Thoughts on 240hz IPS Monitors

capnstabn

Gawd
Joined
Jan 6, 2006
Messages
534
Anyone of you running the Alienware AW2720HF or the Viewsonic Elite XG270? I've stayed away from 240hz since TN really isn't my thing, and curious how satisfied people have been with them?
 
Nice monitor, btw. If you're OK with size and resolution, I'd get it without a doubt. It is also sRGB monitor which is perfect for gaming. Very nice monitors imho.
 
They're legit. Not as fast as TN but a good compromise between speed and picture quality. I was not comfortable with 27" 1080p though.

24.5" 1080p IPS 240hz is coming soon
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
The alienware doesn't have motion blur reduction but the viewsonic does. Personally I think the BenQ zowie XL2746S will blow them both away.
 
The alienware doesn't have motion blur reduction but the viewsonic does. Personally I think the BenQ zowie XL2746S will blow them both away.

Damn that does have impressive features. I wonder if the Chief Blur Busters guy has seen it yet.
 
I'd rule out any option that doesn't have any sort of motion blur reduction. On my 240Hz TN panel l prefer 144Hz + benq blur reduction compared 240Hz and without benq blur reduction. For me that was the sweet spot between image quality and motion smoothness (ie. a noticeable amount smoother motion than 240Hz and without blur reduction but also better image quality compared to running 240Hz (slight contrast & sharpness hit), I only lose out on input lag which I don't care particularly much about as it's so low already you cannot really feel the difference and I'm not a pro gamer either so). In TestUFO the difference is roughly at 240Hz (without strobing) slight trailing blur while with 144Hz+strobing it's pretty much gone or the UFO appears sharp, especially when you move your head along the UFO, it'll be perfect sharp.

My next setting will hopefully be same but on an IPS as I expect not a huge difference between a fast IPS panel vs a TN panel, I heard 1440p 240Hz is on the way too so might be worth waiting for (especially as I don't plan to aim for 240 fps anyway but minimum 144Hz+strobing but 165~180Hz or so capability would be the sweetspot I reckon). For me how high the strobing works without negative side effects will be the biggest point of interest (or perhaps they just hard limit it at 144-165Hz for example to avoid consumers dealing with added blur due panel cannot keep up). I don't see IPS doing 240Hz strobing artifact free but maybe it'll be good for perfect 144~165Hz or so strobing (the old 27" 165Hz alternative only allows max 120Hz for comparison). Somehow I feel testing for example 120Hz vs 144Hz strobing makes a bigger impact on motion smoothness than the same step without strobing so to me that small step is a big selling point.

I'm maybe more sensitive to motion smoothness vs the average person given my background swapping from CRT as late as 2009 for the sake of avoiding LCDs with anything less than 120Hz and being into fast paced twitch gaming like Unreal Tournament series but it was obvious to me straight up when comparing 144Hz+strobing vs 240Hz without strobing that 144Hz+strobing just felt more nice/smooth in Unreal Tournament alpha (unfortunately development at halt....)
 
Last edited:
Damn that does have impressive features. I wonder if the Chief Blur Busters guy has seen it yet.

Here's a translated review that went up today of the XL2746: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://playwares.com/dpreview/57666851#

Pertinent points:

1. Input lag: 2-3 ms at 240 Hz
2. Peak luminance: ~360 nits
3. Contrast ratio: ~1100-1270ish
4. Color: ~72% NTSC
5. Response time GtG: 1.6-1.8 ms (http://down.playwares.com/xe/files/attach/images/105/954/067/744fa63a006d922190c23c99b6533de6.png)
6. Dyac+ in motion:

Viewing angles are your typical TN panel. I wish it was 400 nits uniform personally and unfortunately they don't mention how much the panel darkens with Dyac+, just that it does. I'm going to hold off for reviews from Prad, TFTCentral or RT before I buy this thing and see how it compares to other panels.

