Acer B326HK - 4k 32" monitor sub 1k euro

I didn't have that problem with the B326HK I just returned, nor do I with the BenQ BL3201PH I just received.

I posted a little comparo for the two monitors in the BL3201PT(H) thread for anyone who's interested.
 
I have been thinking about this more and have decided that even a 32" would not be big enough due to the smallish dot pitch.. I would have to have 36-40" to be comfortable, but I don't have the desk space for that.. Looks like I am just going to settle for another U2412M to match my current one. I will revisit my decision in a few more years as the technology still needs to mature in the cycle of things.
 
GoldenTiger said:
I wouldn't worry about it. It seems to be a normal thing for 4K from what I've read (and seen) on the 3 panels I've owned/tried. The UP2414Q did it, though it was MST. The Acer 28" TN one did it (SST) when I had it for about a week, and now my B326HK does too still (the UP2414Q was with two different video cards as well, a gtx 780 before changing to 970 sli). I've read mentions of it over time, too. I'm seeing it maybe at most once or twice a day but sometimes none, on my B326HK, not concerned whatsoever :).
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Thanks for the reply GoldenTiger! You guys have assured me that the flicker is normal within the 4k realm at this point in time. It seems like maybe an early adopter bug? Oh well, not complaining at all, since you, me, and Tordogs all have it
 
dukenuke88 said:
Thanks for the reply GoldenTiger! You guys have assured me that the flicker is normal within the 4k realm at this point in time. It seems like maybe an early adopter bug? Oh well, not complaining at all, since you, me, and Tordogs all have it
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No problem :), and yeah, I don't know what causes it specifically but it's something I've seen (and heard of) on a lot of 4k monitors. My guess is it may partially (or entirely) be related to GPU memory clocks being switched or GPU power states, since going into Afterburner for example and changing my memory clocks will cause the exact same instant flicker/corruption to happen on-demand (this happened with my UP2414Q as well).
 
dukenuke88 said:
I was referring to the black bars. And not to mention, the LG costs $400 more and 1 inch smaller than the Acer. That made it an easy choice for me. I'm sure the LG is a fine and dandy monitor....I just wouldn't want to run one.
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If your games have black bars, just flawless widescreen mod, it works wonders.

Currently playing Evil Within @ 4960x2160 on my LG no black bars in any scenes or gameplay. The real estate is breath taking!
 
shadow85 said:
If your games have black bars, just flawless widescreen mod, it works wonders.

Currently playing Evil Within @ 4960x2160 on my LG no black bars in any scenes or gameplay. The real estate is breath taking!
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I think you're missing the point completely.

My point was, why pay $400 extra to buy the LG, and get one inch less monitor, and compatibility issues due to the 17:9 aspect ratio? Sure you can mod it, but that doesn't guarantee it will always work. Theres a chance the game engine will not respond well to the mod, and the HUD or display will become FUBAR. And at the same time, alot of folks (including me) want something that "works" and want to save money at the same time. The Acer B326HK is very hard to beat, especially at the Black Friday price I got it at. Not to mention I've seen the Acer go back down to near Black Friday pricing once already, whereas the LG I've never seen it budge from the $1400 price point.

I'm not saying the LG is a bad monitor. I'm just saying, why bother with the LG, when you can get more for less.
 
Also flawless widescreen mod is great if you only play single player games and only happen to play games that have working widescreen mods.
 
And, of course, the anti-cheat detection of an online game doesn't decide to randomly ban your account for using a "hack".
 
Two posters above, completly wrong. I play starcraft 2 on my LG with the flawless widescreen mod for the past 2.5 months and have not had a single ban or warning (bnet issues warnings before taking action) and I am a high level Masters League player on the Korean and North American servers. :)
 
dukenuke88 said:
I think you're missing the point completely.

