Monitor Advice for a New Build

V

VoidDragon

New member
Hi all,

I am building a new rig at the end of the month that will be my first desktop computer for a long time and need some advice on a monitor.

Now I had looked at the Asus ROG 27" PG278Q (£562.99) due to the very positive reviews I had seen regarding overall performance and G-SYNC, however given the topic currently being discussed in the other thread I have some reticence about buying one at the moment.

What would be the alternatives that people would recommend? I have had a look at the Benq 27" XL2720Z but would prefer something with 1440.

Your help is appreciated.
Dale
 
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What kind of hardware will you use to drive this monitor? And your looking at 1440p as a minimum?

edit: Found the other hardware thread.. GTX 980?
With a 980 you could 2560x1440p fairly easily.
 
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NeverBackDown said:
What kind of hardware will you use to drive this monitor? And your looking at 1440p as a minimum?

edit: Found the other hardware thread.. GTX 980?
With a 980 you could 2560x1440p fairly easily.
Click to expand...

I assume it's for gaming, since he hasn't given anything related to the use much, of what I can see. So just run 1440p, wouldn't any modern graphics card be able to handle it?...

But gaming on it though, that's a different story... specially between certain games.

Thes it what me thinks anyway :)
 
Personally (and it does depend on which genre of games you play), I personally wouldn't buy a monitor that had less that 120hz refresh rate these days, especially with the hardware you are looking at. But it is personal preference.
 
Master&Puppet said:
Personally (and it does depend on which genre of games you play), I personally wouldn't buy a monitor that had less that 120hz refresh rate these days, especially with the hardware you are looking at. But it is personal preference.
Click to expand...

While i agree to a certain extent, i do disagree that hardware is able to drive up to 120-144hz. You would need Xfire/SLI to be able to reach those frames. You would only maintain a higer avg but never the max. So it's more of if you have the money it's worth it. If not, then no big deal. I personally would wait for FreeSync. Prices should come down after it's launch and gives time to save up for the GPUs they will need to drive those crazy frames.

Now if OP mainly plays LoL/WoW type games then doing it now isn't a bad idea. Easily capable of doing that.
 
NeverBackDown said:
While i agree to a certain extent, i do disagree that hardware is able to drive up to 120-144hz. You would need Xfire/SLI to be able to reach those frames. You would only maintain a higer avg but never the max. So it's more of if you have the money it's worth it. If not, then no big deal. I personally would wait for FreeSync. Prices should come down after it's launch and gives time to save up for the GPUs they will need to drive those crazy frames.
Click to expand...

You'd be fine running a 980 with a 144hz monitor.

hz does not equal fps. Even at 60 fps you can see a difference between 120hz/60hz.
 
NeverBackDown said:
While i agree to a certain extent, i do disagree that hardware is able to drive up to 120-144hz. You would need Xfire/SLI to be able to reach those frames. You would only maintain a higer avg but never the max. So it's more of if you have the money it's worth it. If not, then no big deal. I personally would wait for FreeSync. Prices should come down after it's launch and gives time to save up for the GPUs they will need to drive those crazy frames.

Now if OP mainly plays LoL/WoW type games then doing it now isn't a bad idea. Easily capable of doing that.
Click to expand...

Apologies for not being clearer in the OP, I will be running a GTX980 with the system being mainly used for strategy/RPG titles and photo editing/processing in PS.

Unfortunately I don't have a great amount of time to wait as my current laptop is very near deaths door and my work system cannot or with what I want to do on it.

Thanks for the advice thus far.
 
barnsley said:
You'd be fine running a 980 with a 144hz monitor.

hz does not equal fps. Even at 60 fps you can see a difference between 120hz/60hz.
Click to expand...

Only because the input lag and response time are low. And yes hz does equal FPS. I know you know that.. I never said he couldn't run a single 980 with a 144hz monitor. It would just be sort of pointless never getting near the full potential of the monitor. You would need Gsync or Freesync to make it worthwhile. Why pay a premium and only get say less than 100fps on max? Older games will let you hit the max but not new AAA games. As of now i don't see the point unless its Gsync(for the OP).