Edit:

For comparison, although from a different website, the Acer Nitro XV273X (IPS panel like the Viewsonic Elite XG270):

1. GtG Avg: 4.8 ms avg @ 240 Hz
2. Motion blur reduction: 210 nits @ 240 Hz w/CR of 957:1 (it gets darker as you lower the refresh rate)
3. Compared to TN panels like the XF252Q and the XL2746, it's noticeably slower and probably what you could expect with the other IPS panels like the Viewsonic:
response_7.png

4. Input lag: 2 ms which is impressive and on par with the XL2746
lag.png


For reference, I have an old Asus PG278Q and if you look in the charts above, it still beats out many of the new panels in GtG times which is disappointing as hell considering I bought this back in 2014-2015. One area the new panels have advanced is input lag though, the signal processing time on my PG278Q isn't very good and in comparison, even the new IPS panels blows it away. Since signal processing time is the actual "feel" you get from the monitor when doing actions, I think this could make a big difference when gaming. So right now, I'd like to see hard numbers on the XL2746's DyAc+ max brightness because unfortunately the Korean website left that out and it is the single piece of information I need to decide whether to go w/the Zowie or the IPS panels like the Viewsonic/Acer (Alienware is not even a consideration since it has no blur reduction).


Chief Blur Buster what are your thoughts on this?
 
Last edited:
Here's a translated review that went up today of the XL2746: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://playwares.com/dpreview/57666851#

Pertinent points:

1. Input lag: 2-3 ms at 240 Hz
2. Peak luminance: ~360 nits
3. Contrast ratio: ~1100-1270ish
4. Color: ~72% NTSC
5. Response time GtG: 1.6-1.8 ms (http://down.playwares.com/xe/files/attach/images/105/954/067/744fa63a006d922190c23c99b6533de6.png)
6. Dyac+ in motion:

Viewing angles are your typical TN panel. I wish it was 400 nits uniform personally and unfortunately they don't mention how much the panel darkens with Dyac+, just that it does. I'm going to hold off for reviews from Prad, TFTCentral or RT before I buy this thing and see how it compares to other panels.

Edit:

For comparison, although from a different website, the Acer Nitro XV273X (IPS panel like the Viewsonic Elite XG270):

1. GtG Avg: 4.8 ms avg @ 240 Hz
2. Motion blur reduction: 210 nits @ 240 Hz w/CR of 957:1 (it gets darker as you lower the refresh rate)
3. Compared to TN panels like the XF252Q and the XL2746, it's noticeably slower and probably what you could expect with the other IPS panels like the Viewsonic:
View attachment 217411
4. Input lag: 2 ms which is impressive and on par with the XL2746
View attachment 217412

For reference, I have an old Asus PG278Q and if you look in the charts above, it still beats out many of the new panels in GtG times which is disappointing as hell considering I bought this back in 2014-2015. One area the new panels have advanced is input lag though, the signal processing time on my PG278Q isn't very good and in comparison, even the new IPS panels blows it away. Since signal processing time is the actual "feel" you get from the monitor when doing actions, I think this could make a big difference when gaming. So right now, I'd like to see hard numbers on the XL2746's DyAc+ max brightness because unfortunately the Korean website left that out and it is the single piece of information I need to decide whether to go w/the Zowie or the IPS panels like the Viewsonic/Acer (Alienware is not even a consideration since it has no blur reduction).


Chief Blur Buster what are your thoughts on this?


Wow thanks for posting this. Yeah the brightness while strobing is going to be a big factor for me too. I think I could live with IPS being at +1.5ms of GTG as long as the input lag is comparable, but if the BenQ can do over 300 nits with strobing its likely going to look better than the IPS.
 
Wow thanks for posting this. Yeah the brightness while strobing is going to be a big factor for me too. I think I could live with IPS being at +1.5ms of GTG as long as the input lag is comparable, but if the BenQ can do over 300 nits with strobing its likely going to look better than the IPS.

Yup if the XL2746S does 300+ nits of strobing it will be a winner. If it's anything like it's predecessors, it should easily accomplish this which I think makes it the best new monitor to release on the market. None of these others will be able to touch it IMO. The color being 72% NTSC is already good enough for a TN panel since that's ~100% sRGB so I think it won't be as ugly as the previous BenQ monitors were. I don't really give a shit about viewing angles as I sit in front of my display all the time and never off center. The input lag is already really good so with 300+ nit strobing, this thing is going to be awesome for games.

