Dell 27" 144hz GSync, 1440p monitor - $349 @ Bestbuy

Ok then, on to the panel. Anyone have this that can chime in on quality, etc? Realize it's a TN but price/performance is pretty good. Need a new Monitor for one of my battle stations.
 
Anyways. I went out and picked this monitor up today. If you look at overclock.net or reddit you'll see a METRIC FUCK TON of threads, comments and debates surrounding the monitor. I'll break it down without getting too long winded (i hope).

You wont find another 27inch 1440p 144hz Gsync monitor for anywhere close to this price. Dell make good quality monitors and the anti-glare coating on these and their Ultrashap lines is freaking awesome. Its not glossy but it not grainy like most other coatings. While it is a TN, it does have very good color reproduction with a little calibration. Each monitor is different and needs calibrated in different ways but ther are plenty of guides to use as a baseline for this monitor. The one I just picked up today actually looked 100% better than the previous one I tried. The only setting I changed so far was digital vibrancy in the NCP. I set it 65% and am quite happy with it.

The biggest flaw in this monitor and it can be a doozy, is color banding. You can dive pretty deep into the previously mentioned topics on other sites and even in the display section here on HARD but what it comes down to is for some reason the factory set gamma is out of wack and there isn't an OSD menu option for gamma. Also apparently nvidia drivers do something weird with dithering or lack of dithering making banding more pronounced. I returned my first attempt at this monitor because banding was indeed bad.

Dell has a number of revisions of this monitor that are noted by an A0x number. The most recent revision is A07 which is what I managed to get today. Banding is a lot less noticeable for my particular display; much less so than the one I tried a few weeks ago which was an A04 revision.

You can go IPS but they are usually 600+ have questionable build quality and you risk playing the IPS lottery. So long as you aren't into photo editing and either don't watch a lot of content with dark scenes or don't care about blocky blacks, this is a fantastic buy if you're looking for buttery smooth PC gaming.

A little wordier than I hoped, but I hope that helps.
 
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saw this monitor at best buy and color shift is real as in only 1/3 of the screen is tinted yellow at best. any claims of good color reproduction is laughable. you want color reproduction go IPS, and you stay away from TN.
 
With tweaking the colors aren't bad at all. Are they IPS quality? No, but this isn't a TN panel from 5+ years either. You're not getting an IPS with these specs anywhere near this price. The color banding on really dark scenes is the only complaint I have, it is rather pronounced when it happens, but I've only seen it pop up briefly twice so far - once was in a movie very briefly, and the other on the starting credits of some game, I don't recall which. The one thing TN has over IPS is lack of light bleed, and it's virtually non-existent on mine.

I picked one of these up about beginning of September from BB when they ran a sale, although not as sweet as this one. I paid $475 for this monitor, so quite a bit more than this. Once I fired up some games any reservations I had got tossed aside as coming from a 1080p monitor, 27" 2k 144hz g-sync even at the price I paid I'm 100% satisfied. This thing is awesome for gaming. I recently went back to nvidia after over a decade of strictly ati/amd cards, with no immediate intention of buying a g-sync display because of the prices. When I was able to pick this up up under $500 shortly after going nvidia, I caved. At $350 this is a no-brainer for gaming IMO if you're running nvidia and have been holding out on a g-sync display because of the prices. I'll never have non-adaptive-sync display for gaming ever again.

Also a mention, I appreciate the stand it comes with; height, swivel, tilt, and even rotates to portrait mode. It's easy enough to adjust, but firm enough not to bounce around out of adjustment or sag and overall very sturdy, for a tool-less design no less. The hole for cable management is also a nice touch.

It definitely isn't a perfect monitor, but you can't have it all at this price point. Just be aware of it's weaknesses and whether they may be a deal breaker for you.
 
That's an incredible deal, from most reports its slightly better than the original Swift G-sync I bought over 3 years ago but for $350 its a no-brainer. The TN color shift is only really bad vertically but for purely gaming these TN panels are still the best for response time and input lag.
 
tweaking colors isn't gonna fix reading a web page that starts out black text on white at the top of the page and turns into black on yellow at 2/3 of the page on down. of course if you are only looking at a mostly black screen you won't notice the color shift as you move your eyes.
 
What are you, 6 inches away from the screen?

My monitor is prob 3 feet back from where I sit and I see no noticeable color shift either top to bottom or left to right. I've never really noticed TN color shift when sitting straight on though so who knows.
 
