What do I need to know about Monitors?

M

Maddnotez

Limp Gawd
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Nov 28, 2014
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Hoping to find a good deal on Black Friday for a monitor. Built my first PC this year and want to upgrade. I use it for gaming.

I have a GtX 970 and can maybe swing $300 but hoping to find a good deal on Black Friday or I am willing to buy refurbished or something.

Anyway what are the basics?

I know 4k is out of the question. I always thought I would need 1440p 144hz Monitor but I have read bad things about 1440p. Saying it causes FPS loss compared to 1080p and with my 970 I think what is the point of 1440p? Seems counter productive.

Why get a 144hz monitor if I am going to have frame loss? Maybe 1080p 144hz would be better?

Not sure what else I should know, monitor noob here just looking for some info to narrow down my choices.
 
Really depends on what your use case is.

What do you plan to do with it? Play games? If so, what type of games? FPS competitive? World of Warcraft? Etc.

There is no perfect monitor for every situation. To me, one of my biggest problems I have is the color shift of TN panels. Which means I'm stuck with another panel type, like IPS, and IPS typically is 60hz and more expensive. So now I gotta weigh, what is more important, faster refresh or color shifting? There's about dozen questions like this you need to weigh out when it comes to a monitor. Another common is is matte or glossy. One gives you glare, but better color accuracy and less sparkly text. The other one reduces glare, but make it look like a dirty color film on your screen.

Even though it seems like a monitor question is an easy question, it's actually probably one of the harder questions when it comes to a computer.

Most LCD monitors out there are TN panels (color shifting), with 60hz refresh (slow), with a matte anti glare coating (dirty screen). Compare that to the screen of an iPhone 4 (or newer), which is IPS (no color shifting), 60hz (still slow), with a glossy coating (no dirty screen). Which one looks better? iPhone looks amazing compared to most PC monitors you've worked with, right? So would you rather have a screen like that, or a screen like every other monitor out there that refreshes faster? You need to weigh in the pros and cons for yourself here. We can only help guide you.
 
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Scoobydo said:
Really depends on what your use case is.

What do you plan to do with it? Play games? If so, what type of games? FPS competitive? World of Warcraft? Etc.

There is no perfect monitor for every situation. To me, one of my biggest problems I have is the color shift of TN panels. Which means I'm stuck with another panel type, like IPS, and IPS typically is 60hz and more expensive. So now I gotta weigh, what is more important, faster refresh or color shifting? There's about dozen questions like this you need to weigh out when it comes to a monitor. Another common is is matte or glossy. One gives you glare, but better color accuracy and less sparkly text. The other one reduces glare, but make it look like a dirty color film on your screen.

Even though it seems like a monitor question is an easy question, it's actually probably one of the harder questions when it comes to a computer.

Most LCD monitors out there are TN panels (color shifting), with 60hz refresh (slow), with a matte anti glare coating (dirty screen). Compare that to the screen of an iPhone 4 (or newer), which is IPS (no color shifting), 60hz (still slow), with a glossy coating (no dirty screen). Which one looks better? iPhone looks amazing compared to most PC monitors you've worked with, right? So would you rather have a screen like that, or a screen like every other monitor out there that refreshes faster? You need to weigh in the pros and cons for yourself here. We can only help guide you.
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Well that is exactly the type of info I am looking for.

This is for gaming only. I play THIRD person shooters :p yes third person is FAR superior. JKJK. I play mostly shooters and random web browsing, minor audio recording/editing but it is a gaming PC.


what is more important, faster refresh or color shifting? I am not sure what color shifting is but just a guess. I am more concerned with refresh rate.

matte or glossy? Glossy. I play in my basement and well, I guess the light in the room could glare so that is a good point and I will check to see what my current monitor is. (Acer H22H) or some cheap thing like that.

What other things like this should be considered?
 
Scoobydo said:
This is color shifting:

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/viewing_angle.php

It drives me absolutely bonkers.
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That is a cool site, some of the patterns really make my eyes hurt.

The Monitor settings on the page says my resolution isn't 21:9 for some reason, and shows 24bit while it is set at 32bit,

lagom-monitor-test.jpg
 
Maddnotez said:
That is the monitor I have. Acer H233H. I can't find anything about TN or ISP
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Internet Service Provider panels do not exist, and they would likely try to create hourly usage tiers and throttle performance if they did. The H233H uses a TN panel, and that line of monitors (23 & 24") is sadly superior colour and contrast wise compared to most newer TN panels up to 24".

Maddnotez said:
It does seem like I should be ruling out an ISP monitor for gaming however from what I can read about it online.
Click to expand...

No, it's not 2009 anymore and most of the budget IPS/PLS panels are better than the budget non-BenQ TN panels since they don't use LED PWM Dimming or Flicker which ruins motion clarity (example). Most non-BenQ budget TN panels use PWM.

If you want a 144hz TN panel the LG 24GM77 (more information and review links) is the only one within your price range which is not inferior to your Acer image quality wise. I also have a giant recommendation thread filled with helpful comparison and review links, but I'll save you some time and recommend the HP 25XW (IPS; mostly complete review in progress) since it's better than most monitors in existence.
 
NCX said:
Internet Service Provider panels do not exist, and they would likely try to create hourly usage tiers and throttle performance if they did. The H233H uses a TN panel, and that line of monitors (23 & 24") is sadly superior colour and contrast wise compared to most newer TN panels up to 24".



No, it's not 2009 anymore and most of the budget IPS/PLS panels are better than the budget non-BenQ TN panels since they don't use LED PWM Dimming or Flicker which ruins motion clarity (example). Most non-BenQ budget TN panels use PWM.

If you want a 144hz TN panel the LG 24GM77 (more information and review links) is the only one within your price range which is not inferior to your Acer image quality wise. I also have a giant recommendation thread filled with helpful comparison and review links, but I'll save you some time and recommend the HP 25XW (IPS; mostly complete review in progress) since it's better than most monitors in existence.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the info, just confusing. will check the review at my home PC. Cant logon that site here.

60hz 1080p I already have though, confusing to say the least lol. Im sure it is a better picture than mine but would it be better than 1440p or 144hz?
 
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