Upgrade to oled

[xDiVolatilX]

I wants a 4k 32" version!

Instead of waiting an option is to get an monitor arm and physically move it closer to your eye balls, lol. I mean it works. I want a 40" 4k 360hz monitor but it doesn't exist and will be a pretty long while till it does. So monitor arm saves the day

 

[Sycraft]

Instead of waiting an option is to get an monitor arm and physically move it closer to your eye balls, lol. I mean it works. I want a 40" 4k 360hz monitor but it doesn't exist and will be a pretty long while till it does. So monitor arm saves the day

I'll just stick with my OLED for now, and I can always steal my PG32UQX back from my GF. I suppose I could get some even closer computer glasses and move the monitor closer... but I'd rather just wait for a 32" version. It also isn't like I can really complain, I mean I have two nice displays to choose from already. I do like my PG32UCDP, I just miss the brightness of a MiniLED, depending on the game. For some it doesn't matter. Replaying Cyberpunk and it makes me miss the MiniLED during the day. At night I'd say the OLED generally looks better. The highlights aren't as bright but the lack of bloom makes everything overall sharper and better. However during the day, I get ABL happening and it just doesn't get bright and sunny like it did last time.

 

[xDiVolatilX]

I'll just stick with my OLED for now, and I can always steal my PG32UQX back from my GF. I suppose I could get some even closer computer glasses and move the monitor closer... but I'd rather just wait for a 32" version. It also isn't like I can really complain, I mean I have two nice displays to choose from already. I do like my PG32UCDP, I just miss the brightness of a MiniLED, depending on the game. For some it doesn't matter. Replaying Cyberpunk and it makes me miss the MiniLED during the day. At night I'd say the OLED generally looks better. The highlights aren't as bright but the lack of bloom makes everything overall sharper and better. However during the day, I get ABL happening and it just doesn't get bright and sunny like it did last time.

These are exactly the 2 reasons why I could never go with OLED. The ABL and the low max brightness. I like to play at all hours of the day afternoon or evening and even mornings on the weekends and do not want to be forced into a dark room. I'll completely skip oleds altogether with the advancements in mini led and RGB led and micro rgb lol
So yeah that MSI 271KRAW16 is 2300 fald zone hdr 1400 nitt 330hz 1440p is looking mighty tasty rn lol.

 

[Sycraft]

These are exactly the 2 reasons why I could never go with OLED. The ABL and the low max brightness.

It's a tradeoff for sure. For SDR, it is fine with me as I don't game in a bright room. Even with the light on I can turn it up to a level that I am fine with and in my normal fairly dim room, 115 nits is my preference. So SDR content looks great on an OLED. HDR, that's where it is a harder tradeoff. The lack of blooming and I guess you'd call it "micro contrast" is really nice. If you have a low APL scene, particularly a quite dark scene with bright highlights it really does look great and it is a noticeable improvement over a 1152 zone MiniLED. However it just can't hit as hard. That's noticable everywhere in a game that makes use of really bright highlights but like I said, high (or really medium) APL scenes particularly. In Cyberpunk with the Nova LUT 3 mod daytime is very bright and brilliant. Still not eye searing, maybe only 150-180nits APL... but that's enough with the highlights, you get ABL happening. It just can't handle it.

There's also the motion clarity and refresh rate that is nice for OLED. 240Hz vs 120Hz isn't a massive step up, but it is a step up and is a nice one. With frame gen, I can enjoy it in most games too. Again in Cyberpunk flipping on 3x MFG gives performance in the 150-220fps range which looks really smooth and feels quite good. The fast element response times start to shine at high refresh rates too, it looks very clean and you see way less blur when you track moving objects with your eyes. That said there is a small downside with things that are not high refresh. The rather blur heavy PG32UQX kinda smoothed over low FPS where it starts to look really stuttery on OLED.