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people said i was crazy for talking about the yellow tint/color shift stuff. Good to know i'm not!
 
I picked one up, but didn’t know that there was a revision A07. Mine is a revision A05. Don’t feel like driving 90 miles to swap it!

Calibrated with my i1 DisplayPro it looks decent l, but is definitely a downgrade from my calibrated LG 34UM94. The gaming “smoothness” is profoundly better on the Dell.

I will have to check for color banding when I get home, but otherwise the panel I got seems pretty decent. Pretty good deal for $350.
 
ChedWick said:
Anyways. I went out and picked this monitor up today. If you look at overclock.net or reddit you'll see a METRIC FUCK TON of threads, comments and debates surrounding the monitor. I'll break it down without getting too long winded (i hope).

You wont find another 27inch 1440p 144hz Gsync monitor for anywhere close to this price. Dell make good quality monitors and the anti-glare coating on these and their Ultrashap lines is freaking awesome. Its not glossy but it not grainy like most other coatings. While it is a TN, it does have very good color reproduction with a little calibration. Each monitor is different and needs calibrated in different ways but ther are plenty of guides to use as a baseline for this monitor. The one I just picked up today actually looked 100% better than the previous one I tried. The only setting I changed so far was digital vibrancy in the NCP. I set it 65% and am quite happy with it.

The biggest flaw in this monitor and it can be a doozy, is color banding. You can dive pretty deep into the previously mentioned topics on other sites and even in the display section here on HARD but what it comes down to is for some reason the factory set gamma is out of wack and there isn't an OSD menu option for gamma. Also apparently nvidia drivers do something weird with dithering or lack of dithering making banding more pronounced. I returned my first attempt at this monitor because banding was indeed bad.

Dell has a number of revisions of this monitor that are noted by an A0x number. The most recent revision is A07 which is what I managed to get today. Banding is a lot less noticeable for my particular display; much less so than the one I tried a few weeks ago which was an A04 revision.

You can go IPS but they are usually 600+ have questionable build quality and you risk playing the IPS lottery. So long as you aren't into photo editing and either don't watch a lot of content with dark scenes or don't care about blocky blacks, this is a fantastic buy if you're looking for buttery smooth PC gaming.

A little wordier than I hoped, but I hope that helps.
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I have an A04 revision. Don’t really notice any banding.
 
Damn, I've got an Acer 27" 1080p 144hz display w/gsync now. Been pretty happy with it. I wonder how much of an upgrade this one would be?
 
TheToE! said:
Damn, I've got an Acer 27" 1080p 144hz display w/gsync now. Been pretty happy with it. I wonder how much of an upgrade this one would be?
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1080p to 1440p is a big upgrade. I couldn't go back to 1080p after trying out a 1440p monitor years ago. 1440p is a good resolution right now, because it looks great and it's also getting pretty easy for any modern card to drive.
 
cpuspeed said:
tweaking colors isn't gonna fix reading a web page that starts out black text on white at the top of the page and turns into black on yellow at 2/3 of the page on down. of course if you are only looking at a mostly black screen you won't notice the color shift as you move your eyes.
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I have this monitor and I have none of these problems...neither do about 5000 other people who are actually using it.
The one you saw at best buy was probably not setup correctly, and is not a good representation of this monitor.
out of the box its not that great but spend a bit of time tweaking it and it turns into a whole different display
 
Raendor said:
I have an A04 revision. Don’t really notice any banding.
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Whats this picture look like if you view it on your S2716DG? Mine the banding is still pretty apparent.

I had seen this picture before on this same monitor and thought it was just an over exaggerated picture meant to show banding but then I saw it at work and I saw now banding at all. The gradient was 100% smooth.

I have colors where I like them atm, so I think I can live with the banding but I'll give it the full return period to decide. As I watch more videos and movies I'll see if I adjust to it or if I start to notice it more.
 
ChedWick said:
Whats this picture look like if you view it on your S2716DG? Mine the banding is still pretty apparent.

I had seen this picture before on this same monitor and thought it was just an over exaggerated picture meant to show banding but then I saw it at work and I saw now banding at all. The gradient was 100% smooth.

I have colors where I like them atm, so I think I can live with the banding but I'll give it the full return period to decide. As I watch more videos and movies I'll see if I adjust to it or if I start to notice it more.
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Ok, I see what you're talking about now. Looked on my phone and then on my monitor and banding is very visible. Weirdly enough I don't see that in games. Any tweaks to mitigate?
 
