Advice on an Ultrawide now or wait

Associate
Joined
5 Apr 2019
Posts
7
Hi forum, new here so bear with me!


I'm a video editor, Just dropped some major coin on a new Mac book pro Vega laptop. Gulp!

Currently running 2 old 27" thunderbolt monitors but now want to upgrade to an Ultrawide.


I'm not to sure what model to look at and also aware we're due a load of new models over the next few months.

I've also installed bootcamp for gaming, so battlefield 5 etc all on the hit list.

Would like to hear thoughts from you guys - anything that does the job now or coming up soon?

Looking for min 34 - would go to 38

Cheers
 
How about the 32:9 Samsung CRG9 mega-wide? 5120x1440, high refresh, etc. You'll need to get yourself an external GPU to run games, of course.
 
I don't know about BF5 specifically but you're going to be pushing a lot of pixels and the Vega 32 pales in comparison with PC GPUs. Heat constraints are going to make it less than half the performance of a Vega 64, for instance.
 
I don't know about BF5 specifically but you're going to be pushing a lot of pixels and the Vega 32 pales in comparison with PC GPUs. Heat constraints are going to make it less than half the performance of a Vega 64, for instance.

Thankyou - I'm major green with PC gaming nowadays I must admit as I moved over to Macs a long time ago for work - but my 14 year old son is pushing me forward!

I've seen the Razer Core X GPUs seem to get good noise
 
Got the AW3418 Alienware UW couldn't be happier although anything is this size is subject to light bleed. Its mostly in the bottom left corner which is common amongst other owners but its faded over the course of a month so there is that. But i quickly found out you need some decent hardware to push those pixels but was due an upgrade anyway. I've got a 27" & 24" flanking it either side but i turn them off now because its just easier to use the main monitor.
 
Simple answer to the title is now, otherwise you'll just wait and wait and wait.
Andi.
I agree, there will always be something new around the corner, so it is better to do the research and buy something suitable now and begin using it.

Except in the case of immediate impending sales (possibly black friday for example) and major tech upgrades that are expected to shift the entire market (such as ryzen 3000).
 
I was on the fence aswell, was considering some cheap ultrawide ( acer cz350ck it`s 100hz and free/gsync compatible ) or the lg 34gk950f thats 144hz but double the price, went for the Acer, it was like the cheapest options around, and VA but to be honest it`s great, and cant really ask for more for the money, and given the chance I would not bother spending double for the LG totally happy with the Acer. Used 16:9/144hz panels for the previous ~5 years but cant see myself going back, ultrawide is so much better for productivity even those singleplayer games look great and immersive on it. True I would choose a 240hz 1080p panel for gaming if I were any good, but fact is dont really have time to play 10 hours every day these days to be any good at those type of competative shooters anymore, life happens. So for everything else ultrawide was the right choice, and you would think 100hz is too low, but it`s not it`s smooth enough. Also If you like running things on ultra and whatnot, you need a beefy gpu, used to run an RTX 2080 for the 1440p 16:9 screens, but found out it wasnt enough for the 3440x1440 100hz screen and went for the 2080Ti instead. It`s just about enough! In time I will most likely look for an upgrade, but for now things that run 3840x1600 are way out of my price range, but some extra realestate would make ultrawide even better than it is now, not to mention I`m pretty sure the 2080Ti would not like that resolution, with high refreshrate.
 
The ludicrously good £450 deal for the Samsung C34J791 can still be had. 100 hz 3440x1440 with Thunderbolt 3 and Freesync.
 
ive googled and concensus seems to be it doesnt

The C34J791? Seems like there's little consensus on that topic with many saying it's a panel lottery, though it hasn't stopped one or two review sites loudly declaring it has flawless GSync compatibility. For me it works, though I got the borderless full screen issue on an NVidia card that severely muddied the waters for me. On exclusive full screen it seems to be quite happy between 55 hz and 100 hz - lower and there's the risk of flickering.

On the other hand, I did briefly have another C34J791 that had a physical defect (the bezels were improperly put together and had gaps bleeding light out of them). That screen I returned quickly, but during my brief testing I seemed to have severe problems with GSync, though I wasn't aware at the time of the exclusive vs borderless full screen issue that was affecting my card so can't really draw conclusions about that monitor either (I think I tried both modes, but then sometimes games lie and say they're in exclusive mode when actually they've switched to borderless due to an alt tab or something) - I remember being particularly disappointed in GTA V on that first monitor which was flickering like crazy no matter what I did.

To muddy the waters even more, looks like there's a few versions of this monitor around the world (WTNXZA, WQUXEN and WTUXEN). The UK market seems only to have the latter monitor, while the sites that enthusiastically claim the C34J791 has perfect GSync compatibility seem to be basing that on the oceanic/asian version (one of the other two, can't remember which).

That said, there were circumstances where the second C34J791 seemed to have flawless GSync in exclusive full screen games, like with the Witcher 3, or Forza Horizon 4 (a stealth borderless fullscreen game, but it's a MS one so they seem to have fixed the unacknowledged borderless fullscreen issue affecting GSync for their games only in Windows 10).

TLDR: Hassle free stuff that FreeSync / GSync compatibility lol.

Edit: I suppose another issue that affected things, particularly GTA V, which again confused me as to whether I was seeing flickering or not, was to do with strange gamma shifts, where the screen seemed to dim or brighten slightly depending on the brightness of what scene was on the screen. Did my nut in TBH and may have had nothing to do with FreeSync/GSync, but something else with the monitor.

Life is much simpler now I've downgraded to an RX 550 and am playing Postal 2, with reasonably flawless FreeSync and no anomalies except for the odd loading screen flicker. But then I can't play the games I could on the 1070 Ti anymore, so again difficult to make true like for like comparisons.
 
Last edited:
Hi all, so looking at the 38WK95C - its main use will be a mix of video editing and general office work fed by my MacBook Pro - with some minimal console gaming PS4/ Switch etc

I was thinking of using my next upgrade as a gaming screen for the lad but have sacked that idea off now - will build him a dedicated PC for gaming when the time is right and he earns the privilege!

So what do you think pull the trigger and go for it or wait till September for the rumoured release date of the LG38GL950G?
 
Or - (finger posted to click cos its a bit cheaper!) Asus XR38 - can get that for at least £100 less....or wait till rumoured Sept release for the LG38...
 
3840 x 1600 is a good res for editing, certainly preferable over 3440 x 1440, and will also be very immersive in gaming... providing you have the GPU power to push it. It's getting close to 4K pixel count, so gives you an idea what kind of GPU horsepower it ideally needs in newer games.

The LG38GL950G is probably going to be worth waiting for if you want that higher refresh and G-Sync... although it won't be cheap. There is also the upcoming 43" 4K Acer CG437K-P though, which will offer even more screen real estate, and from the released price info won't be insanely priced (under £1500 it seems).

If you're not really going to be using this for PC gaming though, only casual console, then G-Sync high-refresh is wasted, and you're as well to go with the 38WK95C or XR38 now. The LG might have the edge for professional features, but is more expensive of course.
 
Back
Top Bottom