1440p+144Hz+G-Sync vs 4K+G-Sync vs 4K

[May90]

Hi everyone,

I am upgrading my 50" 1080p TV. I need a gaming monitor below $1,300, and I want to get the most for the money. My specs are as follows:

Core i7 4790k
GeForce 980 GTX
16Gb 2400MHz RAM
256Gb SSD

Right now I game at 4K downscaled to 1080p via DSR, and all games I play run quite consistently at 60+FPS, so I decided that I could either switch to native 4K or to 1440p at higher Refresh Rate without losing any performance, but with gaining a lot in picture.

As of now, I am mainly considering three options.

1. Asus ROG Swift
1440p, 144Hz, G-Sync, 27"
$800
Asus ROG Swift
This would be my top choice. At 1440p I would be able to play almost any existing game on maxed settings at high framerates, and 120+Hz with G-Sync should provide immense fluidity (I've never seen G-Sync in action, but my laptop has a 120Hz screen, and the feeling of fluidity is hard to describe, it must be seen - it is awesome).
Unfortunately, staggering number of complaints about this monitor's problems on official forums and beyond makes me suspicious. Many people mention the pixel inversion effect that on recorded videos looks quite horrendous (but not all videos have it). Also some people claim their screen went blurry after some time, some mention "out of range" issues... I think such an expensive monitor has to be pretty reliable, so I wonder if any of you guys have this monitor and can confirm/disprove these complaints in your particular case.

2. Acer XB280HK
4K, 60Hz, G-Sync, 28"
$800
Acer XB280HK
Although only 60Hz, this monitor should have an impeccable picture quality: it has about 16 times my current TV's pixel density! Yes, like ROG Swift, it has a TN matrix, but the quality of this matrix seems to be very high. And G-Sync should compensate for low framerate in games, at least, partially.
My main concern with this monitor is that 4K may simply bee too much for 27", and so I just won't be able to notice small details on it, so it will be wasted. Can someone confirm if 4K on a 28" monitor is worth it?

3. Samsung UN50HU6950 TV
4K, 60Hz, 50"
$800
Samsung UN50HU6950
This is just an example, there are many TVs like this. The biggest advantage would be the diagonal size - I currently use a 50" TV as well, so this way I won't have to sacrifice the size while still getting much better picture.
However, 60Hz without G-Sync will still look just as it does now in terms of fluidity. Granted that most games I play run stable at 60+FPS, there shouldn't be much problem because of it, but still I would like to improve on fluidity, if possible.

I play mainly RTS and RPG (both single- and multiplayer) games. I don't play FPS, for the most part, so 120+Hz refresh rates have a bit less relevance for me than for some, but aesthetically I still strongly prefer even 100Hz, let alone 120-144Hz, to classic 60Hz.

What would you recommend I do? My favorite monitor is the ROG Swift, but the number of complaints prevents me from ordering it right away. The TV would be the safest option as I wouldn't lose in anything and only gain in picture quality, but ROG Swift seems to be the best option, provided it delivers what it promises without any drawbacks.

Thanks a lot!

 

[-Lone-]

For a max of $1300? Here's one for exact price.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00KJEZIEU/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1417121987&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX200_QL40

Edit: Curved displays are awesome too

Your 980 has HDMI 2.0, and so does this TV

 

[Aviv]

XL2420G ,for RTS and RPG 24' is optimal ,as a competitive RTS player if you will give me 27' I will downscale it into 24'. ( assuming you won't be really far away from the monitor)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824014412

great monitor right there.

 

[-Lone-]

My main concern with this monitor is that 4K may simply bee too much for 27", and so I just won't be able to notice small details on it, so it will be wasted. Can someone confirm if 4K on a 28" monitor is worth it?

