G-Sync is the god-level gaming upgrade.

how's the Acer XB240H? seems like a good option for 1080p?

I have this monitor and I love it. I was after a 1080p G-Sync monitor and I couldn't justify forking out £450 for the 27 inch version, and I got the XB240HA for £240. I came from an old Samsung display which wasn't exactly great, so it had a bigger 'wow' factor to me than it would to most people.

I've not messed with the settings yet (I really should) but I think the stock levels might be a tad too bright. I'm kinda liking it though as even on max brightness my old monitor was so dull - this looks vibrant.

Very happy with my purchase.
 
I have this monitor and I love it. I was after a 1080p G-Sync monitor and I couldn't justify forking out £450 for the 27 inch version, and I got the XB240HA for £240. I came from an old Samsung display which wasn't exactly great, so it had a bigger 'wow' factor to me than it would to most people.

I've not messed with the settings yet (I really should) but I think the stock levels might be a tad too bright. I'm kinda liking it though as even on max brightness my old monitor was so dull - this looks vibrant.

Very happy with my purchase.
thanks for the impression, I'll probably go for it then!
 
Are you using a colorimiter or anything? I've often debated getting a I1 x-rite pro or other colorimiter for my displays.

Yeah - I used a Spyder 5 (from the "express" package) + dispcalGUI. Very pleased with the results. Don't bother using the official calibration software, as it's garbage.

Thanks everyone :)

And yeah, I've got the TFT ICC profile loaded up and their settings. It looks okay, but I wouldn't mind trying some other tweaks to see how I can get the image to look. I'll try some of the other suggestions, and would be happy to give Bornstellar's ICM and settings.

I'm a little bit bummed that the right side of the screen has a blue tint. It's not noticeable in games, but browsing GAF And image editing it is. It's almost like the bright blue power light has bled all through the right side. Again, something I might try and get fixed later on.

I've also got overdrive set to Normal. Extreme introduces ghosting.

Damn shame about the blue tint. Perhaps consider replacing it hoping you win the panel lottery. No reason it shouldn't be quality with the prices as it is.
 
I think it prevents screen tearing at 144fps+.

Yep, having both G-sync and v-sync on at the same time makes it so your frame rates won't exceed your refresh rate. In a driver update last year Nvidia made it so you can use G-sync without v-sync, which will lead to G-sync turning off once you go over your refresh rate.

In my experience not all games run well with the default G-sync + v-sync combo, so I'm glad that the option to turn off v-sync while still keeping G-sync exists. I just use MSI Afterburner to cap the frame rate so I'll never see tearing anyway.

Yes, but unless your framerates are always 144+, there's no point in using it.

And there's no tearing once g-sync is active. Unless framerates vary too wildly, there's no point in capping either.
 
Yeah - I used a Spyder 5 express + dispcalGUI. Very pleased with the results. Don't bother using the official calibration software, as it's garbage.


Do you think the X-rite pro is worth the $100+ more or should I grab the Spyder 5. I've heard conflicting things from people over at the AVS forums.
 
EDIT: Also, forget CS:GO. Play Titanfall where the 144 hz actually matters because of the game speed. :p

Titanfall lacks any type of need for precision (and as a result its need for quick, twitch like reactions are massively reduced which are aided by high refresh rates). CSGO gets a significantly better benefit from higher refresh rates than any of these console shooters.

Also the tickrate on Titanfall is said to be very, very low.
P437qod.png


Titanfall doesn't benefit much, if at all, from a 144hz monitor from a gameplay perspective. Yeah, it'll look a lot nicer - but CSGO, even on Valve's servers with 64 tick (community servers and third party services like ESEA and FaceIT are 128) offer a significantly more tangible benefit.
 
Do you think the X-rite pro is worth the $100+ more or should I grab the Spyder 5. I've heard conflicting things from people over at the AVS forums.

I have a Spyder 3. Default software is garbage (like real bad where blacks are crushed to oblivion and colors are incorrect even from eyeballing), it's good with dispcalGUI.
 
Titanfall lacks any type of need for precision (and as a result its need for quick, twitch like reactions are massively reduced which are aided by high refresh rates). CSGO gets a significantly better benefit from higher refresh rates than any of these console shooters.

Also the tickrate on Titanfall is said to be very, very low.
P437qod.png


Titanfall doesn't benefit much, if at all, from a 144hz monitor from a gameplay perspective. Yeah, it'll look a lot nicer - but CSGO, even on Valve's servers with 64 tick (community servers and third party services like ESEA and FaceIT are 128) offer a significantly more tangible benefit.

