FV43U or QN90A / QN90B?

[Roen]

If you've used a QN90A or QN90B and the FV43U, how do they compare?
My use case:

1. Lots of PC gaming (no consoles)
2. Lots of reading and writing
3. Some movie watching
4. Some photo and video editing

The 50" QN90A is priced about the same as an FV43U. This year's QN90B 43" or 50" is another option though. Unlike the 2021 43" model it supports 144Hz on PC and VRR. It's priced much higher so the question arises whether it is that much better, to make the extra worth spending.

The following aspects to a monitor are more important to me than they may be to others:

• No brightness flicker in VRR (g-sync).
  No brightness flicker in HDR.
  No brightness flicker in VRR + HDR combined.
  I found one user's post claiming QN90A has HDR flicker.
• Text clarity.
• No perceptible mouse input lag increase compared to my 27" IPS gaming monitor, because I hate that feeling. Reviews say FV43U has 5.5ms MORE lag than QN90A at max refresh and 11ms MORE than QN90A at 60Hz. I only care if there is an appreciable difference above 75 fps still, because I don't play below 75 anyway.
• Ability to QUICKLY, temporarily switch to a less saturated natural look that's "close enough" for non professional hobbyist photo editing/viewing in applications that are not ICC-profile aware. I could use ICC aware applications only for photos but that would require purchasing a colorimeter to create the ICC profiles with. So I always just eyeball the color settings in the OSD. With my current monitor, a PG279Q, one setting fits all as it's an sRGB motitor so I don't have to adjust each color individually every time I switch between gaming and photo editing. I don't want to start now!I've read that the QN90A does not have an sRGB mode. I'm not sure if QN90B would have one either, probably not being a TV, but if you can get it looking natural QUICKLY in some other way that's fine too.
• Deep blacks across the entire panel. Coming from IPS, I want good blacks. It won't feel like much of an upgrade if the local dimming sucks and the panel itself can't keep the backlight from shining through turning black into grey. That's where I think the QN90 might have the advantage because better local dimming (I think). Its FALD in game mode performs worse than it does outside of game mode though according to RTINGS' reviews. In game mode, blacks are raised toward grey, the dimming zones are larger, and they respond slower. But is it still better than FV43U's dimming? I may well be, I have no idea.

Other concerns:

• One user reported burn-in issues on the QN90A. I've read no reports of burn-in on the FV43U.
• The QN90A in game mode without VRR enabled, e.g. when playing a game that requires 60Hz v-sync, goes from 960Hz PWM backlight strobing to 120Hz which could then cause double images in those games. Can anyone confirm this? Can it be fixed with an OSD setting?
• No distracting ABL during desktop usage/gaming.
• QN90A doesn't allow chroma 4:4:4 at 1440p 120Hz, which would of course affect text in games not running in 4k. Does that apply to custom UW resolutions too though? 3440x1440, 3840x1440 and 3840x1600. FV43U does not have this issue because it's a monitor.
• Using a TV as a monitor. Practical issues? Lots of little things probably?
• Ghosting/smearing, but I believe QN90A and FV43U are very similar in that regard.Are they really though?
• FV43U 's contrast in the corners is 1000:1 - 1200:1. That's IPS level numbers.It gets yellow and darker toward the corners. Does the QN90A / QN90B do much better?
• FV43U: Enabling local dimming locks you out of brightness control.
• FV43U: Slow signal switching e.g. when alt-tabbing in and out of games. I do a lot of that. Fixed in firmware by now? <-- It's fast enough that I don't really mind.

Pricing in my part of the world (updated May 1st 2022):
43" FV43U €999
50" QN90A €950
43" QN90B: €1350
50" QN90B: €1500

 

[realworld]

My FV43U had major ghosting. Games like Diablo and Path of Exile are the worst on that display because of moving texts on loots. Samsung should be similar to this.

 

[SoCali]

I would take the QN90B all day. The premium for FALD is worth it.

I still dunno what flicker people are referring to with OLED. I never see it in actual gameplay, it's reserved to loading screens and menus like every other LCD based VRR monitor on the planet.

 

[Roen]

My FV43U had major ghosting. Games like Diablo and Path of Exile are the worst on that display because of moving texts on loots. Samsung should be similar to this.