Ultimately if someone delivers a good 32" MiniLED, I'll probably get that and switch back. While the newer OLED panels are a little brighter, it isn't enough to interest me and really bright HDR highlights are just amazing.

I like to play at all hours of the day afternoon or evening and even mornings on the weekends and do not want to be forced into a dark room.

I should add when I was talking about day and night, I meant in game nor IRL. I keep the light pretty well controlled so when I game makes little difference. In Cyberpunk, particularly with Nova LUT 3 and RenoDX, nighttime is dark with high contrast neon lights all around, daytime is very bright and sunny. It is in game daytime where the panel has issues. It still displays fine, but if I get a bunch of bright sky on the screen, ABL kicks in.

Even with a MiniLED I like to keep a dim, light controlled room not only because I find that comfortable, but that's what HDR is graded for. Dolby specifies a reference environment of 5 nits (about 15 lux) or less for HDR grading. Now obviously many (all?) games aren't graded in a reference environment, but I still try to stick around that intent as that is what HDR content should be designed around.

 

[Armenius]

I'd consider staying away from OLED then. I mean I don't know that it would have a problem in 10 years, it might work fine... but I'm not confident that it will. Burn-in is not a solved issue with them.

For me, the biggest difference in looks has been HDR. I *LOVE* HDR gaming. The brightness (particularly with a MiniLED) and contrast is so impactful. It is the thing I'd most encourage people to upgrade for. Of course, that depends on the games you play if they support them, and some people don't care about HDR even after they see it, somehow.

As for performance... you are on a 3070Ti, you can't drive higher refresh rate monitors at high frame rates. Unless you play really old games, you aren't going to push over 144Hz much realistically so I wouldn't worry about it. Really for the 240Hz+ stuff you need frame gen, preferably multi-frame gen. It just gets hard to push those kind of refresh rates natively, so to use them you need hardware that'll do FG.

If you want to stick at 27" 2.5k then the only reason I'd look at a new monitor is for HDR, in which case I'd recommend MiniLED since you don't upgrade often, or for more clarity, in which case the Gsync Pulsar ones are what you want. Higher FPS isn't a thing you are going to get with your current GPU so it isn't worth spending money on, likewise I'd hold off on OLED because of possible burn in issues.

Really, it might be best to just save your money if you don't have a specific need. Maybe look at a new monitor once you've upgraded your computer. If what you have now works, there's no need to rush and replace it. Monitors can last a long time.

My C8 is 8 years old and has no issues.

Not every game is made on UE5.

 

[Advil]

Burn in isn't what is going to take my screen out, it's the dead pixels along the edges of the screen creeping in. Oxidation creeping in from failing sealing along the edges is what im reading it probably is?

With just basic care I've had little to no burn in over the last 5.5 years using the screen in a light controlled office.

What are the odds this pixel failure is improved with more current gen screens?

I admit I havn't researched this yet.

 

[MistaSparkul]

Burn in isn't what is going to take my screen out, it's the dead pixels along the edges of the screen creeping in. Oxidation creeping in from failing sealing along the edges is what im reading it probably is?

With just basic care I've had little to no burn in over the last 5.5 years using the screen in a light controlled office.

What are the odds this pixel failure is improved with more current gen screens?

I admit I havn't researched this yet.

I think it's only a problem on the CX models and maybe C1 that use the WBC panel, probably some manufacturing issue with those panels. I had a B7 from 2017 that I gave to my parents and it doesn't have any dead pixels or delamination going on at all even after 10 years. Owners of the C2 and up don't seem to be complaining about this problem either, or it could just be I haven't seen any such complaints yet but they do exist. The CX is definitely widespread, whoever doesn't have it is either one of the lucky ones or just has not yet noticed.

 

[xDiVolatilX]

Honestly every single side by side comparison of all the video and photos the mini LED TCL looks far better in every way than the C6 even through the video camera lens I'm absolutely certain that looking at them in real life standing in front of them they would look the same OLED tech is maxed out newer mini LED iterations are surpassing it and this is even before micro RGB

View: https://youtu.be/plDd7KIWsoc?is=y8w5JfAA9skIacVr
Does the C6 look better in even a single comparison? I don't think so.