I had the Samsung 28inch monitor before, it was my first UHD experience. I love everything about it except for it doesn't have HDMI 2.0. But I guess that's okay if you have the 970 or 980 GPU with displayport. Everything is extremely clear on a small monitor like that, especially the words/texts. Every little thing was incredibly detailed in my games, so yes, a 28inch is worth it. Now I have the Panasonic AX800 58 inch UHD TV because it is the only UHD TV that exists with displayport, so that was a huge change from a little monitor to a big one. But I love everything about it, the only bad thing about a big screen with UHD is the words gets a bit blurry because the screen is so big. Although it is a little blurry,it doesn't affect me much because I sit pretty close to it and the words are pretty big, I set my words to 175% bigger in windows. But everything else is amazingly detailed. Hope that helped with that question

 

[May90]

For a max of $1300? Here's one for exact price.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00KJEZIEU/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1417121987&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX200_QL40

Edit: Curved displays are awesome too

Your 980 has HDMI 2.0, and so does this TV

Thank you, this looks awesome! There is something I don't understand about such TVs however: it is 4K and 120Hz, and HDMI 2.0, as far as I know, supports only up to 4K 60Hz due to bandwidth limitations. Is it 120Hz in the sense that some TV use it, when they took a 60Hz refresh rate and basically insert 1 additional frame between two frames, making it seem more smooth? The curved design is a very big advantage since the only real problem I have with my current 50" TV is that I can't see really well what's happening at the edges.

XL2420G ,for RTS and RPG 24' is optimal ,as a competitive RTS player if you will give me 27' I will downscale it into 24'. ( assuming you won't be really far away from the monitor)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824014412

great monitor right there.

Thanks. It is only 1080p however. I would prefer, at the very least, 1440p, if possible.

I had the Samsung 28inch monitor before, it was my first UHD experience. I love everything about it except for it doesn't have HDMI 2.0. But I guess that's okay if you have the 970 or 980 GPU with displayport. Everything is extremely clear on a small monitor like that, especially the words/texts. Every little thing was incredibly detailed in my games, so yes, a 28inch is worth it. Now I have the Panasonic AX800 58 inch UHD TV because it is the only UHD TV that exists with displayport, so that was a huge change from a little monitor to a big one. But I love everything about it, the only bad thing about a big screen with UHD is the words gets a bit blurry because the screen is so big. Although it is a little blurry,it doesn't affect me much because I sit pretty close to it and the words are pretty big, I set my words to 175% bigger in windows. But everything else is amazingly detailed. Hope that helped with that question

This helps a lot, thanks. AX800 is a bit too expensive for me though. I would like to ask you the same question: it lists the refresh rate as 240Hz - is it a native refresh rate, hereby unavailable with modern computer cables, or is it rather 3 frames added after each frame at 60Hz?

 

[-Lone-]

Actually I don't know, I play my games 4k@60Hz due to cable limitation, but the new displayport 1.3 is rumored to be able to run 4k@120Hz, so I'm waiting on that.

Edit: And I don't know if you want to choose that UN50HU6950 Samsung TV, I bought the 40inch version before, maybe I had bad luck or something. But when I got it, it can't display 4k, not even normal HD, everything looked like it was cartoonized, like a nuke explosion, looked like someone drew that picture, lol. But that's just my experience with that model, like i said, could have been bad luck. Also, when I talked to Samsung, they said it can support 4k@60Hz, when I got it, can't go above 30fps, so that sucked. So instead of trying to mess with HDMI, I decided to look for a TV that has displayport instead, and that's when the AX800 came to me. Just giving my experience with that model of TV, hope that helped too

 

[May90]

Actually I don't know, I play my games 4k@60Hz due to cable limitation, but the new displayport 1.3 is rumored to be able to run 4k@120Hz, so I'm waiting on that.

