I also thought a 7200rpm HDD was good and that an SSD was a totally unnecessary waste of money.

 

Until I actually tried an SSD and couldn’t go back and realized it was necessary

Go into a big box store and look at IPS and VA side by side.

 

VA, as well as TN, have come a long way over years.  Tweak the settings a bit and they're gorgeous.

 

Linus wasn't wrong, IPS *IS* the most premium display type.  But he never said VA was bad, did he?

[JoostinOnline]

18 minutes ago, GamerBlake said:

he mentioned that IPS is the most premium display type and I’m wondering if VA is that bad?

How does that in any way suggest that VA is bad? An RTX 2080 Ti is the "most premium" consumer graphics card on the market right now, but that doesn't mean that everything else is bad.

 

I've got a TN panel, and it's arguably better than some IPS or VA panels. It's definitely nowhere near as good as the best IPS or VA panels, but these things are on a spectrum. The panel type doesn't mean it will look good or bad. For example, take a look at Linus's latest video on a Walmart laptop. Normally IPS panels have great colors (even if they aren't always calibrated out of the box), but these were terrible.

 

[GamerBlake]

3 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

How does that in any way suggest that VA is bad? An RTX 2080 Ti is the "most premium" consumer graphics card on the market right now, but that doesn't mean that everything else is bad.

 

I've got a TN panel, and it's arguably better than some IPS or VA panels. It's definitely nowhere near as good as the best IPS or VA panels, but these things are on a spectrum. The panel type doesn't mean it will look good or bad. For example, take a look at Linus's latest video on a Walmart laptop. Normally IPS panels have great colors (even if they aren't always calibrated out of the box), but these were terrible.

 

I didn’t mean to say that Linus said it was bad. What I’m saying is he said IPS is better and what I’m asking is how much worse VA is than IPS. Going by your analogy: Is it a little bit worse like the difference between a 2080 Ti and 1080 Ti or is it much better than a VA panel like a 2080 Ti to a 1650.

 

That’s what I’m trying to ask..like, how much worse is VA than IPS?

[GamerBlake]

3 hours ago, jstudrawa said:

Go into a big box store and look at IPS and VA side by side.

 

VA, as well as TN, have come a long way over years.  Tweak the settings a bit and they're gorgeous.

 

Linus wasn't wrong, IPS *IS* the most premium display type.  But he never said VA was bad, did he?

No he didn’t say it was bad per se but he said IPS was better. I’m asking..how much better? The reason I’m asking is because I had to save for a long time to buy my parts and I want to get the most out of my 2080 Ti and so if VA is only a little bit worse than I will just keep it but if it’s like the difference between an HDD and an SSD then I’ll want to get a new monitor. I’d hate to spend all that money on a 2080 Ti and limit it’s performance with something much worse. So I’m asking “How much worse is VA than IPS?”

[JoostinOnline]

23 minutes ago, GamerBlake said:

I didn’t mean to say that Linus said it was bad. What I’m saying is he said IPS is better and what I’m asking is how much worse VA is than IPS. Going by your analogy: Is it a little bit worse like the difference between a 2080 Ti and 1080 Ti or is it much better than a VA panel like a 2080 Ti to a 1650.

 

That’s what I’m trying to ask..like, how much worse is VA than IPS?

It's not necessarily worse at all. A more appropriate analogy would be to say that TN is the Geforce 900 series, VA is the Geforce 1000 series, and IPS is the latest lineup of cards (some of which are 1600, and some 2000).  There's lots of overlap when it comes to performance. A 980 Ti (a high end TN panel) will still beat a 1060 (a mid-range VA panel) or a 1650 (a low end IPS panel).

 

All that really matters is that you're happy with what you have. It comes down to personal preference, because each panel type has pros and cons.

 

PS: the panel type has zero effect on performance.

[Bartholomew]

44 minutes ago, GamerBlake said:

 So I’m asking “How much worse is VA than IPS?”

I have a decent IPS panel but can wholeheartly recommend good VA panels.

 

VA often has much more uniform and deeper blacks, but some (but certainly not all) have ghosting (just like some, but not all IPS have excessive glow and/or bleed).

 

Colors are said to be more accurate with IPS however theres plenty of awfull out of box calibrated IPS monitors; and if properly calibrated the differences become small enough for 99% of users anyway.

 

Both IPS and VA can be slow or fast response, well you get the picture...

 

I think ips vs va, when comparing good recent units (of which there are plenty) isnt "one is better" but more "they are different".

 

As for gaming only, id lean towards VA because of good looking dark scenes.

 

If your unit suffices and you are happy with it then id say theres no need for secondguessing yourself, just enjoy it

 

[Doobeedoo]

Depends, on quality of the panels and also what you care and prefer for it more. For motion clarity it's the worst. Personally I'd either go TN or IPS myself. Sure VA can have better contrast and blacks, but still what's the point if colors are worse than IPS and it's not good HDR anyways so whatever. 

[jones177]

My 1440p 16:9 and 21:9 VA monitors were fine in games but were poor in text.

My 4k VA monitor is good in games(60hz) and text. 

 

When I had a cheap IPS, VA and TN monitors running at the same time I preferred the VA for gaming.  Both the TN and IPS did not have enough detail in shadows for me.

 

I now use an expensive IPS monitor with HDR and it does have enough detail in shadows to make it a better experience.

 

Right now I am using a 4th option and that is OLED.  

 

[Bombastinator]

“Better” is such a vague word.  Better for what?VA is kickass for TVs.  You can get great big monitors with good viewing angle and decent color for low prices.

VA has a reputation for quite high latency.  This can make it very bad for some kinds of gaming where latency is important.  This only sometimes matters and isn’t universal.  Not all VA panels have really high latency.

