Advice on a new monitor with £500 Budget.

[dtKO]

I will give a bit of background of my current setup and needs to help form a picture of my requirements, there's a TL;DR at the bottom

I have a nearly decade old monitor (Acer GD245HQ 120hz) and I have recently built a new computer with i9-9900K + 1080ti - It's about time I upgraded my monitor. I have wanted a new monitor for a very long time but I was kind of waiting around for a bit before a pulled the trigger to do some research and just see if anything mind blowing came out beforehand.

I am a big gamer and play a lot of games - mostly playing FPS games such as Apex Legend/Fortnite/Quake Champions etc. Now, after doing some reading there is a lot to take in and understand about monitors but I basically want the best performing monitor possible. I have been looking into Gsync and MBR (ULMB/DyAc) etc, and it gets confusing as both are two different technologies but seems to result in the same output (a smoother experience..).

If I am right in saying the general gist of things is if you can achieve max FPS (240) then ULMB/DyAc is the way to go, but if you struggle to get that, then GSync is good to have as a backup to maintain smooth gameplay. Both features are really appealing to me as I feel GSync can be put to good use for games in the future if I can't hit max FPS.

I was looking into getting a monitor with both options but there seems to be a problem.. from my findings it looks like any monitor that does Motion Blur Reduction at 240hz doesn't have the GSync module installed (BenQ XL2546) which is rather frustrating. I know there are a few that has GSync and MBR features but from my understanding they only do that up to 144Hz and not up to 240hz with MBR; am I correct in saying this? There is talk about "GSync compatibility monitors" but not having the full capability seems rather pointless to me.

It seems the main monitors that are spoken about are the PQ258Q, AW2518H and XL2546. Are there any other monitors I should be considering and which would be the best one for me?


TL;DR the best performing monitor for FPS/general gaming with 240hz + GSync at 1080p with a £500 budget.

[Chief Blur Buster]

If I am right in saying the general gist of things is if you can achieve max FPS (240) then ULMB/DyAc is the way to go, but if you struggle to get that, then GSync is good to have as a backup to maintain smooth gameplay. Both features are really appealing to me as I feel GSync can be put to good use for games in the future if I can't hit max FPS.

Generally true -- but don't forget strobe crosstalk increases with refresh rate. In many situations, blur reduction can look better on a 240Hz monitors doing blur reduction at 100Hz, 120Hz, and 144Hz. The higher the refresh rate, the more difficult it is for motion blur reduction to be crosstalk-free sometimes, but your mileage will vary depending on monitor. So add that option. 240Hz GSYNC versus 144fps@144Hz ULMB on the same monitor, as an example!

I was looking into getting a monitor with both options but there seems to be a problem.. from my findings it looks like any monitor that does Motion Blur Reduction at 240hz doesn't have the GSync module installed (BenQ XL2546) which is rather frustrating.

One idea is to simply depreciate the goal of 240Hz blur reduction if latency is not your #1 numero uno.

Perfect 144fps MBR has less motion blur than perfect 240Hz GSYNC, as motion blur thusly becomes controlled by strobe flash length (as for ULMB) rather than via frame time (as for GSYNC).

See Blur Busters 60fps vs 120fps vs LB and the two diagrams for motion blur with strobing versus motion blur without strobing, for a general guideline of how much motion blur to expect.

It's much like how people can't tell apart CRT 100fps@100Hz versus CRT 120fps@120Hz -- the flickerwidth is similar. But on LCD, which is sample-and-hold, then display motion blur is proportional to frametime (at least before adding extra GtG blur).

Now, there are reasons to use 240Hz + MBR -- for example, playing strobed in esports. 240Hz strobed is lowest lag, just not necessarily best strobe quality. The strobe crosstalk progressively worsens, the higher refresh rate you go. That's why NVIDIA artificially locked ULMB to 144Hz on their 240Hz monitors, while BenQ lets user choose (unlocked strobing). 144Hz ULMB vs 144Hz DyAc is similar, while 240Hz DyAc is worse strobe crosstalk than both 144Hz ULMB and 144Hz DyAc. So that's a compromise that was decided.

If you are prioritizing on visual motion quality, then framerate=Hz always looks better (even if it's 144fps@144Hz), and you can always switch to GSYNC or VSYNC OFF when you're playing games that run at higher frame rate.

Tradeoffs, eh?

[BlurBoss]

AORUS KD25F

[TTT]

The monitors you mention are the first gen 240hz panels, I would look at the newer ones with the 0.5 response times, like blurboss mentions.

[masneb]

Based purely on the review Acer Nitro XF252Q

https://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/ac ... xf252q.htm

[dtKO]

Thank you all very much for the replies, especially Chief Blur Buster for the thorough response.

It's all quite complicated and it's hard for me to decide on what I really want to prioritise as I have never experienced GSync or MBR - I can't honestly say which I prefer. I don't know if having the lowest input lag (240hz strobed) would be better for me, or having a smoother experience with a an increase input lag would be even noticeable.That's why I was leaning more towards a monitor that is 240hz with Gsync option so I could have a taste of both.

It's very hard choice as spending £500 on a monitor .. it's a big chunk of money and I feel I'm kind of taking a stab in the dark with it. Now people are suggesting the Acer Nitro XF252Q or AORUS KD25F which I have never even heard of. These two monitor don't have GSync. The AORUS KD25F is "GSync Compatible".. what does this mean exactly? How does it differ from monitors that have the GSync module? Does it mean it doesn't have ULMB? Are these monitors massively better than the 1st gen monitors I had listened previously (PQ258Q, AW2518H and XL2546), I can't really find good reviews on it in regards to it's performance in gaming in comparison to the currecnt crop of 240hz monitors. ie. input lag etc.

[TTT]

Thank you all very much for the replies, especially Chief Blur Buster for the thorough response.

It's all quite complicated and it's hard for me to decide on what I really want to prioritise as I have never experienced GSync or MBR - I can't honestly say which I prefer. I don't know if having the lowest input lag (240hz strobed) would be better for me, or having a smoother experience with a an increase input lag would be even noticeable.That's why I was leaning more towards a monitor that is 240hz with Gsync option so I could have a taste of both.

It's very hard choice as spending £500 on a monitor .. it's a big chunk of money and I feel I'm kind of taking a stab in the dark with it. Now people are suggesting the Acer Nitro XF252Q or AORUS KD25F which I have never even heard of. These two monitor don't have GSync. The AORUS KD25F is "GSync Compatible".. what does this mean exactly? How does it differ from monitors that have the GSync module? Does it mean it doesn't have ULMB? Are these monitors massively better than the 1st gen monitors I had listened previously (PQ258Q, AW2518H and XL2546), I can't really find good reviews on it in regards to it's performance in gaming in comparison to the currecnt crop of 240hz monitors. ie. input lag etc.

Best advice is order it on Amazon, no questions asked returns even like over a month down the line. So if the monitor just isn't what you want or if it has some defects and dead pixels you can just send it back no hassle. Alot of standard shops won't take a return for dead pixels.