Acer announces 4K 28" monitor with Gsync

jscheema said:
You will NOT regret it. I love this monitor, get some 4k wallpapers, so damn sharp! I got one with wheat field, and I can see amazing detail.
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I hope you're right. I figured my current Acer @ 120Hz was good to me all these years that another Acer with a larger display, higher resolution, and g-sync should be a worthwhile upgrade even though its capped at 60Hz. And I get to test how good g-sync really is before I upgrade my GPU from a GTX 760 to probably a GTX 970/980.
 
Hmmm...
Newegg now has the Acer XB280HK for $750 ($800-$50 promo code EMCWPWC56)

Must resist.....
 
Agreed. I'm waiting on my Newegg Preferred account issues to get cleared up first, who would have thought they'd close my account after not using it for five years? :)

Hopefully they still have some come Monday. Promo code is good until next Thursday at least.

Edit 10/19: Placed an order for one, will hopefully get it by Wednesday to play with.
 
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How bad is watching 720p/1080p content on this monitor? I think it's the only thing left holding me back from buying a 4K monitor.
 
jscheema said:
You will NOT regret it. I love this monitor, get some 4k wallpapers, so damn sharp! I got one with wheat field, and I can see amazing detail.
Click to expand...

I regretted 4k 28", for general use. But, it's an improvement for games. ;)
 
Bladestorm said:
How bad is watching 720p/1080p content on this monitor? I think it's the only thing left holding me back from buying a 4K monitor.
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The videos look better than they did on my Qnix 2710 @ 1440p. It is amazing, I have had it for 4 days, and I just love it. The colors are so sharp and bright.
 
jscheema said:
The videos look better than they did on my Qnix 2710 @ 1440p. It is amazing, I have had it for 4 days, and I just love it. The colors are so sharp and bright.
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Thanks.

I'm now considering this or a 120hz IPS. I hate making decisions. :(
 
The NEC monitors that traditionally have the KVM functionality built-in are more "professional" monitors and have had higher input lag. Things might be better now but that was how things were a year or so ago.
 
How's the motion blur on this guy?

I'm coming from a qnix 2710 and a fg2421. I'm thinking this one will give me a different experience but I'm a little worried the TN will leave me disappointed. This monitor seems perfect for cranking up the image quality.
 
icor1031 said:
I regretted 4k 28", for general use. But, it's an improvement for games. ;)
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Do you mean that the text is not readable, or the TN color shift is bad, or something else? Please elaborate regarding regular use.
 
Well I just ordered one from Newegg, and I didn't realize it wasn't a Premier item. Hope I don't have to return it. I'm not feeling the best about this purchase. Please people, as a die hard IPS/PLS guy, reassure me. :(
 
misterbobby said:
And you think I dont know about those? They are all 60 hz and no guarantee they will do 120. Heck many of them have issues doing 96.
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You sure as hell didn't come off like you did. No they're not native 120hz, but my point was IPS + 120hz does exist.
 
Bladestorm said:
You sure as hell didn't come off like you did. No they're not native 120hz, but my point was IPS + 120hz does exist.
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And my point is/was there is no 120 hz IPS that you can go buy. You can buy a 60 hz monitor that you hope will oc to 120 when it reality many of them cant even do 96 without issues.

I am still hoping for a non TN screen with gsync but that looks like its not happening.
 
I just received the Acer XB280HK today and I think I notice mouse lag while gaming since I am coming from a 120Hz monitor. I think the colors are nicer on this monitor with a little backlight bleed from the top. Not as bad as the Acer GD235HZ its replacing. Everything looks prettier for sure and text looks smooth/clean. I had to increase font to 150% which doesn't change the font in games like Hearthstone and Heroes Of The Storm. I'm not sure if I have G-sync enabled properly for the games though. Am I supposed to check-on the Vertical Sync option within game? I probably need more time adjusting back down to 60Hz.
 
