G-Sync or Ultrawide?

[wengole]

Looking to upgrade graphics card and monitor in the coming months, but can't decide whether G-Sync or Ultrawide would be more of a useful feature. Seems you can't have both (at least not in my budget).

From what I've heard G-Sync would make high action games seem more smooth, but I feel the Ultrawide would give benefits to to games requiring a bit more immersion (i.e. Star Citizen & Elite: Dangerous)

I'm probably never going to afford a Oculus - and I've tried a DK2 and wouldn't use it as a daily tool; too much eye-strain

Anyone got any recommendations based on experience?

 

[wengole]

I'd wait for the freesync compatible monitors to launch, there's some ultrawide ones. Then go AMD for GPU?

Yeah, I'd just been reading up on all the FreeSync goodness. Sounds like a great idea, but Nvidia have said they won't support it, and I'm just not a fan of AMD graphics cards. Been burned twice with bad drivers - once not so long ago. I'm sure it's better now, but I'm weirdly pig-headed about this now.

I was however trying to see if there was a G-Sync monitor that was Display Port 1.2a, so that I could have the best of both worlds. Seems unlikely to happen.

 

[wengole]

i currently have the swift, and i love having gsync and i feel like i couldn't play games without it anymore. lately though, i've been questioning myself, thinking if a 3440:1440 monitor would be better as i mainly game and watch movies at home.

suffice it to say, i will wait how this whole freesync thing turns out. my gpu at the moment it a gtx680 so i will be upgrading that as well this year and depending on how freesync turns out, i gonna either go AMD or stay with nvidia (and keep all the other goodies, like shadowplay).

with that said, if i was you, i would hold out at least until june/july to see how this whole situation works out.

So are you thinking ultrawide would be better than gsync for gaming? I'm only "having" to upgrade as they're pretty old and VGA only and most modern graphics cards seem to only have DVI-D, display port and HDMI these days. Which is fine.

Kinda got my heart set on a Nvidia 970 at the moment, but not sure which one. I was so close to buying as well ... I'd rather not wait, but then again don't want buyers remorse

 

[wengole]

I was faced with the same decision recently as well. It is purely down to personal preference however I felt as if ultrawide screens added something new to the experience whereas gsync just improved an element of the experience that I wasn't too bothered about i.e. I don't play FPS to the level that I'd truly appreciate the difference compared to the benefits of ultrawide. There was also the fact that with the ultrawides you are getting a better looking screen so it was also a choice between IPS and TN. Since I'd be processing photos I felt like the IPS screen would be better. Ultimately what really sold me on the ultrawide is the aspect ratio. I've long used dual screens and this enabled me to replace them and also create a more immersive experience.

Unfortunately I am in the process of the building my new rig just now so can't test the new ultrawide (Dell u3415w) yet. What I can say is that with it now being on the desk and sitting in front of it I am extremely happy with the size and aspect ratio, even the curve which I was dubious about, and thoroughly looking forward to trying a few games. It is such a step up from a 24" 16:9.

Thanks, you've got a good point. As it stands I get tearing as my gfx card is old and slow (560 GTX) on modern games, but I put up with it. So ultrawide would, as you say, give me something new....

 

[wengole]

Exactly how have you been burned in the past by AMD drivers? Im just curious

Well it was a loooong time ago and it was ATI and not AMD (if that actually makes a difference now - I don't know).

I had a Radeon All In Wonder 9800 which at the time was supposed to be a pretty good card. But it never worked out that way. I had issues with drivers all the time to the extent even installing windows was a pain. Regardless, gaming was never as good as I'd hoped it had be.

Add to this the fact I could *never* get the tuner working properly, I gave up completely after 6 months and replaced it with a budget Nvidia card. This continued for years with my prejudice against ATI/AMD until DX:HR came out and refused to run on day 1 on my NV 9800 GTS. This is the first time I ever had driver issues with Nvidia, and it annoyed me. My whole reason for being loyal to them is they almost always end up with their drivers with having better game support at launch, and they failed me for a game I was pretty excited to play.

I did a slightly cheeky thing and swapped my card with the one in my work PC (which was ridiculously over-speced anyway) - a HD 6850. Now that I don't *need* the AMD card, I've got a 560 GTX and the 6850 resides in my girlfriend's gaming PC.

So I guess I'm prejudiced against AMD (although only for graphics - I'm a loyal AMD CPU fan, but that's a whole 'nother story) and probably unjustifiably so these days, but I do like what Nvidia are doing, and I do like their tools and supporting technologies. I really like the GeForce Experience app for example.

 

[wengole]

Taking everything into account, I'm probably going to go with an ultrawide. Which one, I've yet to decide, but going to hold off for now.

Thanks for all your tips guys.