Need a new monitor, IPS or TN?

[mrcintro]

I'm building a new rig for gaming. I'm not a professional and I play a wide variety of games (BioShock series; Battlefield series; Need for Speed series; just ordered Eliet dangerous beta) . I've been reading so much about tearing, light bleed, input lag, and refresh rates among the plethora of info out there and seem more indecisive than ever. 

 

It seemingly always comes back to response time and low input lag of TN's vs IPS color reproduction and viewing angles.

 

For a non-professional gamer looking for a 24-27 inch display under $300 which is the way to go?

 

I was leaning towards a Dell U2412M as an IPS choice http://www.amazon.com/Dell-UltraSharp-24-Inch-LED-lit-Monitor/dp/B005JN9310/ref=pd_cp_pc_0

 

or an ASUS VG248QE on the TN side of things http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B2HH7G0/?tag=pcpapi-20

 

Thanks!

[WoodenMarker]

Unless you need the higher refresh rate of a TN panel, I'd suggest going IPS for the better colors and viewing angles. 

[BrianPena]

Unless you need the better colors and viewing angles of an IPS panel, I'd suggest going TN for the higher refresh rate.

[othertomperson]

lmao at the last two comments. Nice one

 

Does it matter? Get one with the features that matter to you, whether they are refresh rate, resolution and price, and then look at whether you're looking at TN or IPS. TN has the most interesting technologies going for it, high refresh rate, affordable 4K, gsync.

 

Unless you're professional designer or artist of some kind and you actually need absolutely perfect colour reproduction. Are you?

[WoodenMarker]

Unless you're professional designer or artist of some kind and you actually need absolutely perfect colour reproduction. Are you?

That's what properly calibrated 10-bit displays are for. Regular IPS panels aren't really that color accurate. 

[othertomperson]

That's what properly calibrated 10-bit displays are for. Regular IPS panels aren't really that color accurate. 

 

Even less reason to specifically go out and get one then imo

[WoodenMarker]

Even less reason to specifically go out and get one then imo

But TN panels are even worse..?

[othertomperson]

But TN panels are even worse..?

 

Some are, not all.. But no one buys TNs because of their colour reproduction. That's the only thing IPS have going for them though. An IPS that doesn't even deliver that is dead to me.

[VulsaviiK]

But TN panels are even worse..?

 

But IPS is more prone to motion blur

[norritt]

I believe that 98-99.9% of the world population will not be able to tell apart TN from IPS based on the "color correctness" simply because your vision is not that accurate and no amount of theoretical color correctness is of any use whatsoever, as long as you don't calibrate the monitor properly. For that you'll need shockingly expensive hardware or call in a service provider to do that for you, which about noone will do for private use. I'm using TN panels and colors are awesome.

 

On the other hand most people will be able to recognize the IPS blur when watching videos or during gaming, maybe not all of them conciously but subconciously - what in extreme cases may manifest in motion sickness. So yes IPS has theoretically better color correctness, but it doesn't matter because noone will notice, which makes this advantage of IPS over TN count nothing. On the other hand bluring and ghosting bother me a lot more than the question if a pixel is 0.0278% more accurately red.

 

I think IPS screens are best used in Tablets and Smartphones because you might look on the screen from crazy angles - which you won't do in front of a desktop monitor. And even if you did a decent TN panel will still show accurate colors - mine does.

 

But the whole IPS/TN discussion aside I found this most helpful when buying me new displays:

Go to some shops that offer a variety of Displays and look at them before looking at the specs, don't think about IPS/TN, refresh rates etc., try them out and pick the one that feels inherently comfortable (but make sure you test both desktop applications as well as fast multimedia/gaming content). If you have multiple favourites go ahead and make the final choice between those based on the specs.

 

You can easily buy both bad TN and IPS Displays. But from personal experience I know bad IPS is a lot more annoying than bad TN.

[kirBi]

Unless you can get stable 70+ fps for those games you play, I would say there's no reason to get TN panels with higher refresh rate. I would not say low input lag is a characteristic of TN panels as well. There are plenty of good ips monitors with very low input lag.

TN panel does have low response time, but ips panel has been improved as well. If you are a casual gamer I would suggest IPS instead.

For the budget you have, you can get either Dell U2414h or Dell U2415, which are newer versions of U2412m.

They are pretty much the best IPS in the price range.