Review Dell S3220DGF Gaming Monitor Review: High-Performance Work and Play

[BrushyBill]

This Dell has way too much Blur/ghosting to be considered best gaming monitor, if you're a PC gamer. Sort of blows my mind that this thing is the top pick.
I can understand a console gamer loving this monitor as blur is inherent. But jeez. I bought this Dell S3220DGF just because of all the glowing reviews only to find out it fails miserably in comparison to any 1ms monitor that I've had recently or in years past. You just can not get away from overshoot or ghosting, period. If you don't notice blur when gaming, good for you. But going from high hz/refresh-rate low response time monitors to this, was a very bad choice for me. If it weren't for the image distortion/motion blur this monitor may have been great. As I loved the color and the curve.

I just wanted to put this out there for anyone, like myself, who has been gaming on top end monitors for years. This Monitor is NOT the best out there for PC gaming. It's ghosting/overshoot/blur issues aren't as bad as some 120hz+ monitors/panels that don't sport a 1ms response time. But it's bad enough it gave me eye-strain and headaches, which I never get on any of my low response time monitors (Asus, BenQ, Dell and Alienware).

 

[Comment_maker]

Hello, this is my review from Amazon:

10 bit color, HDR, 1440p and 165hz!

I'm in love with this monitor. got it from another store, Amazon didn't have it from the time I got it. the colors are very nice, response time is 4ms but I can barely notice any ghosting. I order a display port cable 1.4, the one that came in the box is 1.2. My old monitor was Dell S2417DG G-Sync 165hz 1440p and 1ms. Did some calibration myself, here they are if some one like to use it:

On the monitor:

Presete Mode: Standart
Game Enhance Mode: Off
FreeSync: On
Smart HDR: Desktop
Response Time: Super Fast
Dark Stabilizer: 0
Brightness: 74
Contrast: 76
Sharpness: 60

On the NVidia Control Panel:

All channels:

Brightness: 45%
Contrast: 57%
Gamma: 1.07

Red:

Brightness: 40%
Contrast: 72%
Gamma: 1.07

Green:

Brightness: 45%
Contrast: 50%
Gamma: 1.07

Blue:

Brightness: 50%
Contrast:50%
Gamma: 1.07

Digital vibrance: 55%
Hue: 0

I hope this works for you. thanks for reading. Happy Gaming!!!

Thanks for these settings. I signed up to this forum just to reply to you. I was struggling a bit with this monitor to get the picture right. It was either too bright and washed out or far too much contrast. I never really played around with the Nvidia vibrance and gamma settings before but its really fixed the problems for me and I can enjoy the monitor now. I was very close to sending it back but its a keeper now, running the exact same settings as you.

Although Im still a little unimpressed with the viewing angles and light bleed when viewing webpages and documents on this screen. Im not sure it deserves so much praise in reviews. But there are not many monitors with this spec and price and games and movies look spectacular on it for sure.
I just wish OLED would hurry up and become mainstream for computer monitors. Feels like we are stuck in the past with these screens.

 

[serpentmoves]

I just got this monitor today,I went the lonely rout and set it up thru my video card settings,no hdr,this thing looks real nice,got my games on 164hz with display port.IF your games look dark just turn up brightness in game.looks great.

 

[piec2]

I purchased this monitor but returned it.

When using it with my NVidia graphic card, although I could activate G-Sync and it worked most of the time, it would black-outs every now and then. The black screen would last for approximately 1 second which is a really long time during a game.
It seemed to occur more when the framerate was low (below 50fps) and I've seen reports of other people having the same issue.
It was not consistent and even trying to reproduce it with the NVidia pendulum demo wasn't always successful but it did occur often enough to really bother me.
I guess that's why it's not listed as g-sync compatible on the NVidia site ! Should have checked that before buying it...

Except for that issue, the monitor was fine.
It had backlight bleed but since I don't game in the dark I wasn't really noticing it.

 

[King_V]

I purchased this monitor but returned it.

When using it with my NVidia graphic card, although I could activate G-Sync and it worked most of the time, it would black-outs every now and then. The black screen would last for approximately 1 second which is a really long time during a game.
It seemed to occur more when the framerate was low (below 50fps) and I've seen reports of other people having the same issue.
It was not consistent and even trying to reproduce it with the NVidia pendulum demo wasn't always successful but it did occur often enough to really bother me.
I guess that's why it's not listed as g-sync compatible on the NVidia site ! Should have checked that before buying it...

Except for that issue, the monitor was fine.
It had backlight bleed but since I don't game in the dark I wasn't really noticing it.

I had a similar issue with FreeSync and my Acer XR382CQK.

AMD cards have no problem whatsoever operating the FreeSync functionality. Nvidia, on the other had, would work perfectly at some times, and may have behaved for anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 hours, but then would randomly blank out, with the LED indicator on my monitor showing via a color-change that FreeSync had been shut off, then come back on again.

And, no matter how lightweight of a game it was, or how minimal the effort my then GTX 1080 had to run the game normally at 60fps, it would drop the frame rate to one FPS below my monitor's minimum FreeSync range (my monitor's FreeSync Range is 48-75, so the Nvidia card would arbitrarily drop itself to 47fps), and thus cause a lot of stuttering.