 

[Comixbooks]

Mini Led TVs look really good they don't have any dim areas. I'm not sure if I could use one for gaming but they look amazing at Walmart.

 

[MistaSparkul]

Honestly every single side by side comparison of all the video and photos the mini LED TCL looks far better in every way than the C6 even through the video camera lens I'm absolutely certain that looking at them in real life standing in front of them they would look the same OLED tech is maxed out newer mini LED iterations are surpassing it and this is even before micro RGB

View: https://youtu.be/plDd7KIWsoc?is=y8w5JfAA9skIacVr
Does the C6 look better in even a single comparison? I don't think so.

He's comparing it using the 65 inch size C6 which is using the 10+ year old super outdated WOLED tech and not the newest Tandem WOLED found in the G6. Non MLA non Tandem WOLED is garbage tech at this point so a 2026 TCL Mini LED is obviously gonna thrash that, they make some amazing mini LED screens I have a 27 inch 4K TCL mini LED and it's awesome.

 

[Sycraft]

Honestly every single side by side comparison of all the video and photos the mini LED TCL looks far better in every way than the C6 even through the video camera lens I'm absolutely certain that looking at them in real life standing in front of them they would look the same OLED tech is maxed out newer mini LED iterations are surpassing it and this is even before micro RGB
Does the C6 look better in even a single comparison? I don't think so.

The two issues that MiniLED is likely to lose out on (having both MiniLED and OLED IRL here) that you won't really see on most videos is viewing angles and motion clarity. Viewing angles matter less for a TV, but for a monitor where you are up close, the edges are at quite an angle to your eyes. It is noticeable how nice and uniform the brightness and contrast is on an OLED compared to a MiniLED because all LCDs have some off axis shift. I don't see many video cover it, in part because on video it exaggerates how bad it actually is IRL. It's not a "make or break" thing, my MiniLED looks plenty good, but it IS something you can notice. Another is motion clarity and you see that in two different ways:

1. The most obvious and well known is just element response. OLEDs are fractions of a millisecond, LCDs are single to low double digit milliseconds. You can see that as a slightly more blurry image in motion. It isn't a big deal with a fast LCD, but it is still visible.
2. The perhaps bigger issue can be backlight lag. Generally those backlights trail a couple frames behind what is happening, meaning that in scenes with bright objects on dark backgrounds, you get an additional kind of tail happening. Again, not the biggest deal, but noticeable.

These are things that even with pretty good backlight controllers and small zones you can't eliminate, at present. That said, I'd still really like a good MiniLED monitor and I am keeping my eyes open to see what comes out.

Also one other somewhat minor thing, but they don't seem to hit as high a framerate. OLEDs are easy to find in 240Hz or more, the only MiniLED I've seen at that speed is in my laptop, and I've never seen one that is faster. I'm guessing backlight controls are the big reason.

 

[elvn]

OLED dim down way more than miniLED. However the Lg G6 gaming tv with it's heatsink can do up to ~ 450 nit in a 100% window, which is way above almost all other oled gaming displays. The alienware 39" etc go down to around 240. My LG CX goes down to 120nit

I have a entry level miniLED FALD QM6K I use as a side screen now, and it's gets 450nit at 100% screen. It's quite a difference next to my old CX, but if I were to break the bank and get a G6 it would have the same 100% window essentially. The problem is, those screens cost a lot (and for a lot of people , a 55" is too large, but I could do it, or a 48" C6, on it's own stand from 3.5 to 4' away). 450 nit in a 100% is much brighter in 100% window than I am used to seeing on my 48" CX, so I appreciate it, but the Q8L gets like 1200/1000 nit at 100% window.

. . .