Bladestorm said:
Well I just ordered one from Newegg, and I didn't realize it wasn't a Premier item. Hope I don't have to return it. I'm not feeling the best about this purchase. Please people, as a die hard IPS/PLS guy, reassure me. :(
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I'm also a Premier member and noticed that this monitor didn't qualify. Kind of makes me wonder why I even subscribed to it.

I will reassure you... I just got this monitor yesterday and I'm very impressed. The colors are damn near as good as my Korean 27" IPS, contrast seems a bit better than the IPS, and no obvious defects in the screen. My top right corner of the monitor is a tiny bit brighter than the rest of the monitor. It shows up more as an IPS style glow effect than it does any bleedage. It's minor. There's no actual light bleed though. I'm pretty picky... I don't even know if most people would notice it.

On the XB280, with Diablo 3 being the judge here, and compared to my XB270, I immediately noticed the details and colors in the menus standing out more (good judge of contrast levels), brighter watermark images on the menus, brighter reds in the health pots, more distinction between different blues (ie I can actually tell the difference between gem text (light blue) and magic item text (medium blue) on items on the ground), and foliage looking a lot "greener". The XB270 is no slouch, and looks surprisingly good for a gaming TN panel, but the XB280 is quite noticeably showing more accurate colors. One thing I should mention is that the screen, when looked at from up above it (off angle), has a lot of non-uniformity to it... you can see a lot of lighter and darker areas. When I sit directly in front of it I can barely see any of that. I checked by looking at some grey, blue, and tan screens and it's very hard to notice. Not something I'd bother returning it for. Not even really worth mentioning except as an FYI to everyone that you probably aren't going to get a perfectly uniform screen.

I really wasn't prepared for just how nice 3840x2160 was going to look in-person. I've gamed at 1440p for a couple years so I was already spoiled, but 4k just blows it away. I thought the 28" screen might be too small for 4k, but it really isn't, at least not for me. I bumped the scaling in Windows 7 to 125% and it looks excellent. Web browsing at 150% looks perfect and crystal clear. I don't really think I want to go back to anything lower res now.

Losing out on 144Hz from my XB270 that I've been using for the past month is a bit of an adjustment. I really like the smoothness you can only get when you're running 120Hz+, especially when moving the mouse around. But if I have to choose between 1080p@144Hz or 2160p@60Hz, it's going to be 3840p everytime. Both monitors have a mild AG coating on them. I consider it mild as it doesn't add any glow, shimmer, or blurriness to the pixels. Since it's pretty much impossible to find a gaming monitor with a glossy screen, this is probably as mild as I can hope for.

I think I'm going to setup the XB270 on my spare computer and use it to play side scrollers and pinball (in portrait). I'm outside my return window so its not going back, but honestly I like it enough to keep them both. They both have their strong points.

Oh, just as an aside, I was getting around 100fps with v-sync turned off in Diablo3 with the in-game settings all on high. No additional AA was turned on (didn't need it at this res). That's with 2 GTX980s in SLI. Doubtful that 1 GTX970/980 would be enough to get 60fps every often in any game on this screen. I'll know more as I try out some other games, but I'm not much of an FPS player anymore so I don't have any of those to try out.
 
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Whoops... Premiere member as well and I didn't pay attention when I ordered the monitor. Oh well, it will be here tomorrow. Still excited :D.

I will be using the monitor with a single 780 Ti, but the newest game I play is Titanfall and possibly D3 if I get back into it. Got a big steam backlog to get through. We'll see how the 780 Ti holds up, but when I prototyped it using DSR at 4k I was getting 40 - 60 FPS in Titanfall if I keep the details off of their highest settings.

It should run Quake Live just fine. I think.
 
Does this monitor's power LED indicator change color when G-sync is being used like in the Asus ROG Swift?
 
Runt. said:
Does this monitor's power LED indicator change color when G-sync is being used like in the Asus ROG Swift?
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It does not. That actually sounds like it would be a nice feature.

