NEW Benq Zowie Monitors Speculation/Info Thread (XL2546K-B, XL2546K, XL2411K)

[daviddave1]

What's the verdict guys? Is it even worth considering to upgrade to Xl2566K from the XG2431?

Absolutely-freaking not lol. $600+ for a minimal upgrade.

120 fps is a minimal upgrade?

[woodyfly]

What's the verdict guys? Is it even worth considering to upgrade to Xl2566K from the XG2431?

Absolutely-freaking not lol. $600+ for a minimal upgrade.

120 fps is a minimal upgrade?

First, diminishing returns. Going from say 60hz to 180hz is a huge difference where you're literally tripling your refresh rate. It's not the same as going from 240to360 or even in the future, going from say 800 to 920 hz.

Second, it's a first gen 360hz TN panel. Remember the first gen 144hz and 240hz panels? They're really bad compared to the latest gen ones. My first gen 240hz monitor is a blurred ghosting mess compared to the latest 240hz monitors, huge difference. WITHOUT a doubt benq and other companies has more plans lined up just like they did with their 144 and 240hz series. That's how sales works, you release your first gen product, everyone eats up up, then you release an "upgraded" version and keep doing it to continue making sales. They're not going to release their best version right off the bat. No doubt this monitor will be overtaken by a better monitor shortly after its release

Third, paying $600+ for dimishing returns and a first gen panel.

I might pay 600 if it was a latest gen 360/500hz or. If i was upgrading from a 1st gen 240hz.

[lvkethegreat]

Hey guys, I heard from some people that Zowie XL2411K (because of DyAc) is better than many cheap 240hz monitors when the focus is CSGO/Valorant. Is this true?

[A Solid lad]

Hey guys, I heard from some people that Zowie XL2411K (because of DyAc) is better than many cheap 240hz monitors when the focus is CSGO/Valorant. Is this true?

Motion might look clearer, but imo you're better off with a used Zowie 240hz at a good price.
XL2540, 2546 or the K and S variants of the same monitors.
They will feel much smoother and you'll feel more control when aiming.

[Chief Blur Buster]

Hey guys, I heard from some people that Zowie XL2411K (because of DyAc) is better than many cheap 240hz monitors when the focus is CSGO/Valorant. Is this true?

Motion might look clearer, but imo you're better off with a used Zowie 240hz at a good price.
XL2540, 2546 or the K and S variants of the same monitors.
They will feel much smoother and you'll feel more control when aiming.

Here's a distinction to think of:

While there are laggy cheap 240Hz that sometimes has more lag than a superlative 144Hz Zowie.... let's compare apples vs apples:

1. A 240Hz DyAc Zowie is still better than a 144 Hz DyAc Zowie, even if you play at only 100fps
2. A 360 Hz DyAc Zowie is still better than a 240 Hz DyAc Zowie, even if you play at only 100fps

At 360Hz, those 100fps will transmit over the DisplayPort cable in 1/360sec, so you get lower lag for the same low frame rates, lower frame transport latency, assuming everything else is equal (same absolute/GtG/etc latency). Latency is a long chain:



By using a higher refresh rate, you reduce the frame transport latency. Even for VSYNC OFF! A VSYNC OFF frameslice will transmit more pixels (360/144 = 2.5x more image transported per frameslice) per same frame rate, allowing you to see more pixels sooner per frame, regardless of framerate below Hz or framerate above Hz.

For low VSYNC OFF frame rates below Hz, all pixels of the whole frame are hitting your eyeballs within 1/360sec even if your frame rate is low. In other words, 100fps at 360Hz is lower lag than 100fps at 144Hz, assuming the panel has the same fast esports processing (e.g. Zowie versus Zowie).

For high VSYNC OFF frame rates above Hz, more pixels per VSYNC OFF frameslice is transmitted and displayed sooner. So 1000fps at 360Hz will have frameslices 2.5x taller than 1000fps at 144Hz, allowing you to see more action sooner. And tearing also much less visible at 360Hz (individual tearlines disappear after 1/360sec).