My point was, why pay $400 extra to buy the LG, and get one inch less monitor, and compatibility issues due to the 17:9 aspect ratio? Sure you can mod it, but that doesn't guarantee it will always work. Theres a chance the game engine will not respond well to the mod, and the HUD or display will become FUBAR. And at the same time, alot of folks (including me) want something that "works" and want to save money at the same time. The Acer B326HK is very hard to beat, especially at the Black Friday price I got it at. Not to mention I've seen the Acer go back down to near Black Friday pricing once already, whereas the LG I've never seen it budge from the $1400 price point.

I'm not saying the LG is a bad monitor. I'm just saying, why bother with the LG, when you can get more for less.
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Well no doubt there is nothing wrong with the acer. But you are certainly not getting more for less, the LG has more moar pixels. Also what is the panel type of the acer, is it the same as the LG or different becuase the LG's is nothing short of superb. And then theres response time, not sure which one wins here but the LG 5ms is fast enough for any fast paced gaming.

Im not dissing the acer at all, I would actually like to see one myself but here in Australia they are not available yet.
 
shadow85 said:
Two posters above, completly wrong. I play starcraft 2 on my LG with the flawless widescreen mod for the past 2.5 months and have not had a single ban or warning (bnet issues warnings before taking action) and I am a high level Masters League player on the Korean and North American servers. :)
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Many games do detect game-altering hacks like that and will ban automatically. I don't know if Starcraft 2 does specifically, but they may very well (and your use of it without yet being caught wouldn't mean anything as to that, whatsoever).
 
GoldenTiger said:
Many games do detect game-altering hacks like that and will ban automatically. I don't know if Starcraft 2 does specifically, but they may very well (and your use of it without yet being caught wouldn't mean anything as to that, whatsoever).
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Considering I am very highly active in the ladder and do win alot, there is no ban or warning on me since I got the LG. And I highly doubt I will get banned. Other people have also used flawless widescreen in SC2 and have not been banned. I cant speak for other games, but you certainly cannot rule out flawless widescreen to get you banned for EVERY game. As a matter of fact do you even know of any instances people getting banned for flawless widescreen mod or is this just your speculation?
 
shadow85 said:
Considering I am very highly active in the ladder and do win alot, there is no ban or warning on me since I got the LG. And I highly doubt I will get banned. Other people have also used flawless widescreen in SC2 and have not been banned. I cant speak for other games, but you certainly cannot rule out flawless widescreen to get you banned for EVERY game. As a matter of fact do you even know of any instances people getting banned for flawless widescreen mod or is this just your speculation?
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Many games ban with their anticheat detections automatically... I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to be the trailblazer discovering they do it on a given game :p.
 
Damn, it's been awhile since anybody posted here.

Hows everybody's Acer holding up? Mine has been great. I still get the random flicker every once in awhile, but it doesn't bother me nearly as much as before....since others have reported experiencing it as well. I'm just coughing it up as a normal thing with 4k for now.

Hows that GTX 970 fiasco? I'm sure most of us are running dual 970s in SLI to support the massive 4k resolution we have to push. I hope NV does something because they are in a pretty bad situation right now.
 
I only get the flicker when I play cs:go in fullscren 2560.. sometimes ..
 
NCX wrote me about this monitor, since I'm coming from surround dell 30" debating between this monitor and the 34" 21:9 how do you guys like it just wish it was bigger.
 
Still loving the Acer. Get the flash once in a while but so far nothing else has happened. Guess it is part of 4K as someone mentioned, GoldenTiger I think. Think he ended up returning his Acer due to the GTX 970 business. Thought it was his monitor not working then found out about the memory problems with the 970--so now he doesn't have the Acer that he got the good deal on as several of us did--pretty bad mess all around with Nvidia. Glad I didn't jump on the 970/980 bandwagon so far. Neither card seemed like the right one. 780 is still doing what I need. Will see what the next generation holds. After all this with Nvidia makes me consider going with the other company

Liked 4K so much that I went out and bought a Sony Bravia 4K TV! Did get the Dell U3011 set up next to the Acer--the 4K Acer sure makes that look grainy and blurry by comparison. W7 doesn't scale well between them. Have been tech testing W10 and it is a much better fit. Pretty sure I prefer this format to the 21:9 but then I don't game. It might have its benefits for that. Anything larger than 32" might just be a bit much for up-close monitor work. Pretty glad I don't have to spend a lot more time researching panels and Tvs! Just graphics power and content ( and faster internet). :)
 
