[SOLVED] VA vs TN for 144hz 1080p gaming?

[Hoetan]

I'm in the market to upgrade my old monitor.

I want a 144hz monitor, 1ms response time with good colours and 1080p resolution all for gaming. I'm stuck as to whether to choose a VA panel or TN panel.

I've heard that TN is best for high refresh rates with no ghosting, but sucks in terms of colours.

As for VA, I've heard it has the best colours but apparently brightness shrinks when you try to increase the refresh rate (may involve turning on Flicker Free technology which makes monitor dark).

So I'm not sure which route to go down. It's a big issue for me since I'm working a casual job and do not have a lot of money... if anyone can help me out with advice, that would be perfect! Cheers

 

[Aeacus]

Well, that depends on what you want:
Best performance, decent contrast, poor colors and narrow view angle - TN panel
Decent performance, decent contrast, great colors and wide view angle - IPS panel
Good performance, best contrast, good colors and wide view angle - VA panel

I've used TN panel monitor for over 10 years for all kinds of tasks (including gaming) and when it came time to replace/upgrade my monitor, i went with VA panel. I did consider IPS panel too but i wanted to retain the performance of TN panel and so, i picked the best of both worlds: a VA panel.

The monitor i'm using is MSI Optix MAG241CR and i've used my VA panel monitor for 5 months now. At times, i'm still amazed how good the colors and contrast are compared to the TN panel.
One small downside what my monitor has, is the brightness dimming at 1ms response time. By default, my monitor has 4ms response time and in fast-paced games, some ghosting is visible. When i set the response time to 2ms then i can't see any ghosting (then again, i don't play fast-paced games much) and all the colors remain vibrant. However, if i were to set response time to 1ms, the monitor automatically dims the brightness. Oh, changing the refresh rate (Hz) on my monitor doesn't affect the brightness in any way, shape or form.

So, if you play mostly fast-paced games (FPS), TN panel and it's best performance would suit you the best. For slow-paced games (RPG), IPS panel would be best since it has the best color accuracy. However, IPS panel has the same poor contrast levels as TN panel has (at best, 1000:1). VA panel is in the middle of TN and IPS panels in terms of color accuracy but contrast level is much better on VA panels (at minimum, 3000:1). Performance wise, high-end VA panels match the TN panel (144Hz, 1ms) but only TN panels are currently capable for 200+ Hz.