Speaking of power indicators... these 2 Acer monitors have the cheesiest LED implementation I've ever seen on a supposed premium monitor. They stuck the LEDs behind the buttons and just put the plastic lens over it without making any attempt to block light from escaping through the spaces between the buttons and all around the lens instead of through the lens like it's supposed to. It looks so bad.
 
Astral Abyss said:
It does not. That actually sounds like it would be a nice feature.

Speaking of power indicators... these 2 Acer monitors have the cheesiest LED implementation I've ever seen on a supposed premium monitor. They stuck the LEDs behind the buttons and just put the plastic lens over it without making any attempt to block light from escaping through the spaces between the buttons and all around the lens instead of through the lens like it's supposed to. It looks so bad.
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Is there an option in the monitor OSD to enable G-sync?
All I did was check-on the box in the Nvidia Control Panel and check-off the V-sync box within the game.
 
Runt. said:
Is there an option in the monitor OSD to enable G-sync?
All I did was check-on the box in the Nvidia Control Panel and check-off the V-sync box within the game.
Click to expand...

No option in the monitor OSD. It's just enabled through the Nvidia control panel.
 
Astral Abyss said:
I'm also a Premier member and noticed that this monitor didn't qualify. Kind of makes me wonder why I even subscribed to it.

I will reassure you... I just got this monitor yesterday and I'm very impressed. The colors are damn near as good as my Korean 27" IPS, contrast seems a bit better than the IPS, and no obvious defects in the screen. My top right corner of the monitor is a tiny bit brighter than the rest of the monitor. It shows up more as an IPS style glow effect than it does any bleedage. It's minor. There's no actual light bleed though. I'm pretty picky... I don't even know if most people would notice it.

On the XB280, with Diablo 3 being the judge here, and compared to my XB270, I immediately noticed the details and colors in the menus standing out more (good judge of contrast levels), brighter watermark images on the menus, brighter reds in the health pots, more distinction between different blues (ie I can actually tell the difference between gem text (light blue) and magic item text (medium blue) on items on the ground), and foliage looking a lot "greener". The XB270 is no slouch, and looks surprisingly good for a gaming TN panel, but the XB280 is quite noticeably showing more accurate colors. One thing I should mention is that the screen, when looked at from up above it (off angle), has a lot of non-uniformity to it... you can see a lot of lighter and darker areas. When I sit directly in front of it I can barely see any of that. I checked by looking at some grey, blue, and tan screens and it's very hard to notice. Not something I'd bother returning it for. Not even really worth mentioning except as an FYI to everyone that you probably aren't going to get a perfectly uniform screen.

I really wasn't prepared for just how nice 3840x2160 was going to look in-person. I've gamed at 1440p for a couple years so I was already spoiled, but 4k just blows it away. I thought the 28" screen might be too small for 4k, but it really isn't, at least not for me. I bumped the scaling in Windows 7 to 125% and it looks excellent. Web browsing at 150% looks perfect and crystal clear. I don't really think I want to go back to anything lower res now.

Losing out on 144Hz from my XB270 that I've been using for the past month is a bit of an adjustment. I really like the smoothness you can only get when you're running 120Hz+, especially when moving the mouse around. But if I have to choose between 1080p@144Hz or 3840p@60Hz, it's going to be 3840p everytime. Both monitors have a mild AG coating on them. I consider it mild as it doesn't add any glow, shimmer, or blurriness to the pixels. Since it's pretty much impossible to find a gaming monitor with a glossy screen, this is probably as mild as I can hope for.

I think I'm going to setup the XB270 on my spare computer and use it to play side scrollers and pinball (in portrait). I'm outside my return window so its not going back, but honestly I like it enough to keep them both. They both have their strong points.

Oh, just as an aside, I was getting around 100fps with v-sync turned off in Diablo3 with the in-game settings all on high. No additional AA was turned on (didn't need it at this res). That's with 2 GTX980s in SLI. Doubtful that 1 GTX970/980 would be enough to get 60fps every often in any game on this screen. I'll know more as I try out some other games, but I'm not much of an FPS player anymore so I don't have any of those to try out.
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Thank you, that does make me feel better about this purchase. I'm a little concerned with how my two 970's will respond. Getting a 4K monitor wasn't in the plan when I got them a few weeks ago or I would have gotten a 980 (or two).