What Hz did you have it running at? From what I've gathered there's a couple of things you can do to improve its pixel response, within limits of course. First, the panel needs to be as warm as it can get, so should be used at the highest brightness setting that's comfortable. Its pixel response is best between 85 and 120 Hz, worse above and below, and you have to pick a different overdrive setting for each. I don't know which Diablo you're referring to, but if we're talking D1 or D2 I wouldn't expect those to run above 60 fps? PoE can be hard to run too due to all the effects + multiplayer + how the engine performs. The FV43U's pixel response is bad at 60Hz no matter what OD setting it's on, not unlike every other VA that isn't an overshooty Odyssey (that can't g-sync without flicker/stutter). So if you were running g-synced without getting say, 80 or more fps I'm not surprised at the result.

I still dunno what flicker people are referring to with OLED.

Off-topic to this thread but for more info, see: https://www.avforums.com/threads/ga...ing-on-a-lg-cx-65-inch.2366347/#post-29376859
And:
In a newsletter published by the OLED Association, LG Display has confirmed that the VRR gamma shift issue on LG OLED TVs including the CX and C9 is caused by the underlying OLED panel. While the company is investigating the possibility of introducing multiple gamma curves at lower refresh rates, the fix will be hardware/ T-Con-based, and can only be applied to future OLED TVs and not existing ones.

To trigger it might require both VRR and HDR, I don't know. I just know I hate flicker.

There's also PWM flicker. OLEDs use pulse width modulation and do so at relatively low frequencies or so I've read but I am not aware of the PWM frequencies of every individual product of course. Sensitivity to PWM induced headaches varies per person but it's another reason besides burn-in to not use an OLED as a monitor all day.

When a TV is used as a TV with a predictable, fixed refresh rate, PWM makes sense as it can reduce the perception of motion blur when tracking something that moves across the screen, with your eyes. But when the refresh rate varies with VRR and gets much lower, then you can start to see double images. E.g. with a PWM of 120Hz (which can occur in certain display modes on certain units QN90A non-OLED included) and a game running at 60Hz because 60fps + VRR now you have 2 backlight pulses for every frame. I have only a limited understanding of it though.

Last but not least there is flicker caused by lack of HDMI bandwidth for the chosen output format because the HDMI 2.1 spec allows manufacturers to cut corners by not specifying that there must be enough bandwidth for 4:4:4 4k 120. So some HDMI users (read: TV users, often OLED) will report flicker due to their TV's HDMI circuitry or HDMI cable not having enough bandwidth to deal with the video source's output stream. This is not an OLED-specific problem though but it further confuses discussions about flicker.

I would take the QN90B all day. The premium for FALD is worth it.

How does the FALD perform in game mode? Still worth it then over the FV43U's 8 zone dimming?
How many zones does the 43" EDIT: sorry 50" QN90A have and how many in the 43" QN90B? I couldn't find it in the specs, I read somewhere that the 55" QN90A has 576 zones, which doesn't say much about either the 50" QN90A nor the 43" QN90B.

 

[Roen]

Well....at one online retailer the FV43U's price just dropped from €950 to €700.
That makes it a no brainer, ordered one immediately.
(Not refurbished or opened box: new.)

The price cut made things a lot simpler. Would I like better FALD? Sure, but:
- For the price of a QN90B I could buy two of these and still have €100 in my pocket.
- I can't / don't want to accomodate a 50" 90A, so I wouldn't want to pay the additional €250 for that over the FV43U either.

There are other advantages to me that only the Aorus offers. It's a monitor not a TV which means it will accept all the weird custom resolutions I intend to throw at it (hopefully even this vertical one: 1440x2160), it has a flicker-free backlight rather than PWM so no potential double image issues with 60Hz content or headaches and it comes with software to control it from on the PC itself. These are all good things.

 

[Wiz33]

Well....at one online retailer the FV43U's price just dropped from €950 to €700.
That makes it a no brainer, ordered one immediately.
(Not refurbished or opened box: new.)

The price cut made things a lot simpler. Would I like better FALD? Sure, but:
- For the price of a QN90B I could buy two of these and still have €100 in my pocket.
- I can't / don't want to accomodate a 50" 90A, so I wouldn't want to pay the additional €250 for that over the FV43U either.

