Should I upgrade my monitor?

[Ballemons]

Hi guys. 

I am a currently trying to decide if I should spend my hard earned money on an upgrade or not, so I hope for some advice here. 

My current monitor is Asus 27" PB278QR. This is a 60hz IPS 1440p monitor. I am very happy with it in terms of performance. Almost no back light bleed, no dead pixels or other faults. My GPU is a Titan X, so steady 60 fps in The Witcher 3 and GTA V is no problem, and with vsync enabled game play is mostly silky smooth with minimal stuttering. 

 

So why do I consider an upgrade? Well, I can't help thinking higher Hz and Gsync will make things even better. Acer XB271HU, Acer x34, Asus PG279Q or Asus PG348Q are the monitors I am considering. 

 

So what do you guys think? Will upgrading be worth it? :-)

[Ridska]

10 minutes ago, Ballemons said:

Hi guys. 

I am a currently trying to decide if I should spend my hard earned money on an upgrade or not, so I hope for some advice here. 

My current monitor is Asus 27" PB278QR. This is a 60hz IPS 1440p monitor. I am very happy with it in terms of performance. Almost no back light bleed, no dead pixels or other faults. My GPU is a Titan X, so steady 60 fps in The Witcher 3 and GTA V is no problem, and with vsync enabled game play is mostly silky smooth with minimal stuttering. 

 

So why do I consider an upgrade? Well, I can't help thinking higher Hz and Gsync will make things even better. Acer XB271HU, Acer x34, Asus PG279Q or Asus PG348Q are the monitors I am considering. 

 

So what do you guys think? Will upgrading be worth it? :-)

If you are happy with the end product that you have , I think you should not upgrade.Going after for better results , Even if your current set up has good results , Can be risky. A little bit of everything is better than one massive thing.

Moral of the story is : If its not broken , Dont fix it.

Save that money , Buy a pizza and just chill.

[Ballemons]

Yeah, if I choose to spend that money on pizza and beer, that would be a good choice, haha. 

 

But those monitors though... They are so tempting

[JPotze]

3 minutes ago, Ballemons said:

Yeah, if I choose to spend that money on pizza and beer, that would be a good choice, haha. 

 

But those monitors though... They are so tempting

you can't always go for better performance. that is a never ending story. But, i have recently gone from 60hz to 144hz and i love it. Especially for fps gaming. my scores went up since i got the monitor. and not because i got better, i see things much more clearly now (and that 1ms resp. time though  ) 

i have a asus vg248qe

[Ballemons]

Nice man, thanks for your reply.

I play some BF4 from time to time, but not that often. Mostly I play WoW, RPG games, Xbox-controller type games and strategy. I think 60fps looks good, but will it be a game changer with higher fps and gsync? 

 

And also are the 1440p superwide worth the additional cost? :-)

[Crusader93]

You actually bought a Titan X and only have a 60hz screen? Wow man ^^,

Higher Hz are most noticable in fps and other games with fast moving images. But it is really like going from hdd to ssd, or from a Ford to a Ferrari. 

You have kind of wasted a ton of money buying a titan X only for 60fps play(no offense). You should really buy a 144hz screen to get most out of your card. With 60hz you screen can only display 60 pictures at a time, and with 144hz it can show 144 pictures. It is both a much smoother performance, and a total gamechanger. Only a very few people are not able to notice the difference, but those are quite a minor %. 

If you get 120fps or higher ingame on a 144hz, g-sync wont be so easily noticed. 

 

The new very expensive monitors have tons of issues, and in my opinion performes not nearly good enough for the price point(if you are lucky to get one without issues). 

I recommend you buy the BenQ xl2411z. I have the model before it(xl2411T) At had better color performance(in my opinion) than the asus pg278Q i had. It also has 144hz, and there is no faster monitor out there either. It simply performes so good that upgrading from it is far from worth the additional cost at this point. Buying it will also let you save alot of your money, and it has good colors too. There is a reason the BenQ XL series has been used in world championships in CS and other competitive games. You will never see a IPS screen used there, at least until they can provide the same response times as the TN panels. 