And you get lower lag with all sync technologies, whether VSYNC ON or VRR or etc.
_____

The XL2566K pixel response is faster than any Zowie before it, the new E-TN technology is pretty superlatively fast for TN LCD pixel response. So the 360Hz is not a downgrade for low-framerate content.

At 240Hz, you have great options. For example, ViewSonic XG2431 IPS is lag-competive and pixel-response competitive to a Zowie 240Hz panel. That specific IPS can even also strobe more clearly than many 240Hz TNs, though the XL2546 DyAc strobes brighter. But the XL2566K E-TN and 360Hz starts to leapfrog FastIPS performance again.

_____

TL;DR: For competitive, don't skimp on refresh rate, unless there's a good reason to do so (e.g. price budget limit, limited choice in country, vastly inferior high-Hz option versus superior lower-Hz option).

[Inco^]

The XL2566K pixel response is faster than any Zowie before it, the new E-TN technology is pretty superlatively fast for TN LCD pixel response. So the 360Hz is not a downgrade for low-framerate content.

On Zowie's website page for XL2566K, it is written Fast TN, not E-TN.
Is it the same thing/panel?
Won't the panel used by Asus for their 500/540Hz monitor be a different (and hopefully better) one compared to XL2566K's?

[Chief Blur Buster]

The XL2566K pixel response is faster than any Zowie before it, the new E-TN technology is pretty superlatively fast for TN LCD pixel response. So the 360Hz is not a downgrade for low-framerate content.

On Zowie's website page for XL2566K, it is written Fast TN, not E-TN.
Is it the same thing/panel?

You're right, I mix the two up. But they're fundamentally the type of panel. Much like one manufacturer's AHVA is another manufacturer's IPS, but they're still essentially the same panel technology.

Won't the panel used by Asus for their 500/540Hz monitor be a different (and hopefully better) one compared to XL2566K's?

Tests will be needed to know if the 500+ Hz vs 360 Hz TN.

Remember that there are some compromises to doing refresh rates beyond a panel's GtG capability. This is very visible on 240 Hz IPS (looks good) versus 360 Hz IPS (becomes more marginal). When GtG limits are often exceeded significantly, it shows up as asymmetric ghosting (more blur on one edge of UFO than the other), which is an objectionable artifact (ghosting and coronas).

It's pretty starkly clear that the XL2566K is the first 360Hz panel with fairly symmetric blur on both leading/trailing edge of UFOs in Ghosting tests, and show excellent speed completing most of GtG in one refresh cycle (not all, but most). Even though I like the 360Hz IPS panels, both of the new "faster" TN panels seem to be leapfrogging the new "faster" IPS panels (that outperformed many slower TN panels).

[A Solid lad]

To add to all of this, input lag and response times aren't everything.

The reason I recommend Zowie to every competitive FPS player is because of their OSD features.
No other company nails those as well as Zowie does.
The 20 step Black EQ, 10 step saturation, 5 step Gamma and 10 step sharpness settings on their monitors are all well tuned, and will give you superior visibility ingame. I mentioned steps, because usually other monitors don't give you this many, which limits your ability to fine tune it on each map/game u play.
The above mentioned viewsonic has a decent black EQ, but with only 10 steps, and doesn't have built in saturation. I saw in this video that it has a sharpness setting, but idk how good it is. (Many sharpness filters look messed up... again, Zowie's looks useable.)
Other brands have copies of these settings in their monitors, but they usually don't work nearly as well, or they don't have them all.
Or in case of some Dell Alienware monitors, the 3 step sharpness setting also adds dark edges to displayed objects.... like wtf? How can u be this bad at understanding what a competitive gamer wants? If you're so clueless, just copy Benq properly.
Maybe even give more steps than they do so you gain an advantage over them? 50 step OD? 30 step black EQ & saturation anyone? SMH