There are other advantages to me that only the Aorus offers. It's a monitor not a TV which means it will accept all the weird custom resolutions I intend to throw at it (hopefully even this vertical one: 1440x2160), it has a flicker-free backlight rather than PWM so no potential double image issues with 60Hz content or headaches and it comes with software to control it from on the PC itself. These are all good things.

I have a Q90T and a FV43U and I play a lot of PC/PS4/PS5 games on both. Games I play are PC: Mass Effect LE, D3, FFXIV, Lost Arc and a bunch of RTS. PS4P/PS5: Ace Combat 7, GT7, and a bunch of JRPGs. I actually prefer FV43U for most games and only use my Q90T for Sim type games like Ace Combat 7, GT7 since the Q90T is 75" and sits in my living room. For games that I have to read the text and for desktop use, I would prefer the FV43U

 

[wickfut]

Come to think of it, would a TV even accept a custom vertical 1440x2160 resolution created in nvidia control panel like a monitor would?

Samsung broke their native resolution on my 8k TV for 8 months with a shoddy firmware update. My once working perfectly PC suddenly wouldn't HDMI handshake with the TV and could only display 4k 60hz. Changing the resolution to anything else would make the screen go into "no signal" .
I spent countless hours with their online and phone tech support and all they did was blame my GPU and PC.
After 8 months of it not working and it being all my fault they updated the firmware again and it magically worked - for a month, and then the TV died.

You had a good escape from Samsung, they're fucking shite and I'll never buy from them again.

 

[Mad Maxx]

I pre-ordered the 43" QN90B; delivery date of May 5. If it truly is 120Hz it could be the end game for me. I've been using the 43" Q60R for about 3 years. It's been an excellent TV for what I consider to be the sweet spot for 4K computer monitor size, but I'm ready to move up to something better.

 

[SoCali]

The 43 and 50" supposedly support 144hz.

 

[Mad Maxx]

Shipped early!

 

[shredmonster]

Shipped early!

View attachment 467415

very interested to see how this fares vs. the c2 42" and other options like the FV43U.

 

[SoCali]

It's really smeary and slow unfortunately.

 

[Mad Maxx]

I'm not seeing ghosting as much in this extended cut of the above video...

 

[Wiz33]

I'm not seeing ghosting as much in this extended cut of the above video...

Every VA panel is smeary and slow to him despite tons of people using them for PC and console gaming.

 

[SoCali]

Every VA panel is smeary and slow to him despite tons of people using them for PC and console gaming.

I can't help that you're blind.

Guy above is in purchase defense mode. First half of the video clearly demonstrates smear/ghosting and the second half has no motion other than a bright swinging bell so it's all of a sudden not smeary anymore to him by some leap in logic.

I grabbed that video link from a owner on reddit who is sending it back because it's way too slow compared to this Samsung G7.

You like Vaseline on your screen, I don't. Carry on.

 

[Mad Maxx]

I can't help that you're blind.

Guy above is in purchase defense mode. First half of the video clearly demonstrates smear/ghosting and the second half has no motion other than a bright swinging bell so it's all of a sudden not smeary anymore to him by some leap in logic.

I grabbed that video link from a owner on reddit who is sending it back because it's way too slow compared to this Samsung G7.

You like Vaseline on your screen, I don't. Carry on.

Purchase defense mode... cute term, but irrelevant. The part where he's moving the window rapidly clearly shows some ghosting. The swinging pendulum does not. There's no leap of illogic or eyesight deficiency to those observations. If my QN90B screen shows ghosting or any other problems it's going back. No need to be an ass about this.

 

[vorpel]

Thanks OP for the post - exactly same questions I have. Hopefully we can get a more detailed review of the Q90B soon discussing PC usage.

 

[Roen]

You're welcome Vorpel.

RTINGS are working on their QN90B review, won't be long before it goes up.

One thing I want to point out with regard to PC usage is that if you're like me and you're going to play games on it and don't expect to be able to run every current and future title at native 4k, then you'll have to play on lower resolutions at times. If you use one of those, games that only offer exclusive fullscreen mode or games that require it to get g-sync working, will then send that sub native res signal to the panel. If it's a monitor it's more likely to accept that signal. If it's a QN90B it's probably only going to accept 4k, 1080p, 2560x1440 and 3840x1600. For more details see QN90B PDF manual here, supported modes info starts at page 194. I personally like to run a custom UW resolution - 3840x1836 to both get more ingame FOV and a bit more fps without going full 21:9 and having only 1600p as that's not very tall on a 43" panel. I wouldn't be able to do this on a TV, it would most likely not accept the signal. 3440x1440 isn't an option it would accept either.