The more expensive screens(asus pg278(9)Q, Acer Xb270(1)HU) are simply quite overpriced, especially because of the crappy quality and not that much better colors.  

[Krzych]

If you like your current monitor then keep it, going better and better with hardware is a terrible trap. Especially if you plan to replace it with one of those very faulty gaming monitors that will give you terrible time with exchanging and returning all the time. This is where childish joy from playing games ends and gets materialized, after you start to think about better hardware over and over instead of simply enjoying games. I didn't listen to this advice and I upgraded from my perfect Dell U2515H monitor to 34" ultrawide, and fortunately after a lot of problems with their quality, LG 34UC98 came out and saved the day, and it is surely way better than this previous U2515H, but every upgrade like this brings another upgrades with it, and makes you aware of every single flaw since paradoxically better hardware is actually much more faulty than low end cheap one, and you will soon find yourself more counting framerates and looking at backlight bleed than actually playing and enjoying games. 

 

If idea of upgrading already arose in your head then it is probably already too late, and everybody will upgrade over and over anyway even while knowing where it leads to, but better stay on your flawless screen, enjoy your games and don't get yourself into this shit. 

 

1 hour ago, Crusader93 said:

You actually bought a Titan X and only have a 60hz screen? Wow man ^^,

You actually think that getting powerful hardware means that you have to get high refresh rate monitor? There are people that actually prefer visual quality with 60 FPS on quality screen over 144 Hz on rubbish TN/VA panels, or faulty IPS gaming monitors.

[WFMG]

14 hours ago, Ballemons said:

Hi guys. 

I am a currently trying to decide if I should spend my hard earned money on an upgrade or not, so I hope for some advice here. 

My current monitor is Asus 27" PB278QR. This is a 60hz IPS 1440p monitor. I am very happy with it in terms of performance. Almost no back light bleed, no dead pixels or other faults. My GPU is a Titan X, so steady 60 fps in The Witcher 3 and GTA V is no problem, and with vsync enabled game play is mostly silky smooth with minimal stuttering. 

 

So why do I consider an upgrade? Well, I can't help thinking higher Hz and Gsync will make things even better. Acer XB271HU, Acer x34, Asus PG279Q or Asus PG348Q are the monitors I am considering. 

 

So what do you guys think? Will upgrading be worth it? :-)

I have a 60 Hz 5ms 1080p Acer monitor, and I'm not considering upgrading at all.

[Ballemons]

3 hours ago, Crusader93 said:

You actually bought a Titan X and only have a 60hz screen? Wow man You have kind of wasted a ton of money buying a titan X only for 60fps play(no offense).

No offense taken! I like to play games with all the bells and whistles enabled, and games like The Witcher 3 in 1440p really makes the GPU work hard on ultra settings. And it looks so good! :-)

[Ballemons]

2 hours ago, Krzych said:

You actually think that getting powerful hardware means that you have to get high refresh rate monitor? There are people that actually prefer visual quality with 60 FPS on quality screen over 144 Hz on rubbish TN/VA panels, or faulty IPS gaming monitors.

Exactly! I can never go back to TN/VA panels or 1080p again. But now I can have IPS, 1440p or 1440p ultra wide and higher refresh rate. But then again, I need to decide if it is worth it ;-)

And the panel lottery is a concern. 

[Crusader93]

16 minutes ago, Ballemons said:

No offense taken! I like to play games with all the bells and whistles enabled, and games like The Witcher 3 in 1440p really makes the GPU work hard on ultra settings. And it looks so good! :-)

Yes, 1440P looks a little better on a 27inch monitor than 1080P on a 24inch monitor. But remember that 1080P looks absolutely horrible on a 27inch compared to a 24inch. That means you have to have a monster graphics card at all times to manage to drive 1440P all the time(since none of the good 144hz g-sync screens are under 27inches). If you have a 24inch on the other hand, the 1080P still looks very good, and only takes around 50% of the graphics power required for 1440P. But the difference is not that huge, and definetly not worth the extra price tag.