Will it in any way be a problem continuing to use my current monitor (in sig), and the Acer?
 
Bladestorm said:
Thank you, that does make me feel better about this purchase. I'm a little concerned with how my two 970's will respond. Getting a 4K monitor wasn't in the plan when I got them a few weeks ago or I would have gotten a 980 (or two).

Will it in any way be a problem continuing to use my current monitor (in sig), and the Acer?
Click to expand...

I don't know how G-Sync handles a non-compatible display thrown into the mix, but I would think it would just enable itself for the displays that support it. You'll have to try it and see. Capability-wise, your cards can handle both easy.

I think the 970s in SLI will do well at 4k. If you drop below 60fps that's where g-sync will shine.

Looking forward to reading what you think about it once it arrives.
 
Astral Abyss said:
I'm also a Premier member and noticed that this monitor didn't qualify. Kind of makes me wonder why I even subscribed to it.

I will reassure you... I just got this monitor yesterday and I'm very impressed. The colors are damn near as good as my Korean 27" IPS, contrast seems a bit better than the IPS, and no obvious defects in the screen. My top right corner of the monitor is a tiny bit brighter than the rest of the monitor. It shows up more as an IPS style glow effect than it does any bleedage. It's minor. There's no actual light bleed though. I'm pretty picky... I don't even know if most people would notice it.

On the XB280, with Diablo 3 being the judge here, and compared to my XB270, I immediately noticed the details and colors in the menus standing out more (good judge of contrast levels), brighter watermark images on the menus, brighter reds in the health pots, more distinction between different blues (ie I can actually tell the difference between gem text (light blue) and magic item text (medium blue) on items on the ground), and foliage looking a lot "greener". The XB270 is no slouch, and looks surprisingly good for a gaming TN panel, but the XB280 is quite noticeably showing more accurate colors. One thing I should mention is that the screen, when looked at from up above it (off angle), has a lot of non-uniformity to it... you can see a lot of lighter and darker areas. When I sit directly in front of it I can barely see any of that. I checked by looking at some grey, blue, and tan screens and it's very hard to notice. Not something I'd bother returning it for. Not even really worth mentioning except as an FYI to everyone that you probably aren't going to get a perfectly uniform screen.

I really wasn't prepared for just how nice 3840x2160 was going to look in-person. I've gamed at 1440p for a couple years so I was already spoiled, but 4k just blows it away. I thought the 28" screen might be too small for 4k, but it really isn't, at least not for me. I bumped the scaling in Windows 7 to 125% and it looks excellent. Web browsing at 150% looks perfect and crystal clear. I don't really think I want to go back to anything lower res now.

Losing out on 144Hz from my XB270 that I've been using for the past month is a bit of an adjustment. I really like the smoothness you can only get when you're running 120Hz+, especially when moving the mouse around. But if I have to choose between 1080p@144Hz or 3840p@60Hz, it's going to be 3840p everytime. Both monitors have a mild AG coating on them. I consider it mild as it doesn't add any glow, shimmer, or blurriness to the pixels. Since it's pretty much impossible to find a gaming monitor with a glossy screen, this is probably as mild as I can hope for.

I think I'm going to setup the XB270 on my spare computer and use it to play side scrollers and pinball (in portrait). I'm outside my return window so its not going back, but honestly I like it enough to keep them both. They both have their strong points.

Oh, just as an aside, I was getting around 100fps with v-sync turned off in Diablo3 with the in-game settings all on high. No additional AA was turned on (didn't need it at this res). That's with 2 GTX980s in SLI. Doubtful that 1 GTX970/980 would be enough to get 60fps every often in any game on this screen. I'll know more as I try out some other games, but I'm not much of an FPS player anymore so I don't have any of those to try out.
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One 980 is enough on my system. Diablo3 hates my triple-SLI setup, so I have to force it down to no SLI in its profile. I see no noticeable slowdown on max settings at 4k, though that just might be gsync shining. I do get the annoying flickering on loading screens though.

