Buying a gaming monitor tomorrow - made a shortlist. Advice?

[HenrikE1234]

Background: I have a Samsung SA950, with a 4970k/980 Strix rig.

I'm looking for the perfect 27" monitor for The Forest, where I get a steady 71-73 FPS on Ultra. I plan to get a GTX 1080 in a few months' time. Therefore, budget around $500, possibly stretching another $150 for that dreamy must-buy.

The only problem I have with the monitor is the ghosting when I look around and walk around in the detailed world with subtle shadows and foliage. (Think Skyrim Enhanced edition, but on steroids.) I'm one of the people who see blur easily.

27" feels like the perfect size for me, 1080p is excellent. I think I'd want to stay on 1080p even *if* I get a GTX 1080. The thinking is that I could run more games on High/Ultra for years to come. But at 27", 1440p gives more choice for newer monitors, so there are some in the list. I will listen to your experiences.

Asus PG278Q
ASUS MG279Q
BenQ XL2730Z
Benq Zowie XL2720 (unknown specs)
Benq XL2720Z (no G-Sync)
Acer Predator XB271HUbmiprz Gsync, IPS, 165Hz, 4ms, ULMB
Asus ROG Swift 279Q - same specs as XB271HUbmiprz
Acer Predator XB271Hbmiprz - 1080p G-Sync - 165Hz 4ms
Acer Predator XB271HUAbmiprz, 1440p of above
Dell S2716DG (G-Sync AND blur reduction, wat? )

Add your recommendation if it's not on the list!

For my favorite game, I'm probably looking for the one that delivers the smoothest, clearest, most beautiful immersive graphics experience. Currently at 60FPS/60Hz, but with the 1080 either the same at 1440p or higher at 1080p. Which of those two is worth it the most?

Side question: Will higher pixel density and 144 Hz+G-sync fix the blur right up on its own, with no need for blur reduction, even if I see it easily? I've read up, so by all means get technical.

I play other first person games including shooters (I get 120 FPS/120 Hz in Doom at High settings, and it looks awesome), but not competitive online shooters.

[Falkentyne]

ULMB "fixes" blur. Not gsync. gsync fixes stutters/tearing.

[HenrikE1234]

ULMB "fixes" blur. Not gsync. gsync fixes stutters/tearing.

I know.

It looks like I couldn't bump up the framerate on the favorite game from 71 until I get the new GPU. So I'd have to stay on 60 Hz anyway, and so the only step I can take to get an improvement from what I have now, is to reduce blur as much as I can. IPS might give slightly better colors, but would make the image darker with blur reduction than on a TN panel, so would it be an improvement? Is the IPS darkness a huge issue?

The reasons I bring up G-sync is:

1) If I go 1440p, FPS will be lowered below 60. If, then, 1440p+144Hz reduces blur already, I'd get 53 FPS @ 144Hz with my current GPU, and perhaps 80 FPS @ 144Hz with my next one, and it would be a less blurry experience without stutter.

2) If I go 1080p, FPS will stay higher than 60, but I can't use the higher framerate, because if I want it stutter-and-tearing free, I couldn't set the next higher Hz. With G-sync I could run it at 71 FPS @ 85? 144? Hz now, and maybe at 90 FPS @ 100 Hz or 130 FPS @ 144 Hz later?

Am I thinking about it correctly?

G-sync or not to G-sync, that's the question. These chaps seem to agree G-sync doesn't really do much unless you're slogging along at 40 FPS and that the important thing is to get a high refresh rate monitor. I think I could dip down there occasionally for some Open World titles, especially if I go 1440p - and how will the high refresh rate alone help me improve my experience (aside from blur reduction) if I cap the FPS at 60 for my 71 FPS game? If the answer is, "it won't", that's fine and I will be better informed.

Therefore, the features are lumped together in the product and I'm trying to unravel what's important to me, since I have no G-Sync nor blur reduction in my current monitor.

On paper, I should get the XL2720Z since my main focus is to get rid of the blur, and be done with it. I know this is BlurBusters, so if someone here says, "hey, wait a minute. there ARE reasons to have a 1440p monitor, an IPS panel, or a G-sync monitor" for all-round reasons, the arguments might be more persuasive than a general buying advice on a general hardware forum, if you know what I mean.

[lexlazootin]

The only problem I have with the monitor is the ghosting when I look around and walk around in the detailed world with subtle shadows and foliage.

That sounds like it might be a overdrive issue. Monitors use overdrive to make the pixel transition from one color to another faster. But if overdrive is abused, it causes a disgusting inverse ghosting. You can check out how much ghosting you get on your monitor by using this test: http://testufo.com/#test=ghosting

G-Sync does a pretty good job at correctly adjusting for overdrive and i personally love it. Edit: I play pretty much just CS and i cap my framerate to 140fps so that G-Sync is always on, this allows me to get a tear free experience with no latency unlike V-Sync. Some people play at 300fps+ to get pretty much the same effect but i don't need to stress my CPU or GPU in the process. I will probably use G-Sync to the end of time.

