Larger monitors for work?

[HappyCerberus]

I have been looking around for a while and can't really find anything that would fit well my requirements.

• 32" monitor (I could settle for 28", but I would really like something a bit bigger)
• Great colours (for video editing)
• Good contrast, but I don't want any of the weird HDR dimming zone crap
• Ideally 120Hz, at least 90Hz.
• 4K, because I think 1440p would be to low for a 32"

I don't really think there is much fitting these requirements, so I'm mostly looking for some alternatives (i.e. what requirement should I relax to find a solid choice).

[samcool55]

4k 120, even for a gaming display that's some steep requirements.

If you use it for mainly video editing, drop the 120hz.

 

If you don't want local dimming stuff, you should probably go for OLED or QLED panels and i don't even want to look at the prices for them... And I think QLED still uses local dimming, maybe?

 

What graphics card are you using?

[HappyCerberus]

11 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

If you don't want local dimming stuff, you should probably go for OLED or QLED panels and i don't even want to look at the prices for them... And I think QLED still uses local dimming, maybe?

Are there any 32" OLED / QLED?

11 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

What graphics card are you using?

2080Ti

[mariushm]

Here's a starting point: https://pcpartpicker.com/products/monitor/#r=512002880,512002160,512001440,409602160,384002160,384001600&sort=-rating&F=762000000,1651000000

 

But keep in mind the pc part picker website doesn't have all the monitor models available. 

 

Should also consider ultrawides, like 3840 x 1600 or 5120x1440  ... you can customize the editing interface for ultrawide screens.

 

You also didn't specify the budget, which kinda matters when we're talking 4K and 120 Hz and 32" + ... you have a 2080ti so I assume you'd probably be fine with paying $4-500 on a good monitor.... but if you want more than 60 Hz you probably have to go up a bit, closer to $1k 

 

 

[HappyCerberus]

Budget is very flexible. I don't have a problem paying 2k+ for a great feature set.

 

One thing that I'm struggling with is, even with 60Hz, I still would like a GSync compatible monitor (certified Freesync).

[Stahlmann]

The only monitor that comes to mind that has all the features you'd want is the Asus PG32UQX. But it costs a whopping $3500 and has it's own major flaws that would make me avoid it. There is no other 32" 4K monitor that i know of that has good local dimming for proper HDR.

[e22big]

You could disable local dimming in setting though. As far as I know, there's no 4k 120hz 32 inch display on the market without HDR yet (it's the reason I go with 4k 120hz 43 inch instead, and you are right to look for a high refresh monitor even for work, it make everything much more pleasant to work with)

 

However, there will be several models being introduced from next month onward. Asus has the PG32UQ (not UQX) coming soon which has HDR600 (so probably have a local dimming zone.) At just about a 1000 buck, it seem to be the cheapest for now as far as the model announcement goes.

 

Acer has their XB323QK with HDR400 so potentially no local dimming zone but the announced price is 1200 buck, quite a bit more than Asus which doesn't make anysense to no include one.

 

Gigabyte also announced FI32U, 4k 120hz. I expect it to be the cheapest but no pricing detail on it yet.

 

You can check the list of the upcomong model here. Most are still just an announcement but they are expected to be coming thos year (with the 3 above probably within just a few months from now)

 

https://www.displayninja.com/new-monitors/

[HappyCerberus]

Thanks for the insights, I might need to wait a bit then for some of the new monitors to land. It looks like they are also targeting new DP & HDMI standards, so makes sense for a long term purchase.

[Stahlmann]

5 hours ago, e22big said:

You could disable local dimming in setting though. As far as I know, there's no 4k 120hz 32 inch display on the market without HDR yet (it's the reason I go with 4k 120hz 43 inch instead, and you are right to look for a high refresh monitor even for work, it make everything much more pleasant to work with)

Agree, even for office type work, i'd much prefer 120/144Hz. Everything just feels much smoother. Plus i also missclick a lot less.

 

5 hours ago, e22big said:

However, there will be several models being introduced from next month onward. Asus has the PG32UQ (not UQX) coming soon which has HDR600 (so probably have a local dimming zone.) At just about a 1000 buck, it seem to be the cheapest for now as far as the model announcement goes.

Probably only edge-lit local dimming with 8-16 zones or so. So basically useless to improve contrast in any way.