Edit: And I don't know if you want to choose that UN50HU6950 Samsung TV, I bought the 40inch version before, maybe I had bad luck or something. But when I got it, it can't display 4k, not even normal HD, everything looked like it was cartoonized, like a nuke explosion, looked like someone drew that picture, lol. But that's just my experience with that model, like i said, could have been bad luck. Also, when I talked to Samsung, they said it can support 4k@60Hz, when I got it, can't go above 30fps, so that sucked. So instead of trying to mess with HDMI, I decided to look for a TV that has displayport instead, and that's when the AX800 came to me. Just giving my experience with that model of TV, hope that helped too

OK, thanks!

I did a bit of research and, it seems, the curved Samsung makes some people unhappy with color angles. I found a different Samsung, non-curved, which gets a lot of praise for its color. I can only afford 50" for $1300 which I am totally happy with (actually, I think 55" would be too much, since even 50" already pushes my ability to see what's happening all over the screen at the same time). It doesn't have DisplayPort so I will probably be stuck with 60Hz on it, but I think it is worth it: 60Hz means I don't need to aim at too high a framerate and can push graphics settings a bit more in demanding games. That's probably what I'm going to take, unless someone convinces me that 144Hz+G-Sync is more important than the size and resolution.

I only have one last question. The TV supports 120Hz while HDMI 2.0 officially supports only 4K@60Hz. However, HDMI 2.0 has 18Gbps bandwidth while 40K@60Hz requires 14Gbps. Does it mean that I will be able to set the resolution to 4K@75Hz (requires 17.5Gbps)? I can't seem to find any information on this.

One more. I'm not sure how exactly HDMI ports work. For example, say, HDMI 2.1 is done which allows 25Gbps bandwidth. Does it mean that I will be able to get this bandwidth from my TV which I bought when HDMI 2.1 didn't exist? That is, am I going to be stuck forever with the resolution and refresh rate I can get today?

 

[-Lone-]

Well, the highest Hz I was offered in resolution settings and in AMD CCC was 60Hz, so no, I don't think you get go up to 75Hz. And if a HDMI 2.1 cable is out, you'd still be stuck with HDMI 2.0, because that's what your TV and GPU has. Unless you want to just dump the TV and GPU and get brand new ones, lol. But to me 60Hz is enough and you shouldn't have any problems with 4k@60Hz if the TV, GPU, and cable are HDMI 2.0.

 

[chenw]

There is one way around the 4k@60 hz limitation, is that you use a 1440p screen with 144hz and run the game with DSR on at 4k, so you will have 4k IQ with 144hz, best of both worlds, except for PPI, and that you are currently limited to nVidia cards (only they have DSR, AMD has not yet come up with a similar equivalent, and GeDoSaTo only works on a game to game basis). Also one advantage of the 1440p screen is that if you find the game too taxing for your GPU, you can easily downgrade your resolution to 1440p with no pixelation, which may happen on a native 4k screen.

Edit: Just to add my experience with Swift, I have not even had the screen for 1 week, but I had got a pixel perfect panel with quite tolerable light bleed (low enough that I don't notice it even in the darkest colors). I have not yet experienced any issues you have mentioned on forums, but perhaps the community is a bit more vocal about the problems with this monitor because of its price ($800 is indeed quite pricey for a TN 27" monitor), so similar panels might also have this issue, just the owners are not vocal about it.

All in all I am very happy with the monitor. No experience with any other G-syncs because no other G-Sync monitor is available for sale in Taiwan.

 

[May90]

Well, the highest Hz I was offered in resolution settings and in AMD CCC was 60Hz, so no, I don't think you get go up to 75Hz. And if a HDMI 2.1 cable is out, you'd still be stuck with HDMI 2.0, because that's what your TV and GPU has. Unless you want to just dump the TV and GPU and get brand new ones, lol. But to me 60Hz is enough and you shouldn't have any problems with 4k@60Hz if the TV, GPU, and cable are HDMI 2.0.