In photoshop and other art apps you get tools like "dodge" and "burn" tool that you toggle. The darker you "burn" a color down, the deeper it can appear to our eyes, and the lighter you make something, the taller/nearer it appears, sort of like a topographical relief map. Light and dark side by side provide high detail and contrasted objects which can look like they have more relief and depth.

One of the cons of miniLED FALD screens is that, even if they make larger fields of black parts of a scene inky black, they can't keep that same black level and darks inside of otherwise lit areas, objects, characters, faces, etc. They can't get those darks side by side with lit things to get the same detail and contrasted look, so it looks a bit flat compared to an oled. It's sort of like you have cut-outs of characters and lit objects int the scene, with an invisible aura in and around them. The tech cleverly keeps harsh delineation of where that lifted black aura begins and ends hidden pretty well, almost like a lighting gradient across multiple zones when done well, but it still is what it is. . It tends to be "lit down" to more toward the native contrast of the screen end of the contrast range in those combinations in objects/characters. The zones just aren't small enough for fine details and relief without lifting the blacks and changing the look. Overall it can be a pretty decent look but it's nothing like per pixel emissive.

. . . . . . . .

Just some numbers I googled. These are for game mode on the TCL C8L, and the LG screens both using Film Maker Mode (FMM) with the game latency option active. Pretty impressive numbers on each screen, imo, considering each screen's tradeoffs overall.

Standardized HDR Window Performance Table (Filmmaker + Game Low-Latency Active on the LG screens)

Window Size	TCL C8L (Game Master) Momentary / Sustained	LG 55" G6 (FMM + Game Opt) Momentary / Sustained	LG 48" C6 Tandem (FMM + Game Opt) Momentary / Sustained
10% Window	3,800 / 3,100	2,100 / 1,550	1,350 / 1,050
25% Window	3,400 / 2,700	1,600 / 1,150	950 / 820
50% Window	2,300 / 1,850	900 / 720	620 / 530
75% Window	1,700 / 1,450	580 / 480	430 / 360
100% Window	1,200 / 1,000	430 / 360	315 / 250

. .

This google search reiterates a lot of what I just wrote at the top of this reply. I'm sure the C8L and the G6 are both great screens, but for gaming I prefer OLED, glossy specifically, it's per pixel SBS contrast, ultra blacks even within lit objects and characters, and it's very fast response time.

FALD lifting blacks/darks in lit objects

Because a Mini-LED TV cannot control light on a per-pixel level, the contrast within and immediately surrounding a lit object collapses directly back down to the panel’s native ANSI contrast ratio.
When a face, character, or lit object sits inside a dark scene, the local dimming zones behind that object must fire at high intensity. Because those zones span thousands of pixels each, the liquid crystals cannot perfectly block that intense backlight. This lifts the black levels inside and right at the borders of the lit object, causing intra-scene contrast degradation (micro-contrast collapse).
Here is a technical breakdown of exactly what the contrast drops to on the TCL C8L in those scenarios, why it happens, and how it handles it.

---

1. The Numbers: What Does the Contrast Drop To?

• Marketing / Infinite Contrast Claim: ∞:1 (When zones are completely turned off behind pure black areas).
• Real-World Intra-Scene Contrast (Inside the lit zone): ~5,000:1 to 8,000:1

The TCL C8L uses a high-performance VA (Vertical Alignment) panel. VA panels have excellent native contrast compared to IPS panels, typically resting between 5,000:1 and 6,500:1 natively.
When a face or character is illuminated in a dark room, the local dimming zones behind them light up. Inside that cluster of active zones, the local dimming can no longer do any work to separate small details. Therefore, the contrast between a character's dark hair and their lit face, or between their eyes and skin, drops entirely to the native contrast of the raw VA panel (~5,000:1 to 8,000:1 depending on sub-pixel chemistry and panel variance).