Tick rate is indeed abysmally low, but precise twitch reactions are super important still considering the speed pilots move. And that's the other part where 144hz makes a huge difference, is in the movement. Getting precision movement done during absolutely chaos is much easier.

And please don't classify Titanfall on PC as a console shooter, cuz it sure as hell aint.
 
I have a Spyder 3. Default software is garbage (like real bad where blacks are crushed to oblivion and colors are incorrect even from eyeballing), it's good with dispcalGUI.

I'd definitely use DispcalGUI if I went the Spyder 5 route with the Spyder 5 express. It sounds like that might be my best bet at $126
 
Cheers man. Gave it a shot. Like the colours but the gamma is very, very dark on my display. Witcher 3 shadows and night are so dark you can't really make out details.

NP - icc profiles are tough because every panel is different, and the viewing environment may have a dramatic effect as well.

Though, I'd check against this rather than the Witcher 3, since it could just be a problem with game settings:
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gamma_calibration.php

Bars should blend around 2.2.
 
I gave up on the Dell TN after all the comments on the color accuracy of TN panels. I guess I'll wait for an IPS panel to be available in my country, as all of the models here are TN (from acer, asus, dell and panasonic). :(
 
I'd definitely use DispcalGUI if I went the Spyder 5 route with the Spyder 5 express. It sounds like that might be my best bet at $126

There's also the Colormunki Display, which uses the same sensor as the i1 Display Pro from memory. Obviously it's still comparable with dispcalGUI but the stock software is actually pretty good although you're basically limited with settings. Though you have to ask whether or not you'd want anything other than 6500k and 2.2 gamma.

Dunno what the price difference is but X-Rite stuff has always given me far better results with their stock software than Spyder does. I like the stock software better than dispcalGUI because for a casual user like myself, the features and extra samples dispcalGUI can offer are pretty meaningless to me, overkill for my purposes, and just take forever to generate a profile.
 
Tick rate is indeed abysmally low, but precise twitch reactions are super important still considering the speed pilots move. And that's the other part where 144hz makes a huge difference, is in the movement. Getting precision movement done during absolutely chaos is much easier.

And please don't classify Titanfall on PC as a console shooter, cuz it sure as hell aint.

It definitely is a console shooter. It's just like what Battlefield and Call of Duty became on PC, they're console shooters ported to PC. The core mechanics don't benefit as much as they should from keyboard and mouse, other than being able to aim quicker, you gain no precision on the PC version over the console versions, kb/m vs controller. Hitboxes are big and generous, differentiation between spots on a player are minimal and don't reward precision (because it's designed around a controller).

I quite enjoyed Titanfall on PC, but it is without a doubt a console shooter just as much as the latest CoD and Battlefield games are.
 
It definitely is. It's just like what Battlefield and Call of Duty became on PC, they're console shooters ported to PC. The core mechanics don't benefit as much as they should from keyboard and mouse, other than being able to aim quicker, you gain no precision on the PC version over the console versions, kb/m vs controller. Hitboxes are big and generous, differentiation between spots on a player are minimal and don't reward precision (because it's designed around a controller).

You have no idea what you are talking about. Pls.

1. The core mechanic of moving and shooting simultaneously is benefited MASSIVELY by keyboard and mouse input, with aerial shots, bunny hopping, air strafing, and window hops being clumsy at best with a controller.
2. Hitboxes are extremely precise (perhaps even to a fault as quick animation transitions while strafing with a female pilot makes consistent shots very difficult) and headshots are super important for quick kills.

If you think that way, I guarantee you that you never graduated from the console shooter level of play. There's more quake in it's DNA than it has any right to.

I've been playing the game recently on the Xbone and the game is a very different beast there than it is on PC.
 
So how well does 1080p upscale to 1440p? I'm considering saving up for the XB270HU but the 970 I have will for sure not be able to get a good 60fps+ at higher resolutions.

However, I'm going to be getting a Pascal card when they come out so then I should have the power needed, and it would be a shame to waste that on a 1080p TN display.
 
Just for clarification, if I get a sync monitor, I'm tied to NVIDIA cards forever? There are no gsync/freesync combo monitors or adapters, correct? ( at least not that I've seen)
 
If you have a tickrate of 30, precision and responsiveness is definitely not a concern for your PC fps game.