Yes, but I heard some people setting up custom resolution that worked well. For example, there is a class of "overclocking" monitors which can be pushed from 60Hz to, in the most extreme cases, beyond 120Hz. So, since this TV natively supports 120Hz, it should also support 75Hz, right? As I understand, the only thing preventing me from getting actual 4K@120Hz is the bandwidth limit... I'm just curious if anyone tried that - can't seem to find anything in the Internet, only one claim that someone managed to do something similar with a 1080 TV.

60Hz suits me fine, but I still sometimes miss my old laptop's 120Hz smoothness. I think 75Hz would look better than 60Hz, if possible to set up.

Anyway, I think this is the TV I'm going to buy. I will research some other possibilities, just in case, since I'm going to buy it in the middle of December.

 

[-Lone-]

Which TV are you getting? I'm planning to buy this new Samsung curved monitor for my brother for Christmas

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-27-Inch-LED-Lit-Monitor-S27D590C/dp/B00N4OBHNI/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1417140598&sr=1-1&keywords=samsung+curved+monitor

 

[May90]

There is one way around the 4k@60 hz limitation, is that you use a 1440p screen with 144hz and run the game with DSR on at 4k, so you will have 4k IQ with 144hz, best of both worlds, except for PPI, and that you are currently limited to nVidia cards (only they have DSR, AMD has not yet come up with a similar equivalent, and GeDoSaTo only works on a game to game basis). Also one advantage of the 1440p screen is that if you find the game too taxing for your GPU, you can easily downgrade your resolution to 1440p with no pixelation, which may happen on a native 4k screen.

That is true, that would be my dream. However, I use a 4K downscaling with DSR currently to 1080p and, while it looks MUCH better, than native 1080p, it still doesn't come close to native 4K I saw on my friend's monitor.

The problem with the Swift is that, while it has both 1440p and 144Hz, it has much smaller diagonal. I'm not sure I will be able to easily part with this 50" awesomeness. If they offered a 50" 1440p 144Hz TV, I would be willing to extend my budget by large margin to get it - sadly, the Swift seems to be the only display in the world currently able to provide all this, and it seems to have a lot of issues, such as pixel inversion... I wonder if those issues are oversized in reviews as angry customers like to do.

Which TV are you getting? I'm planning to buy this new Samsung curved monitor for my brother for Christmas

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-27-Inch-LED-Lit-Monitor-S27D590C/dp/B00N4OBHNI/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1417140598&sr=1-1&keywords=samsung+curved+monitor

I like this one a lot (the 50" model):
Samsung UN50HU8550
I don't think I really need the 3D feature while it probably adds to the price quite a bit, but in everything else it seems everything I've ever dreamed of, especially if I manage to set up 75Hz (not required, but would be a nice bonus). I like the idea of curved monitors/TVs, but somehow I do not trust them a bit... Might just be an old traditionalist thinking.

Honestly, I still can't believe I consider such models. Just 4 months ago all I had was a 17" laptop's display and ancient 24" TN Acer with terrible angles, input lag and washed out colors. Now I am considering a 4K 50" TV with ability of working at 120Hz, high quality LED display and 3D. Quite an upgrade!

 

[May90]

UPDATE

I probably was a bit too rash; the TV I linked before doesn't seem to be able to push full color at 4K@60Hz via HDMI 2.0. Looks like it is one more thing to check when choosing a TV. This one has confirmed full color at 4K@60Hz, and I've always been happy with LG production:
LG 55UB8500
The 49" model is $1200, and the reviews are very good. I don't really like the stand, it seems a bit weak for such a titanic TV, and also a very thin design, while looking good, can be a bit vulnerable when transporting it (my current TV is definitely much more durable, can withstand the torture UPS guys like to inflict on packages). 5 years warranty for just $100 is certainly a nice deal, and after 5 years it will be very outdated anyway, the market will probably be flooded with 8K 120Hz G-Sync 2 models or something.

I need to research more on this, but I am now 95% positive that I'm going to take a TV instead of a monitor.

 

[-Lone-]

Yeah, pretty nice TV, I've never had LG products, but they look good, I don't like the stand either