An RX580, on the other hand, had ZERO problems with this monitor, and FreeSync would stay on continuously.

There's no reason Nvidia can't properly support this.


Sorry for that digression - but I used to think it was great that Nvidia started supporting FreeSync. The experience I had (and what you have) makes me think that they're still hung up on trying to sell GSync monitors.

 

[piec2]

I had a similar issue with FreeSync and my Acer XR382CQK.

AMD cards have no problem whatsoever operating the FreeSync functionality. Nvidia, on the other had, would work perfectly at some times, and may have behaved for anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 hours, but then would randomly blank out, with the LED indicator on my monitor showing via a color-change that FreeSync had been shut off, then come back on again.

And, no matter how lightweight of a game it was, or how minimal the effort my then GTX 1080 had to run the game normally at 60fps, it would drop the frame rate to one FPS below my monitor's minimum FreeSync range (my monitor's FreeSync Range is 48-75, so the Nvidia card would arbitrarily drop itself to 47fps), and thus cause a lot of stuttering.

An RX580, on the other hand, had ZERO problems with this monitor, and FreeSync would stay on continuously.

There's no reason Nvidia can't properly support this.


Sorry for that digression - but I used to think it was great that Nvidia started supporting FreeSync. The experience I had (and what you have) makes me think that they're still hung up on trying to sell GSync monitors.

I agree with you: it should work fine on AMD graphic cards.
Not sure this is a Nvidia driver problem or the more stringent requirements of g-sync, or a mix of both. In any case, doesn’t work correctly for Nvidia owners, which is a bummer! In the meantime I move on to another monitor to work with my Nvidia card

 

[King_V]

GSync is completely different. It's not that GSync has more stringent requirements, it's that Nvidia isn't fully implementing FreeSync.

Given how much people complain about AMD drivers, I find it extremely hard to believe that Nvidia is incapable of supporting all FreeSync monitors the way AMD does.

 

[NODNOD1]

Hello,

I have a question about this monitor, have it a strong motion blur and ghosting ? Because i can see people saying that.

 

[noobuser123]

So many good reviews, it is good for gaming only but not for work. I am a programmer and I cannot use it for coding at all. I have fixed colors and everything but the colors are hitting my eyes. I can recommend for gaming though it is good for that but not for working.
And I got a dead pixel, it goes back, still under return window.

 

[noobuser123]

Hello,

I have a question about this monitor, have it a strong motion blur and ghosting ? Because i can see people saying that.

Make sure it is running at higher hz

 

[TheCoYo]

2560x1440 for a 32 inch? no way. we don't want so big pixels. I use a 4k on a 27'.
and va... is not from the past? no new fast-ips?

There's no way you can see individual pixels unless your putting your eye really close to the panel.

 

[TheCoYo]

why are the manufacturers still putting speakers or headphone outputs on screens? screen is screen.. soundcard is soundcard... speakers are speakers...

Yeah, that's pathetic. Had to buy a Dell Stereo Sound Bar AC511M to have some kind of sound... I see there's a new 32" monitor S3221QS on the Dell's website, it's 4K but only 60 Hz.

 

[TheCoYo]

I too have been reading up on this monitor lately, as I am also interested in possibly buying it. Thing is, there are so many positive reviews from buyers, it made me suspicious! No kidding! Just look at the reviews for this monitor on the best Buy and Dell websites. Certainly not saying any are fake, but when I see so many positive reviews for ANYTHING, it raises a red flag.

So I have some questions about the monitor, and would love to get some answers, from not only Tom's, but from owners of this monitor.

Are there any issues at all using one of the latest NVIDIA GPUs with this monitor? No flickering, or briefly going blank issues?

How does text look on this monitor? Can you adjust the sharpness of text?

Are there any smearing / ghosting while gaming?

Lastly, the monitor supports DisplayPort 1.4, yet when I look at the included accessories on the Dell website, it says it comes with a DisplayPort 1.2 cable. If true, could this possibly be the reason some are having flickkering, and the brief blanking out issues? Can anyone confirm what the included cable version is? If it is, in fact, a 1.2 included cable, would it be best to purchase a certified 1.4 cable?

Thanks everyone!

I noticed this cable mini-fraud too. Went to buy a 1.4 DisplayPort cable for $5 or $7. Looking good on native resolution with 165 Hz and G-Sync.

 

[TheCoYo]

Thanks, I've tried the demo. Clicking the g-sync option didn't do anything.

I'm using the DP cable that came with my monitor.

Somehow they put the DP 1.2 cable into the box. Go ahead and buy the cheapest 1.4 cable, then you're blessed with native 165 Hz, G-Sync and all the other stuff your GPU supports.

 

[Infael]

How was the reviewer able to run G-sync compatible on this monitor? I presume the port is the same for G-sync and Freesync?

 

[TheCoYo]

How was the reviewer able to run G-sync compatible on this monitor? I presume the port is the same for G-sync and Freesync?

Dude, they work via DisplayPort 1.4. Make sure you have the right cable version 1.4 and not the one that comes with the monitor (1.2).