Edited March 2, 2020 by Bombastinator
Typos

[SolarNova]

13 hours ago, GamerBlake said:

~SNIP~ I’m wondering if VA is that bad?

 

~SNIP~

 

Simple answer no ofc not. VA panels are really good.

 

Longer answer ..depends.

 

VA panels have the best overall image quality, their drawbacks have less to do with the image quality and more to do with performance. While IPS and TN both have drawbacks that affect image quality, predominantly black levels and contrast.

TVs use VA almost exclusively (there are some IPS ones) for that very reason.

 

VA's issue is its slower dark transition pixel response times, this results in 'blur' / 'ghosting'. However for those not very sensitive to ghosting, the faster VA panels available can be an excellent choice.

The Dell S32200dgf is one of the best, and the LG 32GK850G-B is a slightly faster choice but looses HDR.

The MSI Optix MAG271 is actually a rather poor example, while it is fast for a VA, it has has terrible BLB in the form of flash lighting, as reviewed by rtings. If ur unit does not have this, or u dont notice hwat is their, then thats great, but i would be wary of that particular model.

 

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/msi/optix-mag271cqr

 

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/dell/s3220dgf

 

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/lg/32gk850g-b

 

 

A note on LTT monitor 'overviews'.

Take them with a grain of salt, while LTT has been improving their videos on Monitors, they are not totally objective or thorough. I would advice u stick to actual dedicated review sites, or those few youtuber reviewers that actually objectively test things like pixel response instead of subjectivly discussing it. HardwareUnboxed for example has a passable Monitor review method.

[Bombastinator]

The issue I guess is there are 3 popular liquid crystal panel types for a reason.  They all have advantages and disadvantages.  There are some you don’t see at all anymore because they got beat out like super twist.

[Satan_Prometheus]

If you really want to get a good sense of how a monitor performs you can't beat the reviews at TFTCentral. 

 

As others have noted, the big 'problem' with VAs is slow pixel transitions with darker colors - sometimes exceeding 30-40ms for the longest transitions on some monitors. This does mean that VAs can have smearing in very dark scenes.

 

However, this is something that might bother you or it might not. I use a VA panel for my gaming rig and I've never noticed the dark smearing like some people talk about. It's not that it's not necessarily there - just that I'm not focusing enough on that sort of thing to notice it because I'm focusing on the game. In general the colors on the monitor are very good.

[GamerBlake]

10 hours ago, SolarNova said:

Simple answer no ofc not. VA panels are really good.

 

Longer answer ..depends.

 

VA panels have the best overall image quality, their drawbacks have less to do with the image quality and more to do with performance. While IPS and TN both have drawbacks that affect image quality, predominantly black levels and contrast.

TVs use VA almost exclusively (there are some IPS ones) for that very reason.

 

VA's issue is its slower dark transition pixel response times, this results in 'blur' / 'ghosting'. However for those not very sensitive to ghosting, the faster VA panels available can be an excellent choice.

The Dell S32200dgf is one of the best, and the LG 32GK850G-B is a slightly faster choice but looses HDR.

The MSI Optix MAG271 is actually a rather poor example, while it is fast for a VA, it has has terrible BLB in the form of flash lighting, as reviewed by rtings. If ur unit does not have this, or u dont notice hwat is their, then thats great, but i would be wary of that particular model.

 

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/msi/optix-mag271cqr

 

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/dell/s3220dgf

 

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/lg/32gk850g-b

 

 

A note on LTT monitor 'overviews'.

Take them with a grain of salt, while LTT has been improving their videos on Monitors, they are not totally objective or thorough. I would advice u stick to actual dedicated review sites, or those few youtuber reviewers that actually objectively test things like pixel response instead of subjectivly discussing it. HardwareUnboxed for example has a passable Monitor review method.

Mine is actually the MAG271CQR which is different from the MAG271. I do notice some BLB but only when I’m booting up my PC for the first time. Once I’m in games or on the desktop I don’t notice it at all. I mostly got it because it has 5 stars on Newegg out of 57 reviews and so I figured 57 people can’t all be wrong.

[GamerBlake]

11 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

“Better” is such a vague word.  Better for what?VA is kickass for TVs.  You can get great big monitors with good viewing angle and decent color for low prices.

VA has a reputation for quite high latency.  This can make it very bad for some kinds of gaming where latency is important.  This only sometimes matters and isn’t universal.  Not all VA panels have really high latency.

When I say “better” I mean better solely for gaming on a PC. Better performance and better image quality.

[LyondellBasell]

19 hours ago, GamerBlake said:

When I say “better” I mean better solely for gaming on a PC. Better performance and better image quality.

He just explained, though. 

 

Better performance: some VA panels have low latency. Some have high latency. Some IPS panels have low latency. Some have high latency. Check the individual unit you have and compare it to units you might consider buying.

 

Better image quality: some VA panels are well calibrated. Others are not. Some IPS panels are well calibrated. Some are not. Check the individual unit you have and compare it to units you might consider buying.

 

It's all about the value YOU place on certain specs. No one can state your priorities for you.

 

[SolarNova]

13 hours ago, GamerBlake said:

Mine is actually the MAG271CQR which is different from the MAG271. I do notice some BLB but only when I’m booting up my PC for the first time. Once I’m in games or on the desktop I don’t notice it at all. I mostly got it because it has 5 stars on Newegg out of 57 reviews and so I figured 57 people can’t all be wrong.

That review is of the CQR

 

But no matter, if u dont notice it then its all good

 

I would advice however not to rely on customer feedback reviews, they are almost always subjective opinions. Thoroughly tested reviews like those by rtings, tftcentral and the like however, are objective.