Alienware AW3418DW 34" Ultrawide

Skott said:
What do you think guys is this the best we are going to see for a while as far as 1440p goes?
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As far as 120Hz+ 1440p ultrawide IPS gsync displays go, yes. Probably until around this time next year anyhow. Acer's X34P is supposed to come out next month, and I assume Asus's variant sometime soon after. Given those two manufacturers poor QC, I'd get the AW3418DW now and be done with it.
 
Yeah I was waiting on that X35(or whatever its called) that had 3440x1440, hdr, 200Hz. Last I heard though it got pushed back to Q2 2018. Now I'm thinking screw it and get me a Christmas gift for myself now. lol
 
Archaea said:
I think you can get this monitor for $788 at this point if you jump a few hoops.

https://hardforum.com/threads/alienware-aw3418dw-ultrawide-monitor-500-off.1947386/#post-1043312386


That was low enough I bit.
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I wish I saw that, I paid 999$ and I have a discover card.

Oh well, after this TFT review I am quite happy with my purchase. I am super glad my X34 was still within the 30 day period for amazon. I sent it back yesterday when my AW came in.

I knew the gamma was off though, looked so dark and washed out. Can't wait to go home and calibrate it.
 
Unboxed and played BF1 on it last night. The Fast and Super Fast response time introduced artifact and tearing. Best to keep it on normal and set refresh rate to 120 Hz. FPS mode makes the color super saturated like Samsung phone OLED screen and increases the dark stabilizer option (make the contrast higher so it's easier to spot enemies in dark background).
 
A few things caught my eye. The measured contrast ratio was slightly lower than all of the TN panels. :eek: The 20 Hz bump to 120 from 100 in "normal" overdrive mode [the mode you would actually use] didn't seem to do much on the pursuit camera test, and max brightness is the lowest I've seen on a monitor in a long time (255 cd/m2).

Given all that though, I would go for this monitor if I were looking for a 21:9.
 
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I'm getting mine tomorrow. Can anyone share what are the best settings for this screen? Both speed and performance settings and color settings. Appreciate it.
 
Savoy said:
I'm getting mine tomorrow. Can anyone share what are the best settings for this screen? Both speed and performance settings and color settings. Appreciate it.
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I'm using the same OSD settings and ICC profile used in TFT's review. The only difference is I bumped the brightness to 85%. I don't own a display calibrator, but colors are much better using their settings than the default settings. Good enough for me.

Mine came in today. I love it. Not much else to say about G-Sync other than what people all over say about it. Here's a picture of my BLB. It's almost perfect. Just a little BLB in the left and bottom corner where I circled red. I'll be keeping this unit!
 

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Phlorge said:
I wish I saw that, I paid 999$ and I have a discover card.

Oh well, after this TFT review I am quite happy with my purchase. I am super glad my X34 was still within the 30 day period for amazon. I sent it back yesterday when my AW came in.

I knew the gamma was off though, looked so dark and washed out. Can't wait to go home and calibrate it.
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hv43082 said:
Unboxed and played BF1 on it last night. The Fast and Super Fast response time introduced artifact and tearing. Best to keep it on normal and set refresh rate to 120 Hz. FPS mode makes the color super saturated like Samsung phone OLED screen and increases the dark stabilizer option (make the contrast higher so it's easier to spot enemies in dark background).
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Yes, the TFT review suggested skipping the Fast and Super Fast modes, and just sticking to the Normal mode when paired with G-Sync, regardless of whether the refresh rate was 100 or 120Hz.

Ordered mine yesterday at the $999 discount, and am looking forward to it (will be replacing my 42" 4K TV, which will become my backup).

I'll probably get the i1 Display Pro to calibrate it at some point down the road (will replace my aged i1 Display 2).
 
doco said:
I'm using the same OSD settings and ICC profile used in TFT's review. The only difference is I bumped the brightness to 85%. I don't own a display calibrator, but colors are much better using their settings than the default settings. Good enough for me.

Mine came in today. I love it. Not much else to say about G-Sync other than what people all over say about it. Here's a picture of my BLB. It's almost perfect. Just a little BLB in the left and bottom corner where I circled red. I'll be keeping this unit!
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Thanks. Yes that's probably the profile I'll use too.
 
tungt88 said:
Yes, the TFT review suggested skipping the Fast and Super Fast modes, and just sticking to the Normal mode when paired with G-Sync, regardless of whether the refresh rate was 100 or 120Hz.

Ordered mine yesterday at the $999 discount, and am looking forward to it (will be replacing my 42" 4K TV, which will become my backup).

I'll probably get the i1 Display Pro to calibrate it at some point down the road (will replace my aged i1 Display 2).
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That's the same for me. This is going to replace my 40"Samsung 4k TV which I've been enjoying for the last year. Hope I don't regret the change in real estate and res.
 