P.S. The Asus 360 Hz panel and other 360 Hz panels which should follow once their exclusivity deal runs out might be the real deal if the Asus G-Sync module's ULMB can do 240 Hz strobed which should give it minimal input lag. The new G-Sync ULMB monitors (e.g. 24.5") hold their brightness pretty well so if this one does, it will definitely be a major game changer. The only problem is it's Asus and well they always screw up somehow.
 
Last edited:
Yup if the XL2746S does 300+ nits of strobing it will be a winner. If it's anything like it's predecessors, it should easily accomplish this which I think makes it the best new monitor to release on the market. None of these others will be able to touch it IMO. The color being 72% NTSC is already good enough for a TN panel since that's ~100% sRGB so I think it won't be as ugly as the previous BenQ monitors were. I don't really give a shit about viewing angles as I sit in front of my display all the time and never off center. The input lag is already really good so with 300+ nit strobing, this thing is going to be awesome for games.

P.S. The Asus 360 Hz panel and other 360 Hz panels which should follow once their exclusivity deal runs out might be the real deal if the Asus G-Sync module's ULMB can do 240 Hz strobed which should give it minimal input lag. The new G-Sync ULMB monitors (e.g. 24.5") hold their brightness pretty well so if this one does, it will definitely be a major game changer. The only problem is it's Asus and well they always screw up somehow.

Honestly Asus will likely not improve the strobing and say it isn't necessary at such a high refresh rate, and that the new RTX cards can drive more games at 300+ frames. They can't seem to include more than 1 or 2 good features in each display.
 
With real response times on IPS panels being in the 5-6ms range I wouldn't go faster than 165 Hz on one.
 
With real response times on IPS panels being in the 5-6ms range I wouldn't go faster than 165 Hz on one.

Yeah realistically they top out around 180 hz before they get errors due to not being able to keep up with the refresh rate. Still that's pretty good but definitely not where TN is at.
 
Last edited:
Yeah realistically they top out around 180 hz before they get errors due to not being able to keep up with the refresh rate. Still that's pretty good but definitely not where TN is at.

On that note I've starting looking at the Gigabyte KD25F. Take a look at this video:



Editing as I may be more inclined to try this:

 
Last edited:
On that note I've starting looking at the Gigabyte KD25F. Take a look at this video:



Editing as I may be more inclined to try this:



Don't bother, I had that monitor (kd25f) and returned it. Their antiblur darkens way too much so it sucks, that's why I sent mine back. It also had higher input lag than other monitors, some of the IPS ones have better input lag results. My 2015 PG278Q has better input lag results which is just pathetic for gigabyte.

Even that hwunboxed video you linked above shows it:
3BACF1B8-471F-4FAA-B561-6A17A5FE4573.png

BTW the xl2746S is now available on zowiedirect.com for $650
 
Last edited:
Wow I must say that MSI monitor is actually pretty impressive. If they made a 1440p version of that I would probably upgrade from my Omen X27 to that.

1580503283312.png
 
Don't bother, I had that monitor (kd25f) and returned it. Their antiblur darkens way too much so it sucks, that's why I sent mine back. It also had higher input lag than other monitors, some of the IPS ones have better input lag results. My 2015 PG278Q has better input lag results which is just pathetic for gigabyte.

Even that hwunboxed video you linked above shows it:
View attachment 219820
BTW the xl2746S is now available on zowiedirect.com for $650

We ever find out the impact of Dyac+ on brightness? Really wish someone would review this but I don't think Benq sends out very many review samples.
 
Got the MAG251RX in today and played a few rounds of PUBG and some Destiny 2. I am still tinkering but 240hz with Motion Blur w/ brightness@100% and isn't as dim as my PG279Q. My wife can't stand watching me play FPS on PC because it makes her motion sick, and she was shocked at how much a difference this made.
 
BenQ probably handles the blur reduction best so far with the least brightness impact. I don't know how much DyAc differs from when it was called BenQ Blur Reduction that it's called on my 1st gen 240Hz but it doesn't limit the brightness a whole lot, I mean I went from 23~25 to like 36 brightness turning it on for similar brightness feel. (EDIT: Okay I forgot that was with 144Hz that I personally use, I suppose at 240Hz the brightness drop will have an even bigger impact just like overall image quality as well). It's not like you are forced to running 240Hz just because the monitor supports it, find what's your sweetspot in image quality vs performance I say whether that be 144Hz or some custom setting 165, 180Hz or whatever.