I have an FV43U here now and it's got a lot of little problems that aren't show stoppers except bright red ghosting, that's the worst of them. May not be a deal breaker to some but it's pretty obvious and annoying if you ask me, apparent in most scenes where something moves and also affects skin tones when NPCs / actors move (browns tones trigger it a lot), so there's that. Second and 3rd would be the gamma shift (pretty washed out toward the sides from 3ft still, along with a yellow vignette) and text clarity could and should've been better. If the 90B supports the resolutions you need I'd lean toward that. I wouldn't really recommend the FV43U if you can hold out for something better. I got a really good price on it at €699 which is the only thing still keeping me from returning it, beside the lack of other large monitor options on the market outside of overpriced UW IPS options that are half the height, twice the price, and have a quarter of the contrast ratio.

Back to the topic of resolutions below native:
Most modern games let you run non exclusive fullscreen a.k.a. borderless which means any below native resolution can then be used that will automatically be output as a 4k signal with black borders / bars included in the sizes required to make the resolution used match the size of 4k, but there is no guaranteeing that g-sync will work (stutter free) in a non exclusive fullscreen scenario. It usually does at least on Win10 (unlike 7), until it doesn't.

Edit: removed irrelevant info about custom resolutions

 

[Mad Maxx]

My 43" QN90B is on its way back to Samsung after less than 1 day on my desk. Too much motion blur and fuzzy text. Hard to believe my nearly 4 year old $499 43" Q60R does a better job with text than this new QLED.

 

[vorpel]

My 43" QN90B is on its way back to Samsung after less than 1 day on my desk. Too much motion blur and fuzzy text. Hard to believe my nearly 4 year old $499 43" Q60R does a better job with text than this new QLED.

Thanks for the information. I'm bummed that it didn't work for you. Could you expand on the whole text clarity issue? Motion blur has never really bothered me but text clarity is very much a concern. For comparison here are the displays I have or am still currently using:

Samsung U6700 (both 40" and 48")
Samsung Q60A 43"
Samsung JS9000 48"
Samsung Q80T 49"
Samsung RU7100 43"

Thanks

 

[Roen]

Meanwhile, QN90B RTINGS review went up: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/samsung/qn90b-qled

 

[vorpel]

Meanwhile, QN90B RTINGS review went up: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/samsung/qn90b-qled

I read the review and thought it was interesting the note about the 43 & 50" displays not having the ultra viewing angle layer and the mention that PC text quality didn't look good on the review unit (65") due to the ultra viewing angle layer:

"The Samsung QN90B uses a BGR sub-pixel layout, which negatively impacts how it displays text when using the TV as a PC monitor. You can read more about that here. The pixels look a bit blurry due to the 'Ultra Viewing Angle' layer."

and

"There's very little difference between the different sizes, but the 43 and 50 inch models target PC gamers and support a 144Hz refresh rate from a PC. Those sizes also have a worse anti-reflective coating and lack the ultra viewing angle layer, so they have worse reflection handling and a narrower viewing angle."

 

[SoCali]

There are lots of issues with these TV's when used as a monitor.

-Game mode forces 120hz PWM
-Game mode nerfs FALD to a near unusable state
-Overshoot in dark transitions is visible and extremely bad in games with VRR and a fluctuating frame rate
-BGR pixel layout
-HDR EOTF is obnoxiously bad

This is $200-300 less than a 42 C2 but that price difference is well worth getting the C2 especially when you consider the 43" and 50" versions of this don't get anywhere near 1000nits for highlights in real content. Or wait 6-8 months where bizarrely the C2 will become less expensive on sale than this LCD.

 

[vorpel]

There are lots of issues with these TV's when used as a monitor.