Yet it remains precise and responsive for the most part.

I'd love to see a bump to tick rate in the sequel though.

So how well does 1080p upscale to 1440p? I'm considering saving up for the XB270HU but the 970 I have will for sure not be able to get a good 60fps+ at higher resolutions.

However, I'm going to be getting a Pascal card when they come out so then I should have the power needed, and it would be a shame to waste that on a 1080p TN display.

Using the 970 with the same monitor. 1080p scales very well.
 
Yet it remains precise and responsive for the most part.

I'd love to see a bump to tick rate in the sequel though.



Using the 970 with the same monitor. 1080p scales very well.

Ah, OK. So it won't be jarring when I go from games I know I'll be able to play in 1440p (CS:GO, Mad Max, older games) to games I can only really do 1080 with.

I'd rather not go for a cheaper monitor and regret it down the line when I get a more powerful GPU which crushes it easily, and with G-Sync getting 144fps in everything is not an issue. Also there aren't any 1080p G-Sync IPS monitors.
 
Just for clarification, if I get a sync monitor, I'm tied to NVIDIA cards forever? There are no gsync/freesync combo monitors or adapters, correct? ( at least not that I've seen)

Yep, that's the way it is unfortunately. You'll have to wait until one of the two sides (probably Nvidia) folds and decides to support the other side. Knowing Nvidia that could take a loooong time.
 
Just for clarification, if I get a sync monitor, I'm tied to NVIDIA cards forever? There are no gsync/freesync combo monitors or adapters, correct? ( at least not that I've seen)

It's worth clarifying that you'll be able to use the monitor with another card, just you won't get adaptive refresh, it'll just be another 144hz monitor.
 
I gave up on the Dell TN after all the comments on the color accuracy of TN panels. I guess I'll wait for an IPS panel to be available in my country, as all of the models here are TN (from acer, asus, dell and panasonic). :(

Do you need the color accuracy for work? If not, have you played on a TN panel before and felt that it looks good? Then go for the Dell I'd say.
 
I gave up on the Dell TN after all the comments on the color accuracy of TN panels. I guess I'll wait for an IPS panel to be available in my country, as all of the models here are TN (from acer, asus, dell and panasonic). :(

Do you need the color accuracy for work? If not, have you played on a TN panel before and felt that it looks good? Then go for the Dell I'd say.

There's definitely a difference between low quality TN and a TN that has a high refresh. I would not let the panel being TN particularly keep you from your purchase.

I was scared about getting a TN, but after an ICC profile and color correct, I think my monitor looks really good. Pretty close to my previous 60hz IPS, with viewing angles being the most obvious difference.

I would agree with luffeN and say that you should go for it.
 
Do you need the color accuracy for work? If not, have you played on a TN panel before and felt that it looks good? Then go for the Dell I'd say.
No, I use my PC only for gaming and internet. Comments about people returning their monitors because of the color accuracy made me nervous. :\ I'm not picky at all with monitors. Right now I'm playing on a God knows how old samsung panel that bleeds light from every corner, and it kinda doesnt bother me at all.
There's definitely a difference between low quality TN and a TN that has a high refresh. I would not let the panel being TN particularly keep you from your purchase.

I was scared about getting a TN, but after an ICC profile and color correct, I think my monitor looks really good. Pretty close to my previous 60hz IPS, with viewing angles being the most obvious difference.

I would agree with luffeN and say that you should go for it.
That's nice to hear. It also helps that the Dell is the only reasonably priced monitor in my country (costing about ~800USD while the first gen Rog Swift can be found here for as high as ~2,400 USD lol)
 
I have the Dell 2716DG and an IPS korean monitor (non gsync but 120hz). With no tweaks the Dell color repro on nvidia cards is a bit too bright and uneven across the entire screen. With some tweaking of dell settings and nvidia color settings, it comes up really good.

However, its not really comparable to an IPS screen. The latter is quite a bit more vibrant and the blacks are "deeper" / better. An OLED screen is another big jump up better as well.

So while there is nothing really wrong with the Dell, honestly at these kind of prices I would recommend a good IPS g-sync screen over it. I chose the Dell because after going through two Acer IPS screens, both having significant bleed issues, I just decided I'd rather have a sharp good screen with gSync than the best colors, plus it was $200 less, and I'm hoping by the end of this year or early next year 27" OLED g-sync is realistic.
 