Asus ROG Swift PG279Q, 1440, Gsync, IPS, 165Hz
Acer Predator XB271HU, 1440, Gsync, IPS, 165Hz

Are both great choice, Because they both use the same G-Sync chip both are pretty identical and the top of the top. They are going to look pretty god damn amazing. The only downside is that IPS is slightly slower in terms of pixel transition times, unless you want to play some serious quakelive you're probably going to be fine.

Acer Predator XB271HUAbmiprz, 1440, Gsync, IPS, 165Hz (Wat, i never knew of this monitor until now)
Dell S2716DG, 1440, Gsync, IPS, 165Hz

Again are really good choices but the difference here is the TN panel, it's not as good as IPS but it's faster when it comes to pixel transitions. It's also slightly cheaper.

Well that's my take on it.

[HenrikE1234]

(This is not an answer to anyone, just sorting things out in my mind.)

I guess my questions boil down to:

1) Is the best ever blur reduction in the XL2720Z enough of an improvement in the 71 FPS open world game to warrant the $400 cost, or should I look beyond that at other features also?

2) Does 1440p, same size offer other benefits I might want, provided all my games stayed at the current texture resolution? For example, could I turn down/off AA to compensate the 77% increase in pixel count to get the framerate okayish? Why would I want to get LOWER framerate in games, anyway?

3) Do the IPSes (all 4ms, 144Hz) offer a better visual gaming experience than the TNs here? Or are all TNs 8-bit and good enough now and since blur reduction is a must have, the darker image makes it give no benefits?

I guess my answers are, 1) yes, why are you wasting time on forums, buy it now 2) no, are you mad, and 3) maybe, I'd have to look at the screen first.

But I bought the SA950 without reading up first, and I've been playing catch-up all weekend on everything that came after it. So you could say I don't know the visual impression of G-Sync, 1440p, and IPS firsthand. I don't know if I'd go wow or meh at them. So I try to gather others' impressions.

[HenrikE1234]

The only problem I have with the monitor is the ghosting when I look around and walk around in the detailed world with subtle shadows and foliage.

That sounds like it might be a overdrive issue. Monitors use overdrive to make the pixel transition from one color to another faster. But if overdrive is abused, it causes a disgusting inverse ghosting. You can check out how much ghosting you get on your monitor by using this test: http://testufo.com/#test=ghosting

G-Sync does a pretty good job at correctly adjusting for overdrive and i personally love it. Edit: I play pretty much just CS and i cap my framerate to 140fps so that G-Sync is always on, this allows me to get a tear free experience with no latency unlike V-Sync. Some people play at 300fps+ to get pretty much the same effect but i don't need to stress my CPU or GPU in the process. I will probably use G-Sync to the end of time.

Asus ROG Swift PG279Q, 1440, Gsync, IPS, 165Hz
Acer Predator XB271HU, 1440, Gsync, IPS, 165Hz

Are both great choice, Because they both use the same G-Sync chip both are pretty identical and the top of the top. They are going to look pretty god damn amazing. The only downside is that IPS is slightly slower in terms of pixel transition times, unless you want to play some serious quakelive you're probably going to be fine.

Acer Predator XB271HUAbmiprz, 1440, Gsync, IPS, 165Hz (Wat, i never knew of this monitor until now)
Dell S2716DG, 1440, Gsync, IPS, 165Hz

Again are really good choices but the difference here is the TN panel, it's not as good as IPS but it's faster when it comes to pixel transitions. It's also slightly cheaper.

Well that's my take on it.

Exactly, and that's what I'm looking for. Most of all the general experience of gaming when using these options.

No eSports requirements from my side though. 60/60/Vsync input lag IS on the low side even for other games, and some games can add to this making the experience laggier than the sum of all hardware, so to speak. Cue the "piloting a blimp" feeling. But apart from those games, gaming with "normal" 60/60/Vsync feels OK to me in modern titles. Obviously that doesn't require a gaming monitor, so an improvement would be welcome.

I don't have many options to play with in the menus. Response time: Normal, Faster, Fastest, and HDMI black level: Normal, Low.

The UFO test correctly detects the 120 Hz and runs at 120 FPS. With the best settings, Response Time: Fastest and HDMI black level: Low, I get the following result:

- Blur akin to 60-FPS-on-120-Hz-CRT on all the UFOs. The UFO legs, for example, are doubled and blurry, so that they are not black.
- colorful "jpeg artifacting" dot-cloud trailing the bottom two UFOs, sticking out about 8px behind it. No "bands" like in some other photos of the UFO test. The bottom UFO is slightly worse.
- On the top UFO, I just get a slight gray shadow trailing by 8px. Like a faint halo.

[Falkentyne]

If you already had a XL2411Z, XL2420Z or XL2720Z (possibly the XL2430T), you could always test a custom display scaled resolution which will report 2560x1440. DVI port would need the toastyx pixel clock patcher, displayport doesn't:

2560x1440,
porch 48,3
sync 32,5
HT: 2720
VT: 1500
refresh rate: 100hz.

Unfortunately, the crosstalk would look like 1920x1080 *WITHOUT* a VT tweak applied, or 2560x1440 on the XL2730Z (120hz only) or XL2735 (100hz) without a VT tweak. You could also use VSR/DSR to make that resolution on your existing monitor you already have, and then just test your settings then.