Got mine yesterday! I'm using 120Hz and normal mode, seems to run well. I turned the bightness back up a little from the TFT central setting but still ended up lower than stock.

Some games still max out at 60Hz even with v-sync off, but I haven't looked for config file fixes yet. For the games that did support 120Hz it's definately more fluid.

Happy with it so far, just need to clean off and rearrange my deak and see if I can get two older monitors to fit with this beast in the middle. :)
 
The only thing I'm really still skeptical about is the curve but the discussion in here along with the TFT write up has raised my overall interest.
 
Q-BZ said:
The only thing I'm really still skeptical about is the curve but the discussion in here along with the TFT write up has raised my overall interest.
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the curve is not overwhelming at all, it is a very nice improvement over the X34. I did not think I would care but.. its better.

Also this thing takes up a LOT less space than the X34
 
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Yeah mine should be here by the 14th. I was able to get it for the sale price yesterday. So now I just need to find a buyer for my Dell U3415w.. Anyone in the DC/Baltimore area want a killer Deal let me know.
 
Well I got them to give me another 70.00 off for the aggrevation. I had originally ordered on my amex but they fucked that order up some how so I had to reorder it and used my discover card. Not realizing until I read here you get 5%back for that so 1086 was the original total including tax. Now 1016.00 minutes the discover cash back so not bad.
 
Anyone getting a warm hue on the right half of the screen when compared to the left? I just got a replacement from tech support and still seeing the same problem I had with the first one, albeit this panel has slightly less BLB.

For those who have the monitor, take a light gray/white window, size it to about 50% of the monitor width (100% height) and slowly drag it between the left and right side of the screen while paying attention to the hue of the color; does it change at all from left to right?
 
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jdempsey said:
I do much of my gaming on a 65" Samsung KS8000 @ 4k 60hz, but I wanted to have a more immersive setup for FPS's on my desk.

The KS8000 is in the other room, necessitates wireless keyboard and mouse, or controller. Great for most games, and while Destiny 2 looks great at 4k with HDR, there's definitely a lack of frame smoothnesss when doing competitive play.

Even with my current 27" 1440p clocked at 105hz (QNIX QX2710 from a few years ago), I can see a huge difference in high speed FPS gaming with lots of turns etc. So that's the main reason I opted for the AW display. Wanting something reasonably high refresh, that's responsive, and immersive for the types of games that really benefit from that, but unwilling to go back from IPS after switching. I've become pretty sensitive to viewing angle discrepancy, and cannot handle any lack of text clarity.


I'll still probably do much of my gaming in the other room on the bigger screen, although in fairness, size is very relative to distance.
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Have you picked up a replacement for the QX2710 yet? I have what is basically the same monitor Catleap 2b Extreme, and I want something more modern without giving up the resolution. Cant decide between a 16:9 and 21:9, seems like it's easier to find good 16:9 monitors so I may end up with that.
 
Jeff G said:
Have you picked up a replacement for the QX2710 yet? I have what is basically the same monitor Catleap 2b Extreme, and I want something more modern without giving up the resolution. Cant decide between a 16:9 and 21:9, seems like it's easier to find good 16:9 monitors so I may end up with that.
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Yeah, I got the AW3418DW in a few days ago, from the sale.

I'm really loving it personally. OC'd to 120hz no problem, with g-sync, it's definitely much smoother. Still using the QX2710 in portrait orientation now, beside it, but at the sale price, I'm very happy with the Alienware. It's an incredibly refined product overall, hell, the stand is such a work of art I feel guilty mounting to a VESA arm, it's solid metal and looks like it was designed by an Italian super car builder.



If you're interested in going 21:9, I'd say it's a good choice if you can get one close to $1000, although if you're feeling the itch for more raw screen real estate, it probably wont "feel" as big as going to a 16:9 in the same diagonal size class. It's essentially the same veritcal screen height as the 27" QNIX, but, 1/3 again wider. I'm guessing a 34" 16:9 will sort of look/feel huge in comparison.. It's kind of strange to me switching to the ultra-wide, it "feels" large, but not as much larger as I was expecting. I'll definitely be in the market for a bigger one when the specs catch up. I can't wait to see 4k Ultrawide high refresh rate monitors in the 38-40" range.

I'm really enjoying the immersion factor, honestly, much better than the 4k 65" TV, for any first person view game, especially with the added smoothness. Screen tearing isn't such an issue with the Samsung TV, but the frame-skipping or whatever it is when turning fast, is insanely apparent now.


On the other hand, in portrait mode, which is really nice for web browsing, word processing, etc, I wouldn't want anything bigger than the 27" QNIX 16:9, it seems like the perfect size to me. Anything larger and it would be difficult for me, to see at the far top or bottom, with the current font/UI size, which is the default, Windows 10, 100% setting, i.e. not scaled larger. I'm kind of a sucker for consistency display switching also, I don't like shit to be larger on one monitor than the next when they're sitting together.
 
