3440x1440 vs 2560x1080

[nexuslotus]

I am shopping for 34" Ultrawide(UW) Monitor to replace my 24" 1920x1080.

I am looking at this 34"UW that has resolution of 2560x1080. I will be mainly reading books, web surfing, watching movies and little bit of gaming.

(1) Does 2560x1080 on 34"UW look worse than my current monitor because same number of pixels are stretched out horizontally?

(2) If I get 34"UW with 3440x1440 instead of 2560x1080, more pixels will make things look crispier. But someone told me that reading words on 3440x1440 stresses your eye more. Is this true and why is that?

(3) I heard G-Sync shines when refresh rate is low (let's say around 60Hz) but as refresh rates gets higher, it's effectiveness diminishes fast. Is this true? Is this same with FreeSync?

(4) For playing OverWatch(game) on 34"UW Monitor with 3440x1440, 60Hz, will FreeSync be really effective if paired with FreeSync capable graphics cards? I will probably be getting RX 490 when it is released early 2017 if FreeSync is really effective for monitors with refresh rate of 60Hz.

 

[lightofhonor]

1) It will look substantially worse close-up since the PPI will be down to 81 from your current 91. Maybe not noticeable in games, but for text it's pretty low. 3440x1440 at 34 inches is 109 PPI so things would look sharper.

2) The only way it would strain your eyes more is if you didn't adjust your DPI scaling to make text larger, but really you shouldn't have to since the PPI is the same as 1080p on a 20inch monitor. I wouldn't worry about it.

3) The higher the frame-rates the less you need freesync/gsync, but they still help as they are both better than straight v-sync. It will help long term because not every game will be 75 FPS 100% of the time.

4) I used a 3440x1440 freesync monitor to play overwatch and it works well even on my R9 380, but the game doesn't really like 21:9 so you may prefer sticking with 16:9 to play it. It pretty much just crops 16:9 to fit your screen.

 

[pasow]

1: in theory yes as your going from 92PPI to 82PPI. everyone reacts differently to PPI though, i find anything less than 100 to be big, but others find anything above to be tiny. if you can, judge it in person, and how much of a difference it makes depends on how far away you are from the screen too.

2: going to the 1440 will take your PPI to 110PPI which is equivalent to a 2560x1440 27" display. i find this to be a very nice PPI personally. Given the text will be smaller with out display scaling, it can make reading text harder. i recommend trying this out for your self. initially adjusting to 110PPI was weird for me, but i came from a 82PPI screen. now a days i love it.

3: no comment, get what ever works with your GPU. having either is better than not.

4: FreeSync can help smooth out frame rate dips. however i find Overwatch rarely if ever dips close to that on a decent rig so i don't think it would be relevant. if your playing other high graphics games though, it can be quite beneficial. more importantly, Overwatch doesn't support aspect-ratios wider than 16:9 for competitive advantage reasons.