-Game mode forces 120hz PWM
-Game mode nerfs FALD to a near unusable state
-Overshoot in dark transitions is visible and extremely bad in games with VRR and a fluctuating frame rate
-BGR pixel layout
-HDR EOTF is obnoxiously bad

This is $200-300 less than a 42 C2 but that price difference is well worth getting the C2 especially when you consider the 43" and 50" versions of this don't get anywhere near 1000nits for highlights in real content. Or wait 6-8 months where bizarrely the C2 will become less expensive on sale than this LCD.

I've been using 4k Samsung TVs as monitors since 2015 with the RU6700 and JS9000 models I mentioned. I am always looking for what can be better and I would love to try the 42" C2 but I'm hesitant as I did try a 55" LG OLED about 18 months ago from Costco (I don't remember the model). The text quality was horrible compared to what I was used to - there was a white ghosting to the letters. I remember seeing several posts about it in the big 48" OLED TV thread here on HF and some rather elaborate work-arounds.

Is the text quality better on the C2? Sorry I can't remember the model that I tried. Thanks

 

[Roen]

I intentionally put the exact product names in the title that the thread is about comparing: QN90A, QN90B and FV43U. All three are LCD.
If anyone is not yet sure if they want LCD or an alternative technology, this QN90 vs FV43U thread is not the place to discuss that, nor the place to discuss those products themselves. Keep OLED out of this thread, please. They're off-topic.

The opening question in the OP reads: "If you've used a QN90A or QN90B and the FV43U, how do they compare?"
Note that I specifically asked people who have actually used them.

I would take the QN90B all day. The premium for FALD is worth it.

So you haven't used either the QN90A or QN90B and FV43U and you're guessing it's that much better than the latter's dimming?
Or have you used them and are you not guessing?

-Game mode nerfs FALD to a near unusable state

Glad I knew better than to pay the premium for FALD in the 3 weeks between when those two comments were written. Since this is a thread about QN90 vs FV43U, the question is: is it still better, similar or worse than the FV43U's dimming. Do you have evidence that it's near unusable, or are you guessing and haven't used a QN90? If outside of game mode the FALD is so great that you say you "would take the QN90B all day. The premium for FALD is worth it." then it would be hard to believe that in game mode it's SO much worse that it's "near unusable" and actually worse than the FV43U's dimming - which is nothing to write home about but I do use it depending on the content. Judging from RTINGS' reviews and test photos and videos, my expectation, without having actually used a QN90 would be that the latter's dimming is both more effective at increasing contrast and also blooms more than that on the FV43U which as far as I can tell doesn't bloom at all but also doesn't do much to increase its contrast. In practise the FV43U's is more like a global dynamic brightness setting that adjusts based on whether the scene is primarily bright or dark. It only has 8 zones and the algorithm doesn't like to use them individually all that much. If it did, it probably would have been distracting. It doesn't take a whole lot to match or beat that performance.

-Game mode forces 120hz PWM

In game mode + fixed refresh. Not in game mode + VRR. At least QN90A, RTINGS don't specifically mention it in their 90B review, likely the same.
It's a real issue for games that require 60Hz. Although I haven't used it: headaches probably for many, and RTINGS say: double images for everyone.
But there is a trick to get around the double images, at least with nvidia: 120Hz + v-sync at half the refresh rate. Doesn't get rid of the 120Hz PWM though.

-Overshoot in dark transitions is visible and extremely bad in games with VRR and a fluctuating frame rate

Noticeable overshoot at lower Hz is pretty much always the case without variable overdrive (g-sync module), especially on VA.
Happens on the FV43U as well making 60Hz unusable without turning off the overdrive which... makes 60Hz unusable.
But there is a trick to get around it, at least with nvidia: 120Hz + v-sync at half the refresh rate.

-BGR pixel layout

No difference to the alternative: FV43U.

-HDR EOTF is obnoxiously bad

No difference to the alternative: FV43U.

 

[SoCali]

My wife uses a QN90A as a monitor, I bought and sold a FV43U. The QN90B is a downgrade in almost every way but it's functionally the same as last years models with more HDMI 2.1 ports and slightly more aggressive FALD algorithm. I'd take a FALD display all day over a globally lit one (FV43U) because there are scenarios where it's of use like watching media, etc + it's actually capable of real HDR unlike the FV43U.

I'm gonna get out of this thread because both of these are absolute garbage compared to a C2 and I should really stop discussing it among those who think otherwise.

 

[Roen]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the QN90 and FV43U anyway.