Just got another email from Dell. Apparently this is delayed again? Was supposed to ship 13-14. Email this morning says Nov 16-20 now. This makes the third time they've delayed it. Wtf I've never seen this happen with Dell in the past. What is going on?
 
Savoy said:
Just got another email from Dell. Apparently this is delayed again? Was supposed to ship 13-14. Email this morning says Nov 16-20 now. This makes the third time they've delayed it. Wtf I've never seen this happen with Dell in the past. What is going on?
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I think they had way more orders than they anticipated on this and maybe there's some supply chain issues because of the upcoming holiday?

I jumped on it the day they dropped the price, think that's the only way I got one without a delay. It's frustrating to wait on such a big investment, but I'm of the opinion that it's worth it.
 
jdempsey said:
I think they had way more orders than they anticipated on this and maybe there's some supply chain issues because of the upcoming holiday?

I jumped on it the day they dropped the price, think that's the only way I got one without a delay. It's frustrating to wait on such a big investment, but I'm of the opinion that it's worth it.
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It's not the end of the world since I actually like the 4k screen in using but just annoying.
 
Savoy said:
It's not the end of the world since I actually like the 4k screen in using but just annoying.
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No doubt. Dealing with the same thing waiting on a core i7-8700k and mb I ordered from newegg, on one of the short spells of the processors actually being "in-stock". Ordered it last week, didn't get shipping notification until today, and now it's slow-poking it's way across the country, of course, now scheduled to be delivered while I'm out of town, and the Fedex guy will just leave it outside. Gonna have to try and reschedule delivery or have a friend swing by and put it in my house. =\
 
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Dell probably got hammered with that sales and has to reorder more of them and hence the delay. It sucks but what are you going to do? Once you get it you'll be in visual love.
 
Two questions:

This alienware has a built in overclock functrion:

1) does overclocking the monitor decrease lifespan? (apply extra voltage, heat etc?)
2) I tried it through the menus and it only gives me the option for 105Hz. Does it automatically determine the upper limit of what it can do? I know 120Hz isn't guaranteed, but it seemed weird to see 105Hz open up instead of 120hz after I turned on overclocking?

upload_2017-11-18_12-36-15.png
 
Archaea said:
Two questions:

This alienware has a built in overclock functrion:

1) does overclocking the monitor decrease lifespan? (apply extra voltage, heat etc?)
2) I tried it through the menus and it only gives me the option for 105Hz. Does it automatically determine the upper limit of what it can do? I know 120Hz isn't guaranteed, but it seemed weird to see 105Hz open up instead of 120hz after I turned on overclocking?
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Don't know about the first question, but here's what I did (to answer your 2nd question):

  1. I first set the overclock in the internal Alienware monitor menu
  2. Did the refresh rate change through NVIDIA control panel in the left-hand menu :Display --> Change Resolution --> Refresh Rate
Came up with 120hz with no issues. Hope that helps!
 
tungt88 said:
Don't know about the first question, but here's what I did (to answer your 2nd question):

  1. I first set the overclock in the internal Alienware monitor menu
  2. Did the refresh rate change through NVIDIA control panel in the left-hand menu :Display --> Change Resolution --> Refresh Rate
Came up with 120hz with no issues. Hope that helps!
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That’s what i did too. I think

Before i did that I only saw 100hz as an option

I went through the monitor menu and enabled overclocking
The monitor rebooted with the Alienware head logo and turned back on asking me to input the language preference for the monitor GUI.

At which point my Nvidia control panel option was 105hz top instead of 100hz.

Maybe it does some sort of testing to tell to what frequency it is stable and caps it there?
 
Archaea said:
That’s what i did too. I think

Before i did that I only saw 100hz as an option

I went through the monitor menu and enabled overclocking
The monitor rebooted with the Alienware head logo and turned back on asking me to input the language preference for the monitor GUI.

At which point my Nvidia control panel option was 105hz top instead of 100hz.

Maybe it does some sort of testing to tell to what frequency it is stable and caps it there?
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Don't want to sound like a hard-ass, but when you enabled overclocking, did you also set the overclock refresh rate to 120hz in the monitor menu?
 
Archaea said:
That worked.

Try this test and see if it looks smooth?

https://www.testufo.com/stutter

It's not smooth on mine with 100 or 120Hz.

I'm using Chrome.
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It worked fine for me; the various settings performed exactly as expected (I'm using Chrome as well) on both 100 and 120Hz.
Make sure you don't have any other tabs open besides that test one (as per their instructions) and that you have Chrome with GPU acceleration enabled.
 
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