Budget 27" monitor, which one?

TrevS

TrevS

TrevS

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22 May 2012
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Hi all

I am looking for a budget 27" monitor to use for my home PC. It's used 70% for gaming and 30% for design work (mainly photoshop). With a new monitor I also want to use it connect to my PS3 and XBOX 360.

I have seen 2 models that I think would be suitable for me. The first is the AOC i2757Fm. This seems like a good budget option and has had a positive review on TFT central. The second is the DGM IPS-2701WPH which I know is a popular choice here on overclockers and reviewed well also on TFT central.

There is around £130 different in price but the problem with the AOC is that it only runs 1920x1080 and I would prefer the extra real estate of the DGM for when designing in Photoshop however the problem I have is that I am worried that I won't be able to run games at 2560x1440 with a 2gb 7850C graphics card.

So the question is, should I get the DGM and run games at a lower resolution or buy the AOC and run everything at 1080? Also which would display games on xbox and PS3 better?

Also having never gamed on a 27" at 1080 is it simply too low resolution?

Thanks

Trevor
 
Here is my PC spec if this helps:
  • Gigabyte Z77N-WIFI Motherboard
  • i5-3570K processor
  • Sapphire 7850 2gb OC edition
  • 8gb DDR3 1600MHz HyperX Genesis RAM
  • Corsair 750W CXM Builder PSU
  • 128gb Solid state hard drive

Also games I typically play:
  • Battlefield 3
  • Planetside
  • Day Z
  • Borderlands 2
  • Left for dead 2
 
With regards to 27" @1920x1080:
Well, I use 42" (yes, forty-two inch) from a 1m distance @1920x1080, and I still have to use zoom sometimes... So it really depends on your own eye-sight and your viewing distance.

Don't give in to some people's empty claims about 1920x1080 being too low resolution for a 27" monitor. It might be bad for those people, but that doesn't say anything about how it will be for you. Though the opposite applies, too. Just because 42" @1920x1080 is good for me, I'm most probably in the minority.

Therefore, I would suggest you to go to a regular brick-and-mortar store and check which resolution/size combo is best for you with your normal viewing distance. And after that you can start to compare models.

Furthermore, you do understand that gaming @1920x1080 on a 2560x1440 monitor will look worse than 1920x1080 on a native 1920x1080 monitor, right? I'd rather suggest you lower the AA/AF settings, etc., to match the performance, before lowering the resolution.

And, you should also bear in mind to get a unit that automatically scales the PS3/XBox360 signal to the whole area. Because some monitors indeed don't have a scaler. On a computer, you can make use of GPU's own scaler (which is apparently even recommended), but external peripherals don't necessarily have this kind of option.

Edit, with regards to which resolution is better for PS3/XBox360:
Depends what resolution the consoles will output. I'm not that familiar with them, so you'll have to ask someone else about them.
But in any case, 720p is better in 2560x1440, because it can theoretically scale it without blurring, as both axis' pixel ratios are 2:1.
While on the other hand, if the consoles output 1080p, then the native 1920x1080 is naturally better.
 
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got a DGM 27" recently myself and 2 things I noticed:

- 1440p gaming is extremely tough on the graphics card, you'll just about have enough VRAM for Battlefield 3 but you'll have to tone down the settings. Good news is at 1440p you don't need half as much AA. Beware 1440p can cut your frames by a good 20-30% I found, even more in some cases.

- Upclose the difference between 1440p and 1080p was massive on a 27", I personally felt after seeing everything in 2560x1440, at 1920x1080 the desktop looked horrible and games lost their sharpness. As the previous poster said this could just be me, and probably at some distance (2 meters from monitor) you wouldn't notice half as much

Also

- xbox360 and ps3 will output at 1080p or 720p, you can chose which in settings so if you went for a 1440p you would just have to test which worked better, xbox360 is also capable of doing some "PC resolutions" which may improve picture quality.
 
OK, I am moving more in the direction of the DGM as I like the idea of more desktop space for my work but what kind of gaming perfomance can I expect from my 7850OC? Is it going to be really slow frame rates with everything turned down at 1440p? Also has anyone connected an xbox or PS3 to the DGM and how does it play?

Trev
 
TrevS said:
OK, I am moving more in the direction of the DGM as I like the idea of more desktop space for my work but what kind of gaming perfomance can I expect from my 7850OC? Is it going to be really slow frame rates with everything turned down at 1440p? Also has anyone connected an xbox or PS3 to the DGM and how does it play?

Trev
Click to expand...

If you opt to run games in 1440p aswell then you are going to get average to poor performance on that card with titles like BF3 I'm afraid. That being said if you aren't a stickler for high /max settings/ 60fps, demanding games could be more than playable on medium/low at around 30 /40fps. Lower end titles will be just fine.

Unfortunately it is speculated that some upcoming games like Battlefield 4 will use over 2GB of vram at 1440p which could cause you issues as your card has 2GB max.

I will plug my xbox into my DGM tonight and let you know how it looks. Quality wise at 1440p from PC it is a beauty, such a bargain :)
 
Darr2cool78 said:
If you opt to run games in 1440p aswell then you are going to get average to poor performance on that card with titles like BF3 I'm afraid. That being said if you aren't a stickler for high /max settings/ 60fps, demanding games could be more than playable on medium/low at around 30 /40fps. Lower end titles will be just fine.

Unfortunately it is speculated that some upcoming games like Battlefield 4 will use over 2GB of vram at 1440p which could cause you issues as your card has 2GB max.

I will plug my xbox into my DGM tonight and let you know how it looks. Quality wise at 1440p from PC it is a beauty, such a bargain :)
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'd appreciate knowing how you get on with the xbox.

I just found some benchmarks that suggest the 7850oc will run BF3 at 26fps at 2650x1600 at high settings, AA x4 and AF x16. Therefore I would expect to be able to run it at 1440p OK if I lower the settings to medium or turn AA off etc
Battlefield.png


I have also just been reading about down sampling. Would that be a way of testing how well battlefield would run on my current setup and 1440p?

Trev
 
TrevS said:
Thanks, I'd appreciate knowing how you get on with the xbox.

I have also just been reading about down sampling. Would that be a way of testing how well battlefield would run on my current setup and 1440p?

Trev
Click to expand...

Will post later tonight and let you know ;)

I guess it could give you some perception on performance, although the down sampling experience is never legit because your 1080p screen simply does have that many physical pixels it may get your GPU to do some extra work and give you an idea of how things will go! certainly it should at least tax the vram a bit more and any bottlenecks could be discovered. Give it a shot ;)

Seems a nice guide
 
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