So how well does 1080p upscale to 1440p? I'm considering saving up for the XB270HU but the 970 I have will for sure not be able to get a good 60fps+ at higher resolutions.

I don't like the blurring that shows up when upscaling. Monitors don't handle it as well as televisions.

The neat thing about G-Sync is that it works particularly well between 30 and 60 FPS so you'd probably still have a good time.
 
No, I use my PC only for gaming and internet. Comments about people returning their monitors because of the color accuracy made me nervous. :\ I'm not picky at all with monitors. Right now I'm playing on a God knows how old samsung panel that bleeds light from every corner, and it kinda doesnt bother me at all.

This is one of the biggest problem regarding reviews in general I think. You never know which standards the person with the comment has. I currently have the XL2411T 144hz TN panel from BenQ. I switched to a 21:9 IPS panel with 60hz from LG and gaming felt really unresponsive, but the colors and so on looked kind of better or different? Going back to the Benq opened my eyes that I do not want/need the color accuracy but the higher hz and faster response time. Granted we now have IPS 144hz panels with 4ms gtg response time, so you might want to try them out in person. I will leave you with this review: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...ell-s2716dg-g-sync-gaming-monitor-review.html

Personally, I am waiting on a project to make my final decision if I will go with the Dell 2716. I was thinking about going 21:9 3440x1440 144hz with display port 1.3 later this year, but I think I will wait until the background lighting uniformity is in a better state on larger screens. I am far from an expert regarding display tech, but reading reviews of models 27 inch and upwards in the "normal" price segment, there most often seem to be problems with uniformity etc.

Edit: Oh yeah, and definitely look through the net for an icc profile and settings from other users.

Edit2: Does it say 21:8 above? I swear I am typing 21:9. Now it works.

Edit 3: There is a calibration option in Windows giving you several options regarding contrast/text. I never did it for the past 10 years (don't know if it was available back then), but it surely made working with it so much better.
 
This is one of the biggest problem regarding reviews in general I think. You never know which standards the person with the comment has. I currently have the XL2411T 144hz TN panel from BenQ. I switched to a 21:9 IPS panel with 60hz from LG and gaming felt really unresponsive, but the colors and so on looked kind of better or different? Going back to the Benq opened my eyes that I do not want/need the color accuracy but the higher hz and faster response time. Granted we now have IPS 144hz panels with 4ms gtg response time, so you might want to try them out in person. I will leave you with this review: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...ell-s2716dg-g-sync-gaming-monitor-review.html

Personally, I am waiting on a project to make my final decision if I will go with the Dell 2716. I was thinking about going 21:9 3440x1440 144hz with display port 1.3 later this year, but I think I will wait until the background lighting uniformity is in a better state on larger screens. I am far from an expert regarding display tech, but reading reviews of models 27 inch and upwards in the "normal" price segment, there most often seem to be problems with uniformity etc.

Edit: Oh yeah, and definitely look through the net for an icc profile and settings from other users.

Edit2: Does it say 21:8 above? I swear I am typing 21:9. Now it works.

Edit 3: There is a calibration option in Windows giving you several options regarding contrast/text. I never did it for the past 10 years (don't know if it was available back then), but it surely made working with so much better.

I think I'll give the Dell a chance, and if the color thing is something that really annoys me I'll send it back and look for an IPS monitor in the future. If it's good enough, I'll keep it, as "newer" IPS models will probably cost at least ~USD1000. I really appreciate your help, thanks!
 
I think I'll give the Dell a chance, and if the color thing is something that really annoys me I'll send it back and look for an IPS monitor in the future. If it's good enough, I'll keep it, as "newer" IPS models will probably cost at least ~USD1000. I really appreciate your help, thanks!

No problem! Please come back and tell us if it was worth the investment :)
 
I took a leap, partly thanks to this thread, and ordered the Dell G-Sync monitor today. The only TN panel I have to compare it to is an Acer GD245HQ. I sincerely hope the colors on the Dell are more vibrant than the Acer, as the Acer is a genuinely awful looking screen. I also have a Dell P2715q nearby that I've been using for gaming, but running at sub native resolution (it's a 4k screen) really is a drag, and I've been eyeing G-Sync monitors pretty hard for a while now so I decided to take the plunge. For now I've dedicated the 4k monitor to being a my Mac monitor and the G-Sync dell will be my Gaming monitor. Hopefully I don't regret this as I might cancel my Oculus order due to the investment here.
 
