Advice please on my upgrade plan

[Bigfish]

This is my first post on this Forum. You all seem very knowledgeable and helpful, so can I ask for your advice please?

I’m currently running a 4770k oc'd to 4.5 Ghz, Z87 Sabretooth mobo and EVGA GTX 780SC. When I built this a couple of years ago it was reasonably cutting edge… I kept the 24” Iiyama monitor I bought in 2009 from the previous build.

I mostly fly flight simulators, especially MS Flight Simulator X and BMS 4.33 (Falcon 4) at max settings, with the odd bout of Arma 2. But I’m open to becoming a bit more of a “gamer” and try some modern games with fabulous eye-candy!

I’ve just donated the Iiyama and the old E8400 rig to my wife so she can write her best-selling novel on it, so I’m without a monitor.

So my plan was to upgrade either to a 27” 2560x1440 with G-Sync, or maybe a 34” 21:9 3440x 1440 monitor, and drive it from the GTX780. If that proved inadequate, upgrade it to some flavour of EVGA GTX 1080.

However I’m dismayed at the legions of you guys (and not just on this Forum) who have been obliged to make one or more RMAs for “back-light bleed”, “bad pixels” etc. I’ve never seen so much dissatisfaction with any other class of PC component.

So while I appreciate the dangers of falling into the “just wait for the next big thing” syndrome, I wonder if I wouldn’t be better at this moment just buying a cheap (@£150) and cheerful 27” 1920x1080 TN monitor (eg AOC's E2770SH) from OCUK and waiting for say 12 months.

By this time hopefully (a) there’ll be more choice of 21:9 G-Sync monitors; (b) and cheaper (though price isn’t a primary consideration); and (c) quality assured. At the same time I could upgrade to a GTX 1080.

Is this dumb, or sensible? What would you advise me to do?

Many thanks

Alan

 

[Bigfish]

Thanks guys for your replies, much appreciated.

Quartz, you put "cost" into perspective, thanks! See below.

Aoaaron, your thoughts on X34 IPS were very helpful. I had a really useful webnote exchange with Benjamin at OCUK, on the basis that if I called in to the shop - I'm quite often in the Stoke area - not only could I look at the various options with them, but they'd unbox an example of whatever I chose and I could check it out on the spot. That is consistent with my experience of their excellent customer service. That should deal with any "dead pixel/back-light blees" anxieties. On that basis I'm inclined to go for the X34A Predator. The price seems a bit eye-watering and I suppose I could wait for them to come down but (a) maybe they won't, or not significantly? and (b) currently I haven't got a monitor and withdrawal symptoms are showing already... and (c) what the hell.

I've been an NVidia chap for a long while, after one bad experience with a factory oc'd AMD card which blew up a month out of guarantee. But I will keep an open mind especially when the Vega cards appear and are bedded in. In the meantime I'm inclined to "invest" in an EVGA GTX 1080 SC to replace my 780.

Does that make sense?

Alan

PS so if you were to recommend one "modern game" which would show off the visual awesomeness of an X34A and GTX1080, what should I get?

 

[Bigfish]

Aoaaron, thanks for those Dark Souls 3/Dishonoured 2 suggestions! I looked at some Youtube footage and even at that resolution etc. they were just mind-blowing. I really had no idea what was possible. When I make my mind up about a new monitor/GPU I'm going to widen my horizons beyond flying Cessna 172s and F16s..... I'm watching the ongoing discussion you're having on monitors v tvs with much interest. Sounds like we're just on the edge of a new and better technology, but maybe just not there yet. Which makes doing something right now a bit tricky. I either do £150 27" cheapie and chuck it away in a year, or X34A and chuck it in 3, do you think?

BTW I've had a 55" Samsung telly for 4 years, awesome picture, no dead pixels, no backlight bleed.....

Much thanks to all contributors

Alan

 

[Bigfish]

Just to bring this thread up to date, I finally came off the fence and bought an Acer X34A Predator superwide monitor from OCUK. I just have some woodwork to do to adapt my "cockpit" to accommodate this fearsome amount of monitor, and then I'm awaiting the (hopefully soon) arrival of the EVGA GTX 1080 Ti to make it go properly. My current EVGA GTX 780 SC probably isn't worthy to be connected to such a beast of a monitor. I'll report on the results when it's all done. I so appreciate the input from everyone who responded to this thread, thank you. And a shout for excellent advice and customer service from the guys at OCUK too!

Alan