G-Sync does magic on screens that are only 60hz, but 144hz is still superior in every way. Only people who have not tried a 144hz screen at home, will say that 60hz is enough(unless they are one of the 2%ish that actually cant see the difference).

 

The BenQ does not have g-sync, and the whole reason for g-sync is to eliminate screen tearing(which is barely visible on a 144hz screen to begin with). G-sync is therefore quite overprised at the moment, and by no means necessary for you to have in your rig right now. The higher fps you get(upp to 144fps on a 144hz screen or higher) the smaller you will notice g-syncs effects. G-sync still have a little input lag aswell(it very very small, but some may notice the little difference, and in my case i noticeded it more and more the lower my fps got ingame). In my opinion g-sync is the future, but it is still kind of a "beta" version. If the monitors that have it didnt cost your whole wallet if you want both g-sync and good image quality, i would say go for it.

As of now, i would say no. I have tried it, but i did not think its worth the extra 2-300 dollar cost.

 

I recommend the Benq xl2411Z, with 1080P your titan will still work magic for many more years. At 1440P it will not be long before it cannot handle newer gaming titles. Also remember that motion blur and ghosting effects will still be a problem on the new IPS 5MS gaming screens. That problem is non present on the TN panels.

[Krzych]

22 minutes ago, Ballemons said:

Exactly! I can never go back to TN/VA panels or 1080p again. But now I can have IPS, 1440p or 1440p ultra wide and higher refresh rate. But then again, I need to decide if it is worth it ;-)

And the panel lottery is a concern. 

There is no panel lottery in quality screens like LG 34UC88/98, but those are 75 Hz and FreeSync, so you would have to switch to AMD card once new generation is out to utilize adaptive sync and 75 Hz and play on 60 FPS for now (it will be hard to achieve in demanding games in 3440x1440 resolution anyway). I decided to do so after getting few faulty screens(U3415W and Samsung 34" with name I can never fully remember, and gaming screens are even more faulty than those two). Its easier to simply change GPU in late 2016/early 2017 and get quality screen than try to win a lottery with faulty ones. Here more info about those two LGs. I did a lot of research after getting few faulty monitors and before getting 34UC98, and I am recommending it to anyone since this one and UC88 are only two ultrawides on the market with flawless opinion on major concerns like backlight bleed.

[WFMG]

15 hours ago, Crusader93 said:

Yes, 1440P looks a little better on a 27inch monitor than 1080P on a 24inch monitor. But remember that 1080P looks absolutely horrible on a 27inch compared to a 24inch. That means you have to have a monster graphics card at all times to manage to drive 1440P all the time(since none of the good 144hz g-sync screens are under 27inches). If you have a 24inch on the other hand, the 1080P still looks very good, and only takes around 50% of the graphics power required for 1440P. But the difference is not that huge, and definetly not worth the extra price tag.

G-Sync does magic on screens that are only 60hz, but 144hz is still superior in every way. Only people who have not tried a 144hz screen at home, will say that 60hz is enough(unless they are one of the 2%ish that actually cant see the difference).

 

The BenQ does not have g-sync, and the whole reason for g-sync is to eliminate screen tearing(which is barely visible on a 144hz screen to begin with). G-sync is therefore quite overprised at the moment, and by no means necessary for you to have in your rig right now. The higher fps you get(upp to 144fps on a 144hz screen or higher) the smaller you will notice g-syncs effects. G-sync still have a little input lag aswell(it very very small, but some may notice the little difference, and in my case i noticeded it more and more the lower my fps got ingame). In my opinion g-sync is the future, but it is still kind of a "beta" version. If the monitors that have it didnt cost your whole wallet if you want both g-sync and good image quality, i would say go for it.

As of now, i would say no. I have tried it, but i did not think its worth the extra 2-300 dollar cost.

 

I recommend the Benq xl2411Z, with 1080P your titan will still work magic for many more years. At 1440P it will not be long before it cannot handle newer gaming titles. Also remember that motion blur and ghosting effects will still be a problem on the new IPS 5MS gaming screens. That problem is non present on the TN panels.

I'm thinking more of him already having a beastly rig, and no need to upgrade.