2. The Mechanics of the Contrast Drop
When analyzing a scene—like a face illuminated by a campfire against a pitch-black background—the screen splits into three distinct contrast zones:

• The Macro-Blacks (Outside the Zone): Safe. The zones completely shut off, giving you true OLED-like blacks away from the character.
• The Halos / Blooming (The Border): The backlight bleeds slightly past the edges of the character's physical outline, lifting the black levels right outside their skin or clothes into a dark gray.
• The Intra-Object Details (Inside the Zone): This is where you experience the native contrast limit. Because the LEDs are blazing to make the skin tones pop at high nit levels, any deep shadow details within the face (like the texture of wrinkles, shadow under the chin, or dark pupils) are competing with a massive amount of backlight passing through the liquid crystal layer. The blacks in these micro-shadows are inevitably lifted.

3. Mitigating Factors: Why It Still Looks Punchy
Even though the contrast mathematically collapses to the native panel limit inside lit elements, the TCL C8L hides this visually through two mechanisms:

• Extreme Zone Density: The C8L utilizes thousands of miniature dimming zones (scaling up to 4,032 zones depending on size). Smaller zones mean the backlight envelope tightly hugs the character's shape, restricting the contrast collapse to a much smaller physical footprint on the screen rather than a massive, blurry cloud.
• Human Visual Perception (Simultaneous Contrast): Your eyes act as a natural filter. When a face is blasting forward at 1,500+ nits of highlight brightness, your pupils constrict. This physiological reaction makes the slightly lifted, 0.2-nit "native VA black" inside the shadow of that face look much darker to your brain than it actually is.

The Bottom Line
When you look at a face or object on the TCL C8L, you are no longer looking at a display with "millions to one" contrast. You are looking at a high-end 6,000:1 VA panel being pushed to its absolute limits by an aggressive backlight.
While it looks incredibly vibrant and punchy due to sheer luminance and high zone density, it cannot maintain the pixel-level micro-contrast of a self-emissive display like the LG G6 or C6, which preserve native contrast ratios of ∞:1 even down to a single pixel of shadow on a character's face.

. .

OLED vs FALD response time and effective look of the high Hz ranges on the slower FALD screen:

The "Perceived" Hz Reality: TCL Q8L vs. LG G6:
The slower the response time, the lower the "effective" refresh rate feels to the human eye.
To see a true, crisp frame, a pixel must finish its color transition well before the next frame arrives. If the panel's response time is longer than the time a frame stays on screen (the frame window), the frames bleed into each other, destroying the motion clarity benefits of the high refresh rate.
Here is exactly how 120Hz, 144Hz, and 165Hz look and feel on both displays:

At 120Hz (Frame window = 8.33 milliseconds)

• LG G6: Because its response time is 0.1ms, it finishes its transition instantly. You get true 120Hz motion clarity with zero blur.
• TCL Q8L The ~9ms average response time is actually longer than the 8.33ms frame window. Pixels are still transitioning to the previous frame's color when the new frame arrives. Because of this persistent blur, 120Hz on the Q8L feels closer to a crisp 75Hz to 85Hz monitor.

At 144Hz (Frame window = 6.94 milliseconds)

• LG G6: Instantly handles the speed. You get a flawlessly crisp, ultra-smooth true 144Hz experience.
• TCL Q8L: The frame window shrinks to 6.9ms, but the pixels still take ~9ms to change. The display is completely choked by its own transition times. The motion blur gets worse, not better. Visually, 144Hz on the Q8L gives you the input responsiveness of 144Hz, but the actual motion clarity still looks like a blurry ~90Hz.

At 165Hz (Frame window = 6.06 milliseconds)

• LG G6: Delivers phenomenal tracking. .
• TCL Q8L: Running a 9ms response time panel at a 6ms frame window creates a muddy mess in fast-paced competitive gaming. The ghosting trails become very dense. Even though your mouse feels snappy because the processing pipeline is fast, the perceived visual fluidity caps out completely, looking no cleaner than a standard 90Hz to 100Hz panel.

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