And then you can obviously tweak if you want better brightness levels or better motion smoothness but I left it on the default settings (without the tool installed) as I thought that worked best
 
Last edited:
I think the 2746S is going to be the fastest 240hz monitor, however the MAG251RX has 25% higher peak brightness and looks great with motion blur reduction. The visual hit detection queues are far more clear, and have improved my performance. I think the MAG251RX has me skill capped with a picture I am satisfied with.
 
I tried the MAG251RX and I really loved how responsive it was. The motion blur reduction introduced too much strobe crosstalk for me, however. I ended up returning it because I really couldn't go back to 1080p from 1440p. The blurriness was too much for my eyes :(. I'm also older and less competitive these days.

I'm eagerly awaiting the 1440p 240hz IPS panels now. I'm hoping the Chief Blur Buster certifies and helps tune a Viewsonic 1440p model in the future. That will be an instabuy for me.
 
I think I'm going to wait until asus and others release their 360 Hz displays before I buy. I don't want to regret missing out on those, especially since they're going to release sometime this year.
 
240Hz is nice I'm sure. But it's a no go for me so long as its limited to sub-34" displays and TN displays. Even with an IPS display, I wouldn't be happy with something so small as a 27".
 
240Hz is nice I'm sure. But it's a no go for me so long as its limited to sub-34" displays and TN displays. Even with an IPS display, I wouldn't be happy with something so small as a 27".

If you're into 34"+ gaming, I'd suggest an LG OLED. These smaller displays are primarily for those into esports.
 
If you're into 34"+ gaming, I'd suggest an LG OLED. These smaller displays are primarily for those into esports.

Right now I'm using an Alienware AW3418DW 34" G-Sync display. I'm not looking for anything right now. When I do buy again, it will have to be a significant upgrade. Right now, I'm not sure if I want to deal with the OLED issues that don't seem to be ironed out completely.
 
https://www.tftcentral.co.uk/blog/m...-24-5-1080p-ips-panel-and-240hz-refresh-rate/

This just came out 24.5" if you cant stand 1080P at 27 inch pixelation everyone will say it's too small but it's perfect size for me.

I've had mine for almost a week and loving it. Bop mentioned having some strobe crosstalk issues, but I haven't noticed any with the profile I'm using. Coming from a 144hz 1440p display with ULMB, it can certainly increase your advantage in FPS.
 
I've had mine for almost a week and loving it. Bop mentioned having some strobe crosstalk issues, but I haven't noticed any with the profile I'm using. Coming from a 144hz 1440p display with ULMB, it can certainly increase your advantage in FPS.

Are the colors ok? The reviews on Amazon are mixed about the colors.
 
Are the colors ok? The reviews on Amazon are mixed about the colors.

I don't want to oversell you on it, but it has decent colors when its configured for that. When you have it at 240hz with strobing you are going to take a brightness hit and its going to impact the colors. It is a huge improvement over TN.
 
So according to TFTC the Asus VG259QM will most likely use this same AUO IPS panel as the MSI monitor but will have a 280Hz (OC) refresh rate and ELMB-SYNC. Not really holding my breath for it though because I already tried the first iteration of ELMB-SYNC with the VG27BQ and it had absurd amounts of crosstalk even for being a TN panel. But hey you never know maybe this time around Asus will hit a home run??

https://pcmonitors.info/asus/asus-vg259qm-280hz-full-hd-ips-model/
 
Last edited:
240Hz is nice I'm sure. But it's a no go for me so long as its limited to sub-34" displays and TN displays. Even with an IPS display, I wouldn't be happy with something so small as a 27".

Do you value eye candy or performance? You can't have both. At this point sub 240hz and over 1ms feels like dog crap to me, it's not quite as bad as it was going from a CRT to an LCD but it's there. I play fast shooters and fighting games for my MP though. I also have a 34 LG ultrawide (165hz gsync) IPS and a 1440p IPS and while they are good for SP games they aren't for MP games.

We are sort of at the point where you need a wide range of monitors to hit all the needs. Large displays are also worse for fast games.
 
Back
Top