NP - icc profiles are tough because every panel is different, and the viewing environment may have a dramatic effect as well.

Though, I'd check against this rather than the Witcher 3, since it could just be a problem with game settings:
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gamma_calibration.php

Bars should blend around 2.2.

Hmm, I wonder if it's a bug with my drivers or Windows on my end. When I first boot Win10, including the log in screen, everything looks nice. But once Windows boots it readjusts the gamma to unnecessarily dark.

EDIT: Honestly, outside of the gamma, your ICC profile + tweaks are fucking fantastic. Colours pop beautifully. But yeah, on my display dark spots are unnaturally so, leading to weird crushed black-like uniformity in certain areas. I'll take a photo later. If I can work out a way to fix this tiny little issue it'll be absolutely perfect.
 
There's also the Colormunki Display, which uses the same sensor as the i1 Display Pro from memory. Obviously it's still comparable with dispcalGUI but the stock software is actually pretty good although you're basically limited with settings. Though you have to ask whether or not you'd want anything other than 6500k and 2.2 gamma.

Dunno what the price difference is but X-Rite stuff has always given me far better results with their stock software than Spyder does. I like the stock software better than dispcalGUI because for a casual user like myself, the features and extra samples dispcalGUI can offer are pretty meaningless to me, overkill for my purposes, and just take forever to generate a profile.

I ended up going with a colormunki display after doing some reading about how Spyder have problems dealing with low light readings. With DispcalGUI and Argyllcms it should be able to do everything I need it to and more. Thanks for your input.
 
Hmm, I wonder if it's a bug with my drivers or Windows on my end. When I first boot Win10, including the log in screen, everything looks nice. But once Windows boots it readjusts the gamma to unnecessarily dark.

EDIT: Honestly, outside of the gamma, your ICC profile + tweaks are fucking fantastic. Colours pop beautifully. But yeah, on my display dark spots are unnaturally so, leading to weird crushed black-like uniformity in certain areas. I'll take a photo later. If I can work out a way to fix this tiny little issue it'll be absolutely perfect.
You might be able to correct using the hardware gamma seeing. Where did the blend fall for you on the lagom chart?
 
I thought that some didn't work with borderless windowed? maybe I'm just thinking of windowed

G-Sync was incompatible with windowed games when it first launched but it was corrected in a patch. As far as I know, borderless is treated the same as a regular window so it should work fine. I'm running Dragon's Dogma in a borderless window right now (third party app required) and G-Sync is active.
 
Tried my friend's Dell S2716DG gsync monitor along side my Samsung 21:9 34" 3440x1440 VA monitor.

It's a TN and doesn't really keep up with VA positioned next to it, it has 1/3 of the contrast ratio of the VA, but with a calibration icc profile (tftcentral) it gets to 2.2 gamma and looks quite decent. The settings out of the box are horrid.
The fact that it has zero defects, no blb, no ips glow, good panel and gray uniformity pushes it over the current IPS offerings for me personally. I don't want to play the stupid ips roulette, nor can I, as returns and RMAs aren't easy where I live.
The price is right as well, 569-600 dollars.

I'm going to get one myself and probably relegate my 21:9 screen as a secondary monitor or sell it off. The two monitors are the same height because a 34" 21:9 is just a wider 27" and they look great together. The move back to 16:9 is going to be painful, but gsync, great price, design and QC makes this a very good monitor.
 
So it looks like my XB270HU is one of the newer ones that have the 165 Hz overclocking feature. Is there any reason not to use this all the time? I assume that will also allow G-syncing up to 164 fps (seems like it at least from what I've played).
 
I got my BenQ XL2730Z (1440p/144Hz/Freesync/1ms) set up last night and set the refresh rate to 144 Hz. I was already blown away by how much smoother the desktop responded. Loaded up Diablo 3, which isn't very demanding, and I knew I could run pretty easily with extremely high frame rates and at 1440p...

Whew, lad!

Man. What a difference, especially coming from a 1080p/60Hz/2ms monitor.
 
Yep - panel diff. Mine lands at about 2.4 at 48 and 2.2 for the other two. You may try giving MonitorCalibrationWizard a shot for color correction:
http://hex2bit.com/products/product_mcw.asp

Not as accurate as metered calibration, but it does the job in a pinch.

Cool man, I'll give it a shot. Any specific conditions I should use this under? As in, your ICC profile + monitor RGB tweaks, or just reset everything to default and run this program?
 
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