Question Cheapest/Best Gaming Monitor setup

[Don Ivie]

I've been running a 40" Toshiba 1080p TV for the last couple of years and have been surprisingly happy with it. But I just did a major upgrade to my system and it's time to look at a gaming monitor setup.

Basically I'm running a Ryzen 1700x @ 4ghz with 16 gb 3200 ram, 1 tb nvme drive @ 3 gbps, and a Nvidia GTX 980 Founders Edition.

Not an ultimate setup graphics wise but definitely would benefit from a better monitor setup.

and so began the search.... ugh! So many options and choices - it's driving me crazy!

I still don't think I have the horsepower for a full blown 4k setup so I started looking at the Ultrawide monitors. First thing I run into is they come in 1080p or 1440p. So considering I was running a 40" TV should I get one large like 32" @ 1440p or do I put 2 or 3 cheap 24" 1080p screens together?

What's better 2550x1440 or 5760x1080 (1920x3)?

Also, would love to have a high refresh rate but how high do I need? is 75hz enough or should I go 144hz?

Do I need Gsync or Freesync? I just read that Nvidia bit the bullet and will now support Freesync via a software switch in the drivers.

I would love the best of these worlds but my budget is $300 - $400 which takes us back to size - 3 smaller $125 monitors or 1 big 35" ultrawide?

Oh! and curved vs flat? lol

Please help!

 

[Don Ivie]

So just out of curiosity I hooked up my 50" LG UHD TV to my computer last night. I WAS BLOWN AWAY!! The detail in 4k is absolutely insane! And to my absolute astonishment the tv kicked into HDR mode as well! Turns out Windows 10 has some new (to me anyway) controls for this in the display settings. The colors were rich, the contrast was fantastic and there was enough headroom brightness wise to blind you!

On top of all that, being that the tv is 60 hz, I found a setting in the nvidia control panel for vsync that virtually makes refresh rate a non-issue. There are several choices but I set it to "Fast" which forces it to drop frames to maintain the frame rate without tearing. For me this was perfect!

Anyway, now I'm back to considering a (smaller lol) 4k tv. Yet another range of choices ugh!