Great monitors are another perk of PC gaming

Yes, the best ones are prohibitively expensive. Now that I got this out of the way, GSync, FreeSync, Ultrawide, 144Hz are all quite nice features of high-end PC monitors.

I recently bought an HP Omen X35 which is a huge 35" Ultrawide 3440x1440/100Hz monitor and it looks very good. With GSync and 100fps games run amazingly well. No tearing at all and the motion is very fluid. What's more for some strange reason, the colors look on par if not better than my Samsung KS8000 even while the latter is using HDR. It's something I really wasn't expecting. Non HDR PC monitors have pretty fantastic colors even though they have nowhere near the specs of HDR TV's.

Although I wasn't as blown away by GSync as I was led to believe it's still is very nice in games such as Middle Earth Shadow of War. DOOM is straight up fantastic in Ultrawide and 100fps. Another level of immersion that sadly cannot be attained on console just yet(well except for VR).

High end system that costs a lot of money are better than limited consoles, more news at 11

Well yeah, but there are also some pretty nice TVs out there, plus you can use consoles with gaming monitors but sadly consoles won't take full effect of it.

PC gaming is always gonna be on top thanks to its openness.

even the highest end monitor doesn't even close to the awesomeness of a full HDR OLED display

Yes, one of many. Feelsgood.

The prices of OLED displays are insane though.

Hey TC, didn't you have this one thread where you said 4k is the way to go? Why did you go back to 1440p now?

I have my pc hooked up to a 50 inch non hdr 4k tv it's nice but once hdmi 2.1 releases I'm upgrading I want Variable Refresh Rate, Dynamic HDR, 4k 120hz guessing the import lag will be lower as well. I'm assuming we'll get news about hdmi 2.1 tvs at CES 2018 and hopefully news on the geforce volta cards as well.

I may get a oled but haven't made a decision yet.

Yeah. It's really tough to describe how good a display meant for gaming can be. Like I used to always think 60hz was great lol. After experiencing 144hz and the lowest possible display lag, I could never go back. I play all of my PC games on the monitor, and even though my consoles can't take full advantage of it, I usually hook them up to the monitor for fast paced games as well.

The only game I've played on the big screen in the past year or two was BotW. Low frame rates and no fast paced action, so it just made sense to leave the Switch in the living room with the TV for that.

Right now I have a dual monitor setup, one for gaming and the other as my main work monitor. Probably gonna replace the work monitor with an ultrawide some time next year.

@MonsieurX: thanks for the shitpost

As it is, yeah, monitor and the choice that comes with is one of the single best part of PC gaming. The trade offs between performance and presentation will always exist but the stronger PCs get the better the choice becomes.

Oh yes, LCD monitors are totally better than 4k oled tvs with hdr. Give me a fucking break

It'll be interesting to see how well the 4K HDR w/ Gsync monitors will do next year. They were supposed to release this year, but Acer and Asus delayed their newest gaming monitors.

@pdogg93: one is a few hundred, the other is a few thousand. Hmm.

@ArchoNils2: Nice going being wrong. I have a 4K TV but never had a 4K monitor. The one I had before was a 27” 2560x1440/60Hz that I replaced by a curved 35” 3440x1440/100Hz/GSync.

Well the beauty of everything going HDMI/DP now is that you can interchangeably use a TV or a monitor for your gaming needs. Doesn't matter if it is console or PC, though yes, consoles arent going to take advantage of high end monitor features.

@pdogg93: For gaming yes they are.

They’re actually better at practically everything. If they were to make TV’s like those monitors, they’d end up costing over 5,000$. There are also OLED PC monitors but they’re very expensive.

Worth it? Still looking for a good ultrawide monitor with G-Sync and the Acer X34A seems to be the only real choice at the moment.

@nethernova: So far so good. AOC, ASUS and Acer all use the same panel for their ultra wide monitors. There are slight differences. HP Omen X35 is a VA panel, Asus and Acer are IPS. All very similar with different strengths and weakness.

I’ll probably return this one though. Gonna buy an HDR/Ultrawide/144Hz when it comes out next year.