Edit: Here's a youtube video comparing QN90A and QN90B.
Here's another, 90B has improved local dimming, game mode included.

 

[Piranhax]

Yea those are my videos, gaming you dont see any motion blur, but was also showing the tv doesn't experience any flickering/ gsync flicker.. was very disappointed though and returned it to newegg.. they had the tvs 1st for some reason.. other things to note, can't use gsync if game mode isn't on, if you try 12bit at all.. will just be black screen. Grey to grey is definitely slower on the tv vs g7 monitor, high local dimming results in windows task bar to be greyed out(darker on edges), low fixes this..

 

[Piranhax]

Welcome to Hardforum.


I guess you personally didn't find it distracting. It's still a VA panel so let's not set unrealistic expectations. My 27" IPS panel had 4ms in all transitions including dar ones, without any overshoot at any refresh rate (because variable overdrive) offering an insanely consistent experience without ever having to change the overdrive setting, whereas the 90B is 8ms average, twice that in dark transitions with overshoot and no variable overdrive therefore more overshoot the lower you the refresh rate gets. I can tell the difference, trust me, you can too. Overshoot aside, does the pixel repsonse test photo by RTINGS look "not blurred" to you? Sure looks blurred to me:
View attachment 472129
That's at native Hz so with g-sync at lower fps it can get worse, with overshoot. Is it the end of the world? No, but you can't claim "you don't see any motion blur" because you literally do.


There is similar red ghosting in the video of the 43" QN90B that was shared in post #12. There is a red trail behind the browser windos as it's dragged to the right over the desktop background image. It occurs in panels in which the red subpixel's rise is faster and its fall is slower than the green and red subpixels. What's triggering it is that the dark gray pixels of the browser window need to turn into a brown / skin tone color which is a mix of red green and blue and the red subpixel is getting brighter faster than the green and blue. I'm not surprised, because the FV43U and QN90B are both Samsung 'quantum dot' VAs. There go my hopes of getting rid of the red ghosting that's bugging me by switching from the FV43U to the QN90B next year.

Why? None of the complaints you listed seem like deal breakers to me.

Why would you want g-sync outside of game mode? Wouldn't the high latency outside of game mode defeat its purpose?

Why do you care? I haven't looked into it much but isn't 10bit the standard for HDR on monitors? I have the option to select 12bit on my FV43U and I haven't even bothered to try. Because I suspect it's FRC anyway and 10bit is the norm.

Which doesn't count because the G7 is a p.o.s. (with a retarded curve) that cannot do g-sync without major problems. The amount of VRR flicker that requires a firmware hack setting that replaces that flicker with stutter may be related to it applying so much overdrive voltage which is the reason it has a relatively high amount of overshoot compared to other monitors. Faster GtG is a nice-to-have and I appreciated it on the G7 before I returned it, but sample & hold blur is always there regardless so you get some motion blur anyway, just slightly less of it, it's still blurred either way until things stop moving so I don't really care about GtG as much as dark transitions as that's where VA sucks enough that it can get annoying. However the only way that VA can speed up the dark pixel response and GtG is by causing overshoot and/or reducing the contrast (like a G7) so that just replaces one problem with another, so there's not much point in even looking at the response times of a VA panel (in reviews). The "faster" ones all have more overshoot and/or lower contrast.

I wonder if some of your comment about the difference in GtG was also down to the red ghosting on the QN90B that you maybe didn't specifically identify as such but that did affect the overall impression of its motion handling by smearing with red all the browns, grays, yellows, and shadows that need to turn into those colors, making the motion handling feel worse, intuitively.

To quote a QN90A owner: "In game mode, Local Dimming on Medium or High completely washes out parts of the screen. Local Dimming on Low resolves that but lessens how bright the screen gets." So on the 90A I would expect you'd leave it on Low all the time (iirc you can't turn it off). You consider it an issue that only Low fixes the taskbar on the 90B, which leads me to believe that Low isn't the go-to anymore on the 90B like it was on the 90A because you clearly don't like to use it. What changed?