VoidDragon said:
Apologies for not being clearer in the OP, I will be running a GTX980 with the system being mainly used for strategy/RPG titles and photo editing/processing in PS.

Unfortunately I don't have a great amount of time to wait as my current laptop is very near deaths door and my work system cannot or with what I want to do on it.

Thanks for the advice thus far.
Click to expand...

Then your rig will do great and you won't be dissapointed.
 
NeverBackDown said:
Only because the input lag and response time are low. And yes hz does equal FPS. I know you know that.. I never said he couldn't run a single 980 with a 144hz monitor. It would just be sort of pointless never getting near the full potential of the monitor. the max but not new AAA games. As of now i don't see the point unless its Gsync(for the OP).
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In the games that a higher refresh rate benefits you most you can easily hit the FPS needed.
You can see the difference running a 120hz monitor @ 60fps regardless.

-edit- of course if you're mainly doing photoshop stuff then get an IPS.

-further edit-
Kinda explains about what I mean about hz(or refresh rate) not equaling FPS.
What people are getting at here is the difference between the refresh rate of your monitor and the rate at which your PC can produce the images.

A monitor's refresh rate, measured in Hz, is the number of times per second that the monitor displays an image. Most monitors have a refresh rate of 60hz meaning that it will literally ask the GPU for the next image to replace the one it is currently showing 60 times per second.

GPUs on the other hand are making the images, not simply displaying them. The amount of images they produce varies greatly depending on the amount work required to make each image and the performance of the GPU. A more complex image on a lower performance GPU will take longer than a less complex image on a powerful GPU and so on. This is done on a frame by frame bases so that if a scene comprising of complex images is followed by a scene comprising of simple images then the GPU will get through the second series of images quicker and a tool like fraps would report a higher frame rate (fps) .

So the complications arrive when the gpu and monitor do not match their performance. For example:

If you have a 120hz monitor but your GPU is only producing 60fps at a particular scene then you will only see 60fps. The monitor may be able to refresh faster but all it can do is use the same image twice because the GPU hasn't made the next frame yet so it will display the same image again until the next one comes along.

On the other hand if you GPU is producing 120fps but the monitor is only rated at 60hz then the GPU is working hard for no reason because the monitor is going to ignore every second frame because it can't display them quickly enough and you would still see 60fps.

The ideal would be to try to match the workload on the GPU so that it produces the same number of frames per second as the monitors refresh rate. I. E. When the monitor asks for the next frame the gpu has just got it ready.

In reality this is impossible because the workload on the GPU changes constantly but you can get close depending on the game (some games have a very smooth workload where others will have dramatic differences in image complexity from one scene to the next).

There are various tools you can use to help such as v-sync and/or a frame rate limiter which change the relationship between the gpu and the monitor but they also add complications.
Click to expand...
 
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Interesting discussion and feedback guys. In-terms of what I will be doing there will probably be about 80/20 split biased toward gaming rather than PS (neglecting my photographic skills!).
 
Oh I'm getting quoted ;)

If your games are strategy/RPG titles then a higher refresh rate isn't critical. In first person games it makes a huge difference because of the sheer amount of camera movement but when you are just panning over terrain it's not as noticeable.

If you had to make a choice between 120hz and IPS then for your needs IPS/60hz would be more suited to you.

I'm actually due to received an overclockable IPS monitor in the coming week or so which does both but it's a bit specialist and involves lengthy waiting times to have it built and delivered which wouldn't suit your timescale.
 
Master&Puppet said:
Oh I'm getting quoted ;)
I'm actually due to received an overclockable IPS monitor in the coming week or so which does both but it's a bit specialist and involves lengthy waiting times to have it built and delivered which wouldn't suit your timescale.
Click to expand...

Indeed you are..

A custom OC'd IPS monitor? Well i did mine my self. Got it to 75hz. Won't go any higher without further modification with all the internal timings and whatnot(which i'm totally not prepared to do).
 
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