Buy or wait

sukotto85 · 23 May 2016 at 20:10

In a bit of a predicament.

Should I go ahead and buy a ultra wide monitor? Or wait in hope that 144hz 3440x1440 will release soon.

I wouldn't usually wait, but as the new graphics card are nearly upon up, with dp 1.3. Surely these monitors will released soon.

I've been patiently waiting for Pascal (now eagerly waiting for custom boards).

I know we should just always buy want we want, and people say you'll always be waiting for something better. I wouldn't want to spend close to 1k on a new monitor, only to find 144hz release soon there after. Unless of course there's new monitors are going to be ridiculously expensive.

A bit of advice would be great.

Thanks.

TerabyteMike · 23 May 2016 at 22:26

I guess you need to make sure you can game with enough fps on your new monitor. I haven't upgraded based on that. I have an r9 290x and at 1080 I can play everything maxed on ultra but switching to a higher res would compromise that. I guess you maybe have to take the leap and see. Everyone I know who has gone to 1440 can't come back to 1080 so It is definitely worth it as long as you can make it worth it

mahius · 23 May 2016 at 22:56

TerabyteMike said:
I guess you need to make sure you can game with enough fps on your new monitor. I haven't upgraded based on that. I have an r9 290x and at 1080 I can play everything maxed on ultra but switching to a higher res would compromise that. I guess you maybe have to take the leap and see. Everyone I know who has gone to 1440 can't come back to 1080 so It is definitely worth it as long as you can make it worth it

+1

I'm in the same situation. GTX970 on a 1080p60 monitor. Thing is, I'm waiting for a GPU that can do 1440p144Hz a bit of justice. And considering there might not be a singular GPU sufficient for it this generation, OP might have to wait longer for 1440UW114Hz capable GPUs.

The benchmarks on the reference GTX 1080 show that it's a good card for maintaining above 60fps at 1440p. Which makes sense, the 1080 is roughly twice as poweful as a 970 and 1440p is close to twice the pixel count of 1080p. With a 144Hz monitor the framerate would fluctuate in the 60 (or whatever the minimum is in that game) to 144 range, no locked 144/120fps unless you turned down many settings. Maybe 2 in SLI could do 90+ in 1440p.

I'd think aftermarket 1080ti's (or whatever Vega might be) would do a better job for it. So I'd recommend waiting till that and then buy a 1440UW monitor with 90Hz refresh rate, since you won't be getting much higher fps wise unless you turned down settings and resolution. Or forget the ultrawide and just get a regular 16:9 1440p144Hz monitor.

andybird123 · 23 May 2016 at 23:39

Monitors are usually announced a long time before actual availability. If there's nothing announced by now then i cant see anything new being released this side of christmas.

Legend · 24 May 2016 at 00:07

As mentioned, nothing has even been announced yet, and monitors don't just appear out of nowhere. We do know that LG have some interesting panels in development, based on THIS ARTICLE over at TFT Central. The LM375UW1 is of particular interest as it's a 37.5" 3840x1600 res @ 2:4:1 aspect ratio (the same as BluRay). This sounds incredible, but as the article mentions it only features a 14ms G2G response time, so is hardly a gaming ready display (the X34/PG348Q are 4ms by comparison). Assuming this monitor even gets that treatment (G-Sync/Freesync would be essential really), we are talking 2017 at the earliest... and at a price that would give us nightmares no doubt! But who knows, we may see other monitors/panels announced soon... the existing 21:9 monitors have sold well, which is a good thing.

If I were you, I would go ahead with the X34/PG348Q (same panel)... probably the best monitor that's going to be available for the foreseeable future, just make sure you get a good one and I guarantee you'll be happy!

sukotto85 · 24 May 2016 at 19:58

I've heard LG are supposed to be releasing a 144hz ultra wide in Q2 / Q3?

If it is how you say, announcements come a long time before, I may just order myself either the X34 or PG348Q. I know I'll be happy with either of those. Getting a PG348Q
Isn't the easiest of tasks on OCUK. Are the new x32A less likely to come with the well known issues?

Poneros · 24 May 2016 at 22:44

Go for it, waiting is almost never worth it.

Legend · 25 May 2016 at 02:37

sukotto85 said:
I've heard LG are supposed to be releasing a 144hz ultra wide in Q2 / Q3?

If it is how you say, announcements come a long time before, I may just order myself either the X34 or PG348Q. I know I'll be happy with either of those. Getting a PG348Q
Isn't the easiest of tasks on OCUK. Are the new x32A less likely to come with the well known issues?

Where did you hear that?

I have read some comments mentioning Acer had made efforts to improve the BLB issues many earlier panels suffered from, which given LG make the panels would simply mean Acer doing a better job with QC and not letting those bad ones out the factory, but that's completely unsubstantiated as far as I'm aware.