1st of all its more than just red smear it does it will whites, and blacks as well, game mode on helps ensure use if gsync, g7 vrr fixed the flickering it had and ive never experienced stutter.. its not a trash monitor. If I see something and know an issue is there I'm not gonna be happy with it
Hence I returned it. Maybe to you, you don't care and can ignore the issues.. and with 12bit I was just stating that people should not try it because it will black screen and have to reinstall gpu drivers in order to use the tv again as a monitor

 

[vorpel]

Just pulled the trigger on a 43" QN90B - will be here next Tuesday. I'm hoping to replace my 2021 43" Samsung Q60A which has been a pretty bit disappointment (though it will be reused for another workstation).

I'm not terribly picky except when it comes to text rendering as I deal with text applications (Putty, etc) most of the day for work. I really want a 120hz panel and the 43" is perfect for my setup. Unless there are display flaws (stuck/dead pixels) or something that really jumps out to me this should be a very nice upgrade and being realistic - it will be replaced in 1-2 years if something really great comes along or the need for an additional workstation at home comes up and then the great tech shuffle/migration will ensue.

 

[Roen]

g7 vrr fixed the flickering it had and ive never experienced stutter

It's there, trust me, and I'll prove it to you with your own G7 and bet my life's savings on it, that it stutters with VRR Control enabled. A lot of customers are mad at Samsung specifically because "VRR Control" is not a fix, it's a mockery. It replaces flicker with microstutter. Samsung didn't mention the latter and get away with it only because a lot of people can't see microstutter because playing with microstutter is what they are used to. All you have to do to see it is strafe sideways in front of vertical straight edges or up close to a wall in a game and actually pay attention in what should be a 100% smoothness of motion scenario which means g-sync working and fps capped below GPU's max load, and fps at least 85. There are other things about the G7 that I hated that are subjective but the stutter is not opinion, it's fact. You can test for it and prove it. Whether you notice and care about microstutter is another matter. VA panels are not capable of VRR without flicker unless there is no frametime variance so Samsung didn't have much of a choice. VRR Control probably drops frames that took too long to render, frames that would otherwise cause the VA panel to flicker. The truth is that VA monitors can't be sold as monitors for gaming, but admitting to that would hurt Samsung's bottom line so they never will. Hence the deceit in presenting VRR Control as a fix while staying silent about what other problem it causes.

its not a trash monitor

Worst "gaming" monitor I have ever had the displeasure of testing. Sorry.

with 12bit I was just stating that people should not try it because it will black screen

I see.

On my FV43U there is definitely bad motion handling overall. A large 4k VA panel due to the slow nature of VA and how challenging it is to always have high fps at 4k should have variable overdrive, which it lacks. And the red ghosting - the red subpixel's different rise/fall time compared to blue and green sucks. There is VRR flicker as well (not as much as a G7 without VRR Control on) when frame pacing variance is more than a few milliseconds. Every VA panel on the planet has that problem. Overall though I am happy with it and decided to keep it. Its size, contrast, brightness, color gamut and overall look of the semi glossy panel make up for those faults. Maybe not the VRR flicker but every VA does that and I am not going back to IPS contrast/glow or a smaller size. I might try a QN90B 50" next year when prices drop once the successor hits the market. That too is a VA panel therefore it will have VRR flicker too and I don't think I'm the kinda guy who'd be content with the limitations of using a TV as a monitor but time will tell.

The Aorus has many downsides but only two that to me personally are potential deal breakers.
The first is VRR flicker but every VA does that soo.... moot point.
The second is overall pixel response handling and that is not a big enough reason to outweigh the 'pros' I've mentioned.

It does make it hard to use: you have to keep it within the 85-110 (120 max) refresh rate range. You shouldn't go higher because of increased dark smearing as the pixels can't keep up with that. Worse is that you certainly can't go much lower: you'll get tons of overshoot, requiring to fully disable overdrive. Again manufacturer dishonesty which is rampant in the display industry, it should've been advertised as an 85-110Hz display not 30/60-144Hz. (And the pixel response average is 10ms, Gigabyte pretend it's 1ms).

Trying to stay above 80 fps is something I've always done regardless so it works out OK in that regard but doing this in every title at 4k is no easy feat. Once my 3080 ages I'll have a choice to make to either dump the FV43U or upgrade the GPU.

A QN90 A/B has only marginally faster pixel response (9ms average instead of 10), the same QLED VA panel tech and no variable overdrive either so I would expect a pretty similar experience in terms of the optimal refresh rate range.