Is there a way to force games to use 2-way SLI with a 3-way setup? Or Just SLI on and SLI off? Is there a way to set no SLI at the desktop but force SLI in the game profiles?
 
Okay I bit and picked one up since newegg knocked $50 off.

It does look cool and I gotta say 4K monitors are definitely the new standard. 5 years from now people won't be able to imagine going back to 1080p.

However, I am having a terrible time getting g-sync working. Every time I enable it I get crashes in games. Are there any tricks that I'm not aware of? I did try turning Aero off in windows 7.

Also, whats the best way to do scaling for 4K in windows 7? The 150% sucks and just makes everything look blurry


Edit: never mind, the g-sync crashing was due to a known bug with the Oculus Rift :)
 
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Whoa, just played vanishing of ethan carter and couldn't tell the difference between 30-60 fps at 2160p with g-sync, vs the 60 fps locked at 1080p before.
I can definitely see the value in gsync with a 4K display where with todays graphics cards you are going to have a difficult time hitting 60 fps.
 
hidden2u said:
Whoa, just played vanishing of ethan carter and couldn't tell the difference between 30-60 fps at 2160p with g-sync, vs the 60 fps locked at 1080p before.
I can definitely see the value in gsync with a 4K display where with todays graphics cards you are going to have a difficult time hitting 60 fps.
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This is my thought process as well. I think SLI 970s might not shoot through the noise ceiling of past generations, but I would rather try one card for now. My 780 Ti WF3 is reasonably quiet but we'll see how things shake out.

Mine gets here tonight and the fiancé works her late shift today, so I'll get some time to stretch my legs with the monitor.
 
phillyboy said:
This is my thought process as well. I think SLI 970s might not shoot through the noise ceiling of past generations, but I would rather try one card for now. My 780 Ti WF3 is reasonably quiet but we'll see how things shake out.

Mine gets here tonight and the fiancé works her late shift today, so I'll get some time to stretch my legs with the monitor.
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And this is with a GTX 670 and all settings high except for no AA (not really as important at 4K).
 
Okay I have an issue with the scaling from 1080p on this monitor. At 1080p it looks like the GPU is doing the scaling and its doing some kind of bilinear gross scaling that just makes everything look blurry. The whole point of having 2160p is so you can just pixel double from 1080p.
Anyone else find a solution to this?
 
You can turn off aspect scaling options in the Nvidia Control panel as a start, but I'm not sure what to do on the monitor side. It might just do it automatically after that, but I can't seem to find a manual online.
 
phillyboy said:
You can turn off aspect scaling options in the Nvidia Control panel as a start, but I'm not sure what to do on the monitor side. It might just do it automatically after that, but I can't seem to find a manual online.
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Yeah I tried switching to no aspect ratio scaling but then it just put a small 1080p window in the middle of the screen lol. The monitor does not seem to be able to scale input resolutions at all. I'm not sure if this is an issue with dispayport or the gsync scaler.
 
hidden2u said:
Yeah I tried switching to no aspect ratio scaling but then it just put a small 1080p window in the middle of the screen lol. The monitor does not seem to be able to scale input resolutions at all. I'm not sure if this is an issue with dispayport or the gsync scaler.
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Why did you switch to 1080p with this monitor? Are you trying to see if it does > 60 Hz or something?
 
Runt. said:
Why did you switch to 1080p with this monitor? Are you trying to see if it does > 60 Hz or something?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately it doesn't do >60hz @ 1080p. It doesn't even allow you to set custom resolutions/refresh rates at all in nvidia control panel. I have a suspicion it has something to do with their implementation of gsync.


A lot of games simply don't support or perform well with resolutions >1080p, so it would be nice to have it switch to 1080p without the unnecessary scaling-induced blur.
 
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