XL2720Z is fine if you are fine with ONLY 1080p and you care more about blur reduction than anything else. Newer monitors (excluding the buggy freesync XL2730Z, which has all the panel issues and possible breaking defects of the Asus ROG Swift, and can NOT strobe lower than *120hz*) all offer more features, and far better overdrive than the Benqs (to be fair you can make the XL2720Z's overdrive as perfect as possible with blur reduction off (yes this doesn't seem to make sense, but it's rather impressive!), by enabling blur reduction, then overwriting the AMA high setting by moving the slider and setting it back to high (this undocumented toggle sets the AMA to "Low"), and then activating a PICTURE MODE PRESET that has blur reduction DISABLED In the preset. This is not persistent and will revert if resolution/refresh rate or power on/off state is changed. While the 'AMA low' blur reduction on setting DOES remove most of the horrible inverse overshoot when blur reduction is enabled, you have to set the contrast MUCH lower to remove the NORMAL ghosting that gets added. Contrast at "6" looks competitive with lexlazootin's XL2420G Gsync ULMB mode monitor, and the 1440p ULMB modes after doing the 'AMA low' thing, but it's a shame you have to set the contrast this low and there's still a very small amount of ghosting left).

I do NOT know how the XL2735's ghosting is, however the service menu has an "OD Gain" setting with several values, which further finetune the 'AMA' high values, which can make a good difference. If you do NOT care about single strobe lower than 100hz, and want 1440p, XL2735 is good, but there is NO good reason why Benq did NOT Include the "Single Strobe' override in the firmware.

If you don't care about 60hz strobing or 60hz single strobe output to consoles, or strobing at bizarre refresh rates like 72hz or 80hz (75hz will accept a VT 1350 tweak, but no VT 1497-1502 tweaks, 76hz may or may not), then Gsync monitors offer more features and eye candy for Nvidia users, and something like the absurdly expensive Eizo Foris FS2735 offer far better eye candy and picture tweaking ability than any other AMD freesync monitor ---IF YOU GET A PANEL WITHOUT HORRIBLE AU OPTRONICS IPS DEFECTS --.

The Dell 27" and 24" 1440p TN monitors are surprisingly nice, and if you have a 3d vision 2 kit, you can exploit a bug to enable Gsync+ULMB SIMULTANEOUSLY, which works down to ***40hz single strobe***--but this is apparently very difficult to do in windows 10 due to missing "Set when desktop is in 3d mode" option--which DOES Exist in windows 7..but I believe there's a way to make it work in windows 10. If you really really want <85hz strobing and have an Nvidia video card, consider the Dell Gsync TN's ....(both should work with the bug).

[HenrikE1234]

@Falkentyne: So the differences in blur reduction boil down to differences in strobing/black frame insertion and overdrive implementation for the edge transitions? Spontaneously I'd suspect strobing gives the most blur reduction, but are there monitors completely without strobing, just edge transition processing worth the salt? IPS panels have no strobing?

I *have* noted ROG Swift and XL2730Z manufacturing issues. I do have RMA available as an option in the QA/IPS-bleed lottery. Even though it's not much fun to go through several monitors to get one that delivers...

The Eizo was on the list, removed for other reasons than the IPS lottery aspect. Basically I've kept Freesync monitors in the back of my mind, but I heard about the buggy Freesync implementations first in the video I linked just now. I can't use Freesync with my GTX 980, they are basically not an option unless the 490 is announced today I will leave them on the list as to perhaps provoke, "this is the G-Sync/non adaptive-sync version of that monitor".

> If you don't care about 60hz strobing or 60hz single strobe output to consoles, or strobing at bizarre refresh rates like 72hz

Yes, the 1Hz increment strobing feature. Ideally, I'd cap the 71-73 FPS game at 70, run it at 72Hz VSync off, with strobing to remove blur, and then after the GPU upgrade be able to follow that up to the new FPS I get? Would this give a better impression than some of the best Overdrive implementations with G-sync to a standard higher refresh rate? This is what I don't know.

I do know that I don't need 60 Hz single strobe for consoles. I plan to use only the single Displayport connector, unless you say otherwise.

I don't think I would buy the 3D vision 2 kit at the current price. I'm a bit reluctant to perform a ritual with glitchy options to get a mode to work.

[Falkentyne]

The 1440p Gsync IPS panels have ULMB, which is blur reduction. The Eizo FS 2735 is IPS and has freesync+blur reduction. I can't help with gsync questions as I don't have a gsync monitor, I'm sorry

[HenrikE1234]

Yep.

Appreciate the information on the Dell, one thing that I wasn't sure of was if I bought it, would the trick work? Thanks

I take it you can get Gsync+blur reduction to work without the 3D kit - is it a 'finnicky ritual' to enable it? Ideally, I'd make profiles/custom resolutions once-and-for-all for a few games to get better blur reduction or experience, and I'd run the profile, maybe switch a setting on the monitor, and run the game and that's it and it'd work every time.

Do you know anything about the blur reduction quality on it?