 

Quote

Acer has their XB323QK with HDR400 so potentially no local dimming zone but the announced price is 1200 buck, quite a bit more than Asus which doesn't make anysense to no include one.

Never seen a HDR400 monitor with local dimming. If anyone implemented local dimming in the past, they at least went the extra mile to get the brightness to match HDR600 certification.

 

5 hours ago, e22big said:

Gigabyte also announced FI32U, 4k 120hz. I expect it to be the cheapest but no pricing detail on it yet.

Like with their recent 1440p 240Hz monitor, i'd expect it to be the cheapest for a reason. But until there are reviews from any reputable sources, no one can really tell. Sadly spec sheets are 99% marketing and 1% actual useful information.

 

 

One 27" 4K monitor i can recommend right now is the LG 27GP950. It's the newer 27GN950, just with HDMI 2.1 to unlock 4K 120Hz for consoles. It has all the feature you'd want. But don't expect miracles from the HDR600 experience with edge-lit local dimming. I have the 27GN950 myself and i'm quite happy with it. But depending on the game, enabling HDR might make it look worse. On bright and colorful games like Borderlands 3, the HDR looks quite good on this monitor, but with darker games like Resident Evil Village it looks quite bad and SDR will look a lot better.

[e22big]

33 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

ne 27" 4K monitor i can recommend ri

ROG XG27UQ have local dimming and very nearly match the 600 nit brightness in HDR and SDR, it's basically Asus implementation of LG 27GN950 (they improve contrast by quite a lot but come at the cost of max brightess) - it's just the problem of VESA certification I guess, there's nothing in between so every near HDR600 certificate monitor got bump with the rest.

 

I think people kind of underestimate the edge-lit dimming though, I just moved to HDR1000 monitor - with edge-lit and it's absolutely deliver, it does a much better job than FALD TV with HDR600 certification (not just in brightness but contrast and shadow detail is so much better on the edge lit 1000)

 

In any case, OP asked for a monitor with just minimum to no HDR so it's just the matter of price. 

[Stahlmann]

21 minutes ago, e22big said:

I think people kind of underestimate the edge-lit dimming though, I just moved to HDR1000 monitor - with edge-lit and it's absolutely deliver

I have had a few edge-lit local dimming monitors now and all of them are anywhere from slightly better than sdr to worse than sdr as soon as you use HDR. HDR is not just about brightness, but about contrast. And that's where edge-lit solutions often fall back to their native contrast ratio, which is simply not HDR. Many edge-lit monitors have been reviewed by Hardware Unboxed and Rtings.com for example, and none of them had any better contrast than without local dimming in real content.

 

24 minutes ago, e22big said:

it does a much better job than FALD TV with HDR600 certification (not just in brightness but contrast and shadow detail is so much better on the edge lit 1000)

There is no HDR600 for TV's. It's a monitor certification.

 

Then the TV either isn't FALD or it's implemented very poorly. Normally there should not be any case of a FALD backlight to be outperformed by an edge-lit solution.

[e22big]

5 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

I have had a few edge-lit local dimming monitors now and all of them are anywhere from slightly better than sdr to worse than sdr as soon as you use HDR. HDR is not just about brightness, but about contrast. And that's where edge-lit solutions often fall back to their native contrast ratio, which is simply not HDR. Many edge-lit monitors have been reviewed by Hardware Unboxed and Rtings.com for example, and none of them had any better contrast than without local dimming in real content.

 

There is no HDR600 for TV's. It's a monitor certification.

 

Then the TV either isn't FALD or it's implemented very poorly. Normally there should not be any case of a FALD backlight to be outperformed by an edge-lit solution.

You're right I think it's Samsung Q80 or something, I labelled it HDR600 unconsiously because its max brightness is around 600-700 (could be wrong though), but I've used both FALD TV and OLED in the end, my opinion is that except for some edge case, HDR1000 with edge-lit dimming can match or even them in most scene. 

 

As for Hardware Unboxed, while I think Tim had done a great job, he hasn't review any of the new typical 16:9 HDR1000 monitor or TV. The last time I saw his review in that field is like 2-3 years ago. I've felt like HDR1000 had came a long way after that, it was the level of contrast and shadow detail that blew me away in HDR - not the brightness vs OLED and FALD TV. It's not exactly at that level but surprsingly close.