On my S2716DG I gave up on the profiles.

Banding is worse the higher you go up on RGB in OSD.

I drop RGB values -10, and adjust gamma and vibrance slightly in NVCP.

Works pretty well for me in tweaking out the banding.
 
Raendor said:
Ok, I see what you're talking about now. Looked on my phone and then on my monitor and banding is very visible. Weirdly enough I don't see that in games. Any tweaks to mitigate?
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In game you probably wont notice it a whole lot as things are fast paced. I didn't see any sign of it in Diablo 3 which is good. I however watch a lot of Netflix at my desk. I've also been forcing myself to use more windows 10 apps and have been pleased with the Netflix app, however banding in full screen is freaking awful. Very odd because if I play the same content in the web browser, its not nearly as apparent.

As far as tweaks, there are a bunch of settings out there people have tried that help but no one has really been able to fully eliminate it. Each revision appears to make it a little better.
 
My A05 definitely has the banding issue. It also appears to have a problem with monitor deep sleep being enabled. Shut that off now, so hopefully it wakes from sleep OK going forward.

Still enjoying it at least!
 
WildMonkey said:
if it were IPS it would be a bargain, it's a TN so it's actually expensive
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Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is not a deal. It's a 1440p, 144hz, G-sync monitor. It's not expensive, TN or not. If you are only using mainly for gaming, it's a deal. If you are using it for photo editing, no way.
 
I picked one up on Sunday and ended up with A05. Can't say I notice any banding and gsync is definitely pretty awesome when games can't hit a consistent 144hz.
 
Have had this Monitor for about 6 months. No banding but the colors are a bit washed out. I just make adjustments with NCP and good to go.
 
I've had one of these for almost a year now. I actually went from a 1080 IPS panel to this guy. After a day or so, I didn't even notice the difference in color (during gaming use). While my experience is admittedly limited in this regard, it seems a much better TN panel than anything I've seen from past years.
 
I'm in for one, couldn't resist this deal. I'll be pairing it up with my alienware laptop and GAMP as an additional battlestation in the combo studio/office/media/game room.....should be here on Friday.
 
NLW said:
I've had one of these for almost a year now. I actually went from a 1080 IPS panel to this guy. After a day or so, I didn't even notice the difference in color (during gaming use). While my experience is admittedly limited in this regard, it seems a much better TN panel than anything I've seen from past years.
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It is, its a 10-bit panel from AU optronics (same as the more expensive ROG Swift) that still has the best response times by far for any gaming panel. Glad you trusted your gut and decided to check it out for yourself instead of listening to the arm chair experts that immediately discount it bc "TN".

The great thing about cheap displays nowadays is you can have your cake and eat it too with MULTIPLE monitors, if image quality, color, 2D readability are a key factor in your purchasing decision buy a $300 Samsung 40" 4K HDTV for great productivity/2D and this $350 G-Sync monitor for gaming!

Great time to be alive when you can have both for ~$650+tax TOTAL
 
how good is this compared to a 144hz gsync 1080p display using nvidia DSR to 1440p?
 
Even if you could put up with the typical TN issues, I can't believe you people are buying it when you know it's going to have banding problems.
 
I have this monitor sitting above my Acer Predator X34 (IPS) and the color difference after calibrating both displays isn't as large as everyone is making it out to be. This isn't your average TN display, its a very good quality 8-bit panel opposed to most crappy 6-bit TN panels. I also haven't had any issues with viewing angles since I generally view my monitors dead on.

In my opinion, it's a great monitor especially for $350 brand new. I bought mine used off a member here for just a little under that amount and I've been using it for a year now.
 
misterbobby said:
Even if you could put up with the typical TN issues, I can't believe you people are buying it when you know it's going to have banding problems.
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I've experienced (outside of intentionally looking for an image that does it, like linked above - oh no, brief color banding during credits!) about 4 seconds of it in nearly 4 months. Some of us don't mind making some compromises. Besides, IPS I would have to deal with light bleed quite a bit more often. ;)
 
This will be for another battlestation I have setup. Still waiting on the new Asus 4k 200hz with HDR, etc to replace my trusty Dell U3415W.
 
Canada vest buy has it on sale for $499 cad which is really good... It is out of stock though. Just went to a Best buy store to see if they had any but it is out of stock in the whole region LOL
 
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