Not to mention profiles... I hate it when certain settings aren't tied to profiles, because it defeats the point of having them... and this is the case on many monitors.
Let's say I switch to my desktop use profile to lower brightness, disable black EQ and get neutral saturaion...
well, what do you know, the saturation stays cranked... or Black EQ does... or both do, depending on the brand.
It's soooo stupid.
Manufacturers:
If you put display profiles into your monitor (which you should), make them remember every setting.
If I have to go into the OSD to manually decrease saturation or turn off black EQ after switching profiles, there's no point in switching profiles.
Plus some brands's OSDs are just set up badly.
Examples: You cannot dedicate a hotkey for profile switching; or you can, but the monitor switches on and off while cycling thru profiles... making the process slow and painful, thus defeating the purpose of fast profile switching... etc, etc.
ASUS, Dell, Acer, AOC and Viewsonic included.

I was reminded of the importance of these settings after using a 280hz ASUS monitor. (VG279QM)
It had lower iput lag and faster response times, as well as way better colors... but I just could acquire targets nearly as well.
I switched back to my trusty XL2540.
(I also had an XL2546K, but the new scaler in that monitor sucks... display scaling is blurry AF on it. I had to sell it and keep using the 2540, since I need sharp display scaling for CS:GO and other FOV locked games where I want to stretch.)

I'm not a Benq shill... in fact, I would very much like to have other options... something even better than Benq, at a lower price. (Other brands's equivalent monitors are usually cheaper... but I guess that has to do with the fact that they aren't equal.)
They also do stupid stuff, like limiting what settings you can bind to which OSD hotkeys... WHY???
What negative effect could letting the user set let's say... Black EQ to the first "Custom key" instead of the second, if they so desire?

photo_2022-10-29_20-37-29.jpg (180.9 KiB) Viewed 7467 times

photo_2022-10-29_20-37-28.jpg (176.42 KiB) Viewed 7467 times

But no, you aren't allowed to do that. Heaven forbid.
And you also cannot bind "Sharpness" to a "Custom key".
SO STUPID.

Anyway, I could probably list a dozen more annoyances I have with monitor OSDs, but I'll conclude with this:
Gaming monitor brands need to realize that the reason Benq's products are used by so many people is the OSD primarily.
I mean, everything else is important too, but other companies got those aspects mostly nailed down already... this is the area that needs improvement, so they can challenge Benq's monopoly in esports.
Until then, Pros will keep using Benq, and whatever they use will get purchased by the majority of comp players.

If only I could design an esport monitor's OSD...

[Discorz]

To add to all of this, input lag and response times aren't everything.

I completely agree with all of this. Here on forums we mainly recommend monitors based on their blur performance, other things matter too. Some features/limitations are just straight up stupid nonsense. My favorite one is when they default the overdrive to level with horrendous amount of overshoot and then lock the overdrive. I was going to make a thread with all of this listed in the hope that one of the manufacturers will see and do something about it, but I realized it would take a lot of time to describe each one so I never did it. We need to complain more.

[A Solid lad]

Oh yeah, I've been holding these gripes in me for years... and I still have more I could share. lol

But I'm always afraid that I'm pretty much alone with them, and so will be dismissed.
The fact everyone seems to be perfectly happy with the XL2546K seems to back this suspicion of mine up.
It has horribly blurry display scaling, to the point where GPU scaling is sharper.
And not only does it have bad scaling, it refuses to scale many resolutions... the complete opposite of my good old 2540, which scales almost every res I throw at it via CRU. (or at least tries, and ends up glitchy if the timings aren't good)
I imagine even most pros just don't know better and use/have been using GPU scaling, even on the older gen 2540 and 2546, so they don't notice the downgrade.
Also, the new scaler brought other changes with itself: the look of sharpening (worse, more akin to other brands's wonky stuff) the look of saturation... etc. Which is a given, since it's a completely different scaler, with all of these features just ported over.
Despite all this, I haven't seen any complaints about the 2546K, compared to the older gen models.

The sad thing is, all this will probably stay the same in future Benq monitors as well (I'm 99% sure they haven't fixed this on the 2566K), like the upcoming 500hz one, in which I'm actually interested.
They aren't gonna dedicate time and resources to fix dislay scaling, when almost no one seems to be bothered by the downgrade.