I prefer to play games on my 65" OLED TV over any computer monitor.

Hardcore competitive console players use PC monitors, too.

One feature of the Xbox One X is VRR aka Freesync 2. Next year TV sets are going to use HDMI 2.1

BTW - I am not saying it matches the PC so relax hermits. lol

The first time sitting behind a 21:9 monitor and playing games on it is just mindblowing.

That HP Omen X35 monitor of your looks really good, how much was it ?

Yeah i'll stick to my big arse TV thanks.

They are also massively overpriced and full of quality issues.

I've been looking lately for a new one, IPS = glow and back-light bleed, TN = garbage colors and viewing angles, VA = worse colors than IPS and motion artifacts, and all of them have bad contrast compared to TVs, good IPS are around 2000:1 or lower

I've been searching for a 1080p 144Hz but most are TN there are a few VA but have motion problems, like the Samsung CFG70, I've considered the ViewSonic XG2703 but it's too expensive and has panel uniformity problems as usual, and my hardware is too weak for 1440p especially at high framerates.

So yeah monitor value is garbage, tiny screen relative to TVs and massive problems

I need a new monitor.
Been stuck with my BenQ XL2420T (120Hz) since early 2012.

and according to TC his non-HDR monitor has superior colors to his own HDR TV. TC also stated His 35 inch ultra wide monitor is "huge"

We get it TC. We get it. PC is the nectar of the gods. The bread of life. Salvation to our gaming souls. And consoles are the devil's work, spawned from hell itself.

How many do you hope to convert with your weekly posts reminding those demon folk who dare fire up a console?

How far away from your TV do you sit and how far from the monitor?

Giving the fact I build my PC just for pure gaming only, I don't see the benefit of using Ultrawide monitors. I'm still rocking my Acer G257HU 25-inch 2560x1440p widescreen monitor and I can say it's a really great monitor. I'm not even ready to move up in 144hz, I tried it first hand, it's definitely day/night vs 60hz but it's overkill for me and I don't play that much MP games so I'm totally fine staying @2560x1440p/60hz.

You can plug a PC gaming into you're big screen TV. Isn't it nice that PC gives you more options if you don't wanna game in monitors :)

And what's wrong discussing PC? This is SW.

@EG101: Relatively speaking a 35” monitor is huge. It’s in the upper end in terms of size for a monitor.

TV's cannot compete with monitors for gaming.

I can use'em on Mighty X1X as well but I think it would be dangerous and likely ruin mah MonsterBox...

lol Eh, that's all I got. :P

Well actually....

Out of all the features displays have, colour is one of the ones that becomes the least noticable during regular use.

So yea... I'l take 144FPS Gsync and an IPS display over better colours that fade into memory anyday.

And he's wrong because the highest end monitors on PC are OLED used for content creation that shit on anything mainstream TV's have to offer. The Dell 3017 is an OLED/4K/120Hz dispaly but it's 3500$ and only 30". It'd be 10K if it was TV-sized.

Getting a 21:9 was motivated purely for gaming in my case.

It's just way more immersive to have a wider field of view, especially in first person games.

variable and high refresh rate is for sure great, but outside of that tvs are far better than monitors

Discussing PC is cool. Discussing it at the expense of consoles ad nauseam?

It's common knowledge(esp. among gamers) that high end PCs are objectively a better platform. Why beat that dead horse?

I only heard few PC gamers saying Ultrawide screens is only practical for watching movies rather then gaming. I did look at them and they were pretty cool but I been so used to Widescreen monitors, they just work for me and I do a lot of single player games then I do with MP. I guess it's why I don't do much FPS games.

Pretty much any game coming out supports ultrawide: racing games, strategy, action games, ... you name it.

I like to play first person games most of all and there are plenty of singleplayer focussed first person games this year: Prey, Dishonored, Wolfenstein II, etc.

The great thing about ultrawide is that, just like in the case of widescreen compared to 4:3, there is an extra part of the screen being rendered: you get to see more as you peripheral vision of your eyes also allow you to see the extra space that's bein rendered.