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Update: Still love my monitor. The random blinking-after-waking issue was resolved when I upgraded my video card (GTX 980), so it appears it was just a problem with my HD7870; probably had trouble pushing the 4K@60Hz
 
Yeah, I have an idea the GTX 780 probably struggles with 4K @60 too. Glad to know your blinking was resolved by the GTX 980. Still get it once in a while mostly when clocks are resetting after switching programs or content. Still waiting for the next round of GPUs from red or green before purchasing a new card.
 
What DP cable did you guys go with for this monitor? I hear the one that comes in the box doesn't support 60hz?
 
I went with the Accell displayport cables on Amazon, since they are correctly wired (pin 20 is disconnected) unlike many other manufacturers. (You could also manually disconnect the pin if you are handy and very careful.)

The Accell DP-to-miniDP greatly reduced the amount of "blinking" I had with my HD7870 (which didn't have a full-sized DP connector), and with the regular Accell cable and my new GTX980, I haven't had a single issue yet.
 
Same here. Got the Accell 1.2 DP cable. Ordered it when I ordered the monitor from Newegg and paid w-a-y-y more than I would have by ordering from Amazon.
 
Hey guys!!! I was able to score one of these at Micro Center for about $700 after tax. Any ideas what I should be looking for / what revision number is best or what the most optimal settings are on it? Went through the 9 pages of threads and didnt see anything. I read this was better than the Dell 32", Benq 32" and I chose it over the LG 21:9 since it had more vertical. When I put them side by side the 34" 3440 x 1440 just seemed small compared to my old Dell U3014
 
dpoverlord said:
Hey guys!!! I was able to score one of these at Micro Center for about $700 after tax. Any ideas what I should be looking for / what revision number is best or what the most optimal settings are on it? Went through the 9 pages of threads and didnt see anything. I read this was better than the Dell 32", Benq 32" and I chose it over the LG 21:9 since it had more vertical. When I put them side by side the 34" 3440 x 1440 just seemed small compared to my old Dell U3014
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Seems like a great deal. How did you manage that (getting it for that price)?
 
I just picked this up from Microcenter the other day. First thing I noticed was the input lag. It feels like V-Sync is on 24/7, and nothing I have done can fix it. It overclocks up to 78 Hz, but you get frame skipping at anything above 60 Hz making it pointless. The 6 ms response time must be GtG or something... definitely not a good representation. I thought maybe it was my configuration causing lag somehow, but I disabled SLI, reinstalled drivers a number of times, tried different ports, resolutions, etc. Once I hooked up my old monitor, it was immediately evident this monitor is just slow...

It looks beautiful, but is bad for any kind of competitive gamers. It is aggravating playing Evolve because of the lag. It didn't seem too bad in BF4 or CS:GO, but it's definitely there.

My monitor also has dirt in the display in two spots. I can only see it on white backgrounds, but it is there much like the new 144 Hz G-Sync IPS variant they are selling. Seems like a QC production issue not isolation to any one kind of display.

I duplicated my two IPS displays (this one, and a Yamakasi Catleap) both running at 60 Hz. I don't think any additional latency should come from this, so I ran Blur Busters tests and it is obvious this monitor is running behind - at least to me. Everything felt 10x faster on the Catleap, again both at 60 Hz. My Catleap goes up to 119 Hz, but that's irrelevant here. Both screens were running 2560x1440, and I tried messing with OSD options on the Acer as well as 1:1 pixel mapping but the results were the same. You can see it falling way behind in the white/black box test, and with the UFOs (use task bar as reference point).

