• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

21:9 displays, my experience

M

MajorMullet

Gawd
2FA
Joined
Jul 29, 2004
Messages
802
So my quest to find the "perfect" 21:9 display has been interesting. I thought I'd share a few thoughts for anyone else that might be interested in these.

A little background - I've had numerous 120hz/144hz monitors dating back to the original Samsung 2233RZ. 120hz is an absolute game changer if you're an FPS player, but I've never been able to get past the color issues of TN. I've also had a surround setup but scrapped it because it's such a huge space requirement on my desk. So when these 21:9 displays first debuted I was very interested in them as a nice "compromise" between a single display and eyefinity/surround.

I've since tried a few and I've jotted down my thoughts below.

LG 29EA73
Pros
  • Even backlighting
  • No input lag
  • No noticeable ghosting
  • No dead pixels
  • Can OC to 75hz

Cons
  • PWM backlighting (ended up returning it because of this)
  • OSD was fairly intuitive but the touch sensitive controls were a pain to use - overly sensitive so I kept selecting things by accident

----------------------

AOC Q2963PM
Pros
  • No PWM
  • Backlighting was fine
  • Can OC to 75hz
  • OSD was pretty easy to use and it has physical buttons on the side of the display. The power light is also on the side which makes it a bit less noticeable.

Cons
  • Noticeable input lag (there may be different revisions of this display, but the one I got was horrible (I ordered from Newegg))
  • Two dead pixels in the upper right corner
  • There seemed to be some ghosting
  • A minor complaint, but due to the way the monitor is made the inputs are in the "neck" of the display so it's a big strange when VESA mounting it. Because of the hinge on the back the display always wanted to tilt upward a bit

----------------------

ASUS PB298Q
Pros
  • No PWM
  • No input lag
  • No ghosting
  • Good backlighting
  • No dead pixels
  • Can OC to 75hz
  • Best OSD out of the bunch, physical buttons. Two of the buttons double as dedicated buttons for quickly accessing settings. One allows for quick control of brightness, the other for volume. There's also a button for quickly changing the "Splendid" presets like most other ASUS displays have.

Cons
  • Only negative here is there is a yellow tinted "blob" in the center of the screen. It's pretty noticeable on white backgrounds, especially when browsing since most web content is in the middle of the screen where the discoloration is.

So for me the ASUS PB298Q is by far the best of the bunch, though right now I'm debating on whether or not I want to exchange it. As everyone knows, the biggest risk is that next time I get one with terrible backlighting or dead pixels. But the yellow is pretty annoying and doesn't really belong on a $500 display IMO.

----------------------

So in the end I have to say that I'm a huge fan of the format. To me it really is a nice compromise without taking up so much room on my desk. It also seems that these newer IPS panels are on par with any 60hz TN panel in terms of responsiveness. No, it is not as smooth as a 120hz display but games have never looked better thanks to the amazing colors. I'll be sticking with it until the 34" versions start coming out (or if there's something mind blowing shown at CES next week :))

As far as system performance goes, I ran FRAPS while playing BF4 on a 64 man server. Framerates were pretty much pegged in the 70s with my system. BF4 was set to the Ultra preset. System specs:

i5 2500K @ 4.4
8GB RAM (DDR3 1600)
R9 290
256GB Samsung 840 SSD
 
Sounds like that new 3440x1440 display is going to be the way to go for gaming. Screw 4K. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I've been thinking about switching to 21:9.
 
Q-BZ said:
Not enough vertical for me.
Click to expand...

I agree, the vertical is a little lacking. Physically they're about the same size as 23" 16:9 monitor in terms of height.

I use my main PC primarily for playing games. I've noticed that the height (or lack thereof) doesn't bother me much when playing. The display filling up more of your peripheral vision helps a lot with that.

That's where the 34" versions will shine, just have to wait for them to come out :(
 
Great synopsis, been looking for something like this. Out of interest, have you had a chance to try out the Dell U2913? Any idea on how it compares?
 
Thanks for the post. I've been eyeballing these new 29:1 screens myself lately and wondered how they were for gaming. The vertical height did have me a little concerned but I was kinda thinking it just "looked" shorter because it was so much wider but wouldn't be much of an issue when actually playing games. That Dell is $549 right now at Amazon and that is tempting. 2560x1080 will be on the upper limit of what my rig can handle tho and still get max settings.
 
The U2913 has the slowest pixel response times (most ghosting) and higher input lag than the Asus models. The Asus PB298Q is the best 21:9 model. Beware that the frame-less models inner black bezel is so dark it makes the blacks look grayish and no one has actually verified if these drop frames when overclocked. Many displays will accept higher hz but will drop the extra frames.

Dell
http://www.prad.de/new/monitore/test/2013/test-dell-u2913wm-teil9.html#Reaktionsverhalten

Asus (need to use the Trace Free 20 setting to get rid of the overshoot ghosting)
http://www.prad.de/new/monitore/test/2013/test-asus-pb298q-teil6.html#Reaktionsverhalten
 
Last edited:
MajorMullet said:
I agree, the vertical is a little lacking. Physically they're about the same size as 23" 16:9 monitor in terms of height.

I use my main PC primarily for playing games. I've noticed that the height (or lack thereof) doesn't bother me much when playing. The display filling up more of your peripheral vision helps a lot with that.

That's where the 34" versions will shine, just have to wait for them to come out :(
Click to expand...

Yeah, looking forward to the 34" versoins. LG's one looks pretty interesting.
 
The ASUS will accept > 75hz but it appears to drop frames beyond that. I ran the test at Test UFO and thought I'd share the results. I used the Pixel Clock patcher before I ran the 96hz test. Oddly enough after running the tool the display kept telling me to use a dual link DVI cable when running at 75hz even though I am. Reverting the tool made the message to away.



 
xp3nd4bl3 said:
Sounds like that new 3440x1440 display is going to be the way to go for gaming. Screw 4K. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I've been thinking about switching to 21:9.
Click to expand...

That Dell will likely be a day one purchase for me, provided it's not more than about $1200, Or gets some terrible reviews.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top