Personally, most PC gamers that I know with ultrawides use them for gaming too... I mean a lot of gamers I know just stick to PC and they use that PC mainly to game on.

Aside from some youtube video here and there I don't watch 2 hour movies on my monitor as that is reserved for my TV and whilst sitting in my couch.

I'd love an ultrawide TV too, as I mainly use my TV for movies (occasionally for my consoles) but they aren't as mainstream as ultrawide monitors.

Eh you can get some fantastic TVs now so it's a wash. Try harder.

I may not be in 4K territory or 144 Hz, but damn I loooooooove gaming in 21:9 ultrawide! It's still in 1080 but at 2560 vertical width, and being able to crank up the settings with frame rates in the 60's, and the picture with all that horizontal landscape is breath taking, and far more immersive.

Honestly I would take 3440x1440 over 4K for my upgrade any day. Problem being that even though less pixels (but still more immersive in that aspect ratio), they typically cost more than a 4K monitor, at least if you're comparing to decent models and not the bottom of the barrel stock. So for now I'll stick to my 2560x1080 until that next size 21:9 goes down in price. Also would like to experience the ultra smoothness of Gsync, but again, really really pricey, especially in the 2K/4K resolutions. Worse here in Canada.

Enjoy your slow response time and input lag.

Seriously, focusing on size alone is just damn superficial and short sighted, not factoring pixel density at different viewing distances. You really don't realize how sharp the picture looks close up - assuming good resolution and detail settings. But not just the clarity, the biggest difference is in the response time. Most good and affordable monitors will have response time in 5 ms or less. With TV's that information isn't readily available since it's not targeted to that market, mainly just for casual TV and movie viewing, and where consoles are usually limited in their frame rate. But some research has shown most TV's fall into the range of 20-60 ms delay, some even into the low 100's.

When you have a display with fast response time (again 5 ms or less) it's not just the smoothness of the picture in conjunction with refresh rate and frame rate output from the source (the PC) but it curbs any input lag, the delay of input press to action on screen. In competitive multiplayer this makes a huge difference. But even in single player adventures, it's better to have your actions as responsive as possible. When you see the difference you understand how noticeable it really is to the human eye.

Size alone doesn't make the viewing experience if other factors fall short.

is there a diff between UHD and 4K?

I seem to recall a thread saying that there was a new tech (might be current now, Idunno...) that would make 1080p look really nice, like richer and fuller and stuff without requiring you to run at 4K...or maybe it was UHD and 4K and they were saying to wait to get a 4K monitor until UHD came out?

I can't remember.

Either way, I'm really happy with 1080p but I must admit 4K is tempting I have some money in my pocket at the moment and I am debating between a video card upgrade and a 4K monitor, or an ultrawide monitor.

Oh and another question, can you downscale 4K monitors to 1080p res when you can't run the game at 4k? Sorry if dumb question lol

TVs are better

@Juub1990: Yay another ultrawide convert :D I'm saving up for one. Was thinking about the x34a but the x35 is an option too.

4K is 4096x2160. UHD is 3840x2160. UHD is more common in TV's because it retains the widespread 16:9 aspect ratio of widescreen.

Oh OK I must be thinking of something else, maybe OLED.

3840x2160 is still referred to as 4k.

I think only theaters use 4096x2160

OLED is totally separate from resolution and just refers to how the pixels are lit. In an OLED display, each pixel emits its own light unlike LED. What does that mean? In LED displays tall the pixels share the same light, as a result, areas that need to be darker cannot be completely dark because the pixels are still light but at a very, very low level. OLED fixes that. Each pixel can be completely turned off individually so dark areas are completely dark because the pixels in these areas do not emit any sort of light when they do not need to. This gives much, much better contrast ratio. The dark are very dark.

@drlostrib Yeah I know. It's used interchangeably but if you wanna be specific, UHD is not 4K. 4K is simply for 4,000 horizontal pixels and UHD falls a bit short of that. It puzzles me why full HD was never called 2K when it falls short of 2048x1080 as well.