Is 144hz worth the upgrade?

[Rezident]

It's something you have to judge for yourself after trying. You don't need constant 144 fps to take advantage of the higher refresh rate, you'll feel a smoother experience regardless. For PUBG & Rocket League it won't be that hard to drive tbh, esp. at 1080p. 1440p will look crisper but I can't say the difference is big in any way. Go to TFT Central and look through their reviews for monitors before making a decision. Ideally you'd want a Freesync monitor to keep costs down but that won't work with the 970, which would be enough for 1080p 144hz for the most part, so it would be more for the future or if you'd like to upgrade (maybe if £299 Vegas appear again this Xmas).

Imo with a Vega 56 & a 1440p 144fps monitor you'll be set for years now, esp. in these not as demanding titles, though a 580/590 would work well too - it's just that the jump from the 970 to the latter cards isn't as big. If I were in the market for such a monitor I'd look at the Asus MG279Q. One of the reviews on it, also with a 970:

How can you say there is no big difference between 1080p and 1440p? It made a massive game-changing difference for me. I could not go back to 1080p now, it just looks and feels so old and blocky by comparison. 1440p is the sweet spot for me, one of the best upgrades I have ever made OP. I would highly recommend it.

And no you do not need to be getting 144FPS, it is noticeably smoother anyway.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

How can you say there is no big difference between 1080p and 1440p? It made a massive game-changing difference for me. I could not go back to 1080p now, it just looks and feels so old and blocky by comparison. 1440p is the sweet spot for me, one of the best upgrades I have ever made OP. I would highly recommend it.

And no you do not need to be getting 144FPS, it is noticeably smoother anyway.

after 1080p res makes very little difference unless you have a much bigger screen IMO.

i had a 55" 1080p tv and now got a 55" 4K and the res is barely noticeable. it's the higher quality stream which makes netflix look better. then the HDR and 10 bit panel. so the colours pop so much more.

i have a 1440p monitor and IMO it makes little difference over 1080p the 144hz is a must though and i'm on a 27" screen now before it was 24 inch.

resolution is overrated IMO. i'd rather have a fully calibrated 1080p screen than a 1440p with a poor panel and no calibration.

 

[Mark A]

With a 4670k @ 4.5 and a 1070ti @ 1850 I got around 80fps in Pubg with mostly high and ultra settings, after upgrading my 1080p/60hz tv to a 1440p/144hz monitor. I think with a 970 you will struggle, unless you turn settings down to medium/low.

After upgrading pubg did seem a bit smoother and looked a bit crisper, but overall i wasn't as impressed as I thought i was going to be. Maybe I should have gone for a 1080ti and then the difference would have been more apparent with the extra 60 fps... Some other games suffered even more, like The Evil Within 2, which just about kept to 60fps after upping the res.

My advice would be to stick with 1080p @ 27". The slightly crisper picture isn't worth the drop in frames imo. Unless you buy a top of the line gpu, then you can keep the settings high/ultra and have the extra crispness of the higher res.

 

[Poneros]

How can you say there is no big difference between 1080p and 1440p? It made a massive game-changing difference for me. I could not go back to 1080p now, it just looks and feels so old and blocky by comparison. 1440p is the sweet spot for me, one of the best upgrades I have ever made OP. I would highly recommend it.

And no you do not need to be getting 144FPS, it is noticeably smoother anyway.

I can say it just like you can say the opposite, based on my own experience and judgement. It's a subjective thing. But if you look at it from the pixel count, it's not even double the amount of 1080p. Compare that to 4K, which is more than 4 times the pixel count, it's clear what a big jump looks like, and to me 1440p simply isn't. It's strange to say, even for me, because I value picture quality above everything else almost, but I simply don't feel like the jump to 1440p was in any way significant, and I don't care much about higher refresh rate either. That's why I'm on a 4K 55'' TV right now as opposed to a monitor, but was building a system for someone else earlier with my 1080p UW and felt the crispness of that screen wasn't noticeably inferior to