Need Assistance in Selecting a 1440p Display

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All,

I am starting to shop for PC component upgrades (I rebuild every other year) and I'm looking for advice on a new monitor. Currently I am using a Hanns-G 27" 1920x1200 monitor (HZ281HPB) that has an annoying dead pixel flanked by an LG 24" (L246WPQ) that also runs at 1920x1200.

I am hoping (at a minimum) to upgrade my primary display to a 1440p display, but would be open to upgrading both if the price were right.

Currently I do quite a bit of gaming which includes mostly RPGs (WoW, ESO, Diablo III, etc.) and a little Hearthstone/Starcraft II. Occasionally, I do some FPS gaming like Planetside 2 or LFD2. On my second monitor, I usually just do email/browse or watch movies while gaming. My face is generally about 18"-24" from the displays.

My current processor/video card is a i7-2600K and an XFX 7950, but I will probably upgrade them in the next month or two.

As far as price range, I would consider anything up to about 750$. Picture quality and reliability are big plusses for me.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.
 
You might want to take a gander at the Dell 4K monitors. The one just out is well above your price range, but the forthcoming 28" one is supposed to be only slightly above.
 
Thanks very much for the reply. I've not heard of a 4k monitor. Are you talking about something like this?
 
Thanks very much for the reply. I've not heard of a 4k monitor. Are you talking about something like this?

No, he is talking about a higher resolution monitor that is higher than 2560 x 1440. Dell announced several 4k monitors with a resolution of 3840 x 2160. http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&cs=04&l=en&sku=860-bbcd and http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=210-ACBL. However, Dell also announced a 28-inch 4k monitor to be sold less than $1,000 at the beginning of 2014.

Since you were looking at 1440p monitors which on the high end are $700 to $800, I believe he just wanted you to wait and check out the 28-inch 4k monitor when it becomes available since it will be slightly higher price than a 1440p monitor.

There is no Dell monitor accessory link to the 28-inch monitor yet.
 
Based on the pricing of the current 4K options, I'm guessing Dell's new 27" offering is going to exceed my price range by a bit. Plus if I come in closer to the bottom end of my price range, maybe I can upgrade both monitors or perhaps spend more on the new CPU/GPU I will be purchasing. I've seen discussions on this forum of a QNIX option, and Acer option, a Viewsonic option, BenQ, and of course the Dell I linked above. Any thoughts on which of those might be good for my situation?

Thanks again folks. You guys are great !
 
I'm loving my Viewsonic VP2770 still. And I've seen them on sale for well under $700 in the last few weeks.
 
Korean 27" 1440p displays are very affordable and can be overclocked past 60Hz. When it comes to gaming, I will NEVER go back to a 60Hz monitor.

If I were you I would wait on anything 4k for a few years. You will need a much more powerful system to push 4k. They look great for still pictures but who cares about uber HD resolutions when any motion in games looks like a slide show? 15-30fps? Give me a break!
 
Would I notice the difference using >60 hz if I wasn;t doing FPS games? What I read is that 60 hz was fine for playing non-FPS games.

Croak, what drew you to the Viewsonic instead of comparable monitors in the other brands? Also what retailer would you recommend for minitor shooping. I normally do most of my shopping at Newegg, but they don;t appear to have a lot of the nicer 1440p monitors.
 
the qnix has a few problems when overclocked, with the severity increasing as the refresh rate rises

1. image retention (set it to 60 Hz and it'll go away completely after a few hours, not to be confused with burn-in which is permanent)
2. lowered gamma (can be fixed)
3. brightness (gamma?) gradient from left to right, darkest at the right side (don't think this can be fixed)

that being said, you probably wouldn't want to be using anything other than 60 Hz outside of games or movies. 120 Hz is incredibly smooth but if you don't have the hardware to get 120 fps in the games you play at 1440p it's pointless. you could run it at a lower resolution but that'd kind of defeat the purpose of being able to have both at the same time.

i have a qnix and was worried about playing games on it coming from a VG236HE. the only thing that could be better on the qnix versus the VG236HE is the ghosting. everything else is so much better they are really not even comparable.

if you want 96+ Hz and are going to buy components that can allow you such a framerate in the games you play at 1440p, i highly recommend the qnix because there is really nothing like it for the price. if the refresh rate doesn't matter much to you and you just want a really nice monitor, i would still recommend the qnix because it's a mindbogglingly good deal. and if you really like it, you could buy another one and still come out having saved money! if you need it to be flexible though, the qnix isn't something you want to buy. the single input dvi version is the only one that can be overclocked, and it does not work with consoles. you may also want to purchase a stand for it if you don't have one already, because it's as minimalist and cheap as it gets. all it does is tilt.
 
Would I notice the difference using >60 hz if I wasn;t doing FPS games? What I read is that 60 hz was fine for playing non-FPS games.

Croak, what drew you to the Viewsonic instead of comparable monitors in the other brands? Also what retailer would you recommend for minitor shooping. I normally do most of my shopping at Newegg, but they don;t appear to have a lot of the nicer 1440p monitors.

The colour accuracy, the fastest (for an IPS/PLS) response time and lowest input lag on the market, the fact that it's a Samsung and not LG panel, the low-key industrial design, the zero dead pixel policy Viewsonic EU has, and the low incidence of excessive backlight bleeding (not to be confused with "IPS glow"), and the fact that it doesn't use PWM backlighting like the Asus model that shares the same Samsung panel.

And the number one reason? It's not a Dell.

Didn't feel like playing the quality lottery with any of the cheap Korean monitors or deal with import issues, so it was worth it to me to pay the extra dosh for a mainstream brand.

I bought mine from Amazon, just for the liberal no hassle replacement policy.

And since you're in America, buying from Viewsonic direct is also not a bad way to go if you can catch it on sale.
 
I've been reading about the Viewsonic and it does look like a great monitor. Newegg has it for 750 right now ( I have a bunch of Newegg gift cards). Would you have any reservations about buying it from them? Also, would I need to get a new cable to use the monitor or would the DVI cable that comes with it be OK?

Thanks for all the great advice.
 
I would highly recommend the QNIX QX2710 Evolution II.

You can't beat the cost for what you get and you can overclock the refresh rate up to 120Hz pretty easily.

I've heard nothing but great things about the monitor.
 
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