Pivoting from 1440p/320Hz to a Pure Esports monitor

[flytefps]

I’m currently using a KTC H27E6 (27", 1440p, 320Hz IPS). It’s okay, but I want to switch to a pure esports setup. I prefer the 24-25-inch size and want the best motion clarity possible for games like Valorant, CS2 etc.

My Budget: Around £350 – £400.

I’m stuck between these options and need to know which is the biggest competitive jump:

Acer Nitro XV242F: The price is great for the speed, but is the pixel response time actually good enough to keep up with 540Hz? I'm worried about overshoot or blur.

Zowie XL2566K vs. XL2566X+: Is it worth getting a used 360Hz Zowie for DyAc+, or should I save up for the newer XL2566X+ with DyAc 2? It's difficult to find good deals for both new and used.

Older Zowie XL2546K or Zowie XL2540X+: Is the motion clarity on an older Zowie with DyAc still better than "raw" 540Hz on a budget panel?

Budget OLEDs: I’ve seen the talks about OLEDs being great for response times etc. Does the 0.03ms response time of OLED beat out TN panels for pure competitive play?

PC Specs: RTX 4070 - 7800x3d - DDR5-6000-CL36

[blurfreeCRTGimp]

A viewsonic XG2431 is a great budget option at $240 it is 1080p however. That said, if your goal is motion handling, a display like the XG2431 that can easily pan at 3840 pixels per second horizontal in motion without crostalk top middle or bottom is going to look better than a 1440p screen and be easier to run with your current setup.

You could also try an app like Shader Beam configured to run in a global refresh Phosphor fade BFI mode. The image will be dim, but it will hide overshoot, blur, etc. on your current 320 hz LCD.

This is an album with pictures of my BenQ XL2720. Its a TN panel from 2017 that has an average gtg response time of 7ms.
https://imgur.com/a/1920-pixels-per-sec ... ts-rDmlchk

By itself, the monitor has pretty terrible blur and overshoot, but when I use shader Beam with it, but in a phosphor fade BFI (Scan direction set to zero in Shader beam settings to enable) it gives amazing motion and covers up a lot of flaws of slow response times.

You could try this with your own current monitor (at your own risk) Make sure to enable LCD saver (anti retention) option.

[Chief Blur Buster]

Budget OLEDs: I’ve seen the talks about OLEDs being great for response times etc. Does the 0.03ms response time of OLED beat out TN panels for pure competitive play?

Depends on what you are sensitive to. 240fps 240Hz on an OLED is about 1.5x-2x clearer motion than an unstrobed 240Hz LCD depending on the model. For good e-TN, it's much smaller difference, 1.3x-1.5x.

Regardless, you get more motion clarity per sample and hold Hz -- nothing currently beat OLEDs.

refreshtime:gtgtime ratios are pretty bad beyond the VESA 10%-90% window. 1ms GtG can be more like 4-8ms GtG in some cases for some colors, far exceeding 240Hz refresh times, on a poorly refresh-rate-compliant monitor.

It's why 720Hz LCDs are so much clearer than 1000Hz LCDs at the photos at www.blurbusters.com/5000hz

And you can see 120vs480 at www.blurbusters.com/120vs480 if you want to see benefits outside esports games too.

Mind you, 240Hz LCDs are still cheap and I've seen 300-400 Hz generic LCDs fall to as little as $100-$150 now. Little difference in price versus a 60Hz LCD -- the first screen of Amazon search for computer monitors has no 60 Hz monitors. The cheapest 24-27" monitors viewed are now all high-Hz.

Mind you, a good cherrypicked 240Hz outperforms a crappy 300-400Hz.

If you are going to 1080p 24" to optimize for esports -- there are good reasons. Indeed, you're pretty much ruling out OLED unless you don't mind a higher-Hz mode of an OLED (e.g. 4K 240Hz OLED with a 1080p 480Hz mode) and a bigger screen.