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This monitor is beautiful to game on. I tried Acer's 28" G-Sync 4K model and it was good for gaming, but TN is pitiful. I thought this might be okay without G-Sync, but tearing is rough, and the input lag is TERRIBLE. 32" is a great sweet spot for 4K though, which gives me pause when thinking of considering ASUS's 4K 27" G-Sync IPS offering... hopefully that one is good, but 27" might be a waste.
 
Hmm..it looks like there are deviating input lag measurements for the Acer B326HK
=DEAD= measures 18.8ms with DisplayPort connection. HW.info registered input lag of 2 frames at least (32ms+)

It also has a fixed overdrive that cannot be lowered and causes some overshoot (max. 15%), this is not as bad as on some other Acer monitors.
Also of note - both reviewers measured a maximum deltaE of 15-16 (!), for the color Cyan it seems. =DEAD= could not bring that value down, even after calibration.
All the other colors seem fine with lower deltaE, a curious behaviour
 
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Well I'm not sure what to make of it. I didn't notice any such input lag like this on the 4K 28" G-Sync model. My Catleap is nothing like this either. I tried a different cable as well, and result was the same. Oddly enough, the input lag seems slightly less when running safe mode... but it's still there. I think it's either the panel or Acer's fault. I might return it and try out the BenQ instead.
 
The XB280HK is a TN and has G-sync, it has an input lag around only 6ms.
The Yamakasi Catleap appears to be a single input monitor, must also have a very low input lag, maybe even lower.
Looks like you'll be more satisfied with the BenQ, hw.info measured below one frame and prad.de more precisely 7ms, excellent results for a panel this size.
Regarding pixel transitions, the BenQ has 25% max. overshoot on AMA High and 59% max. overshoot on AMA Premium. You'll have to set it to AMA Off to get rid of overdrive artifacts, but then the pixel response times are a bit slower than on the Acer.
 
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igluk said:
The XB280HK is a TN and has G-sync, it has an input lag around only 6ms.
The Yamakasi Catleap appears to be a single input monitor, must also have a very low input lag, maybe even lower.
Looks like you'll be more satisfied with the BenQ, hw.info measured below one frame and prad.de more precisely 7ms, excellent results for a panel this size.
Regarding pixel transitions, the BenQ has 25% max. overshoot on AMA High and 59% max. overshoot on AMA Premium. You'll have to set it to AMA Off to get rid of overdrive artifacts, but then the pixel response times are a bit slower than on the Acer.
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Is that on the BL3201PT or BL3201PH? Apparently the PT is a AHVA panel and the PH is an IPS panel (not that they're much different, but I figured worth noting). I can grab the PH on Amazon right now... PT seems to be almost a Euro version?
 
BL3201PT and BL3201PH should be exactly the same monitor, PT is indeed the Euro version, PH is the one for NA.
Maybe this was done to prevent confusion with the BL3200PT.
According to the tftcentral db the BenQ and the Acer both use the same AUO AHVA Panel (M320QAN01.0).
How the monitor manufacturers set up the panel electronics and their firmware can make quite a difference.
 
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I'm enjoying my Acer B326HK so far. I don't get the flashes of light on wakeup. I am using the Accell DP cable (that helped resolve issues with my UP2414Q). I do (very rarely) get a graphical glitch that usually happens in the right part of the screen. It lasts for 1 frame (possibly less) and it doesn't bother me. Maybe happens twice a week.

Other than that, I may get two more for a surround setup for Skyrim or some older games.
 
i have a 32inch Ben Q ips 4k going to change it as it got problems
flashing glitch down the screen maybe twice a day really annoying

thaink of getting this as a replace ment
 
I'm still enjoying my Acer. Like the rest of the people, I get the weird glitch down one part of the screen or the other for a split second but I really don't notice it anymore as it rarely happens. For the price it couldn't be beat at the time.
 
clayton006 said:
I'm still enjoying my Acer. Like the rest of the people, I get the weird glitch down one part of the screen or the other for a split second but I really don't notice it anymore as it rarely happens. For the price it couldn't be beat at the time.
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Same here. I still get the glitch once in awhile. I don't mind though. It was only startling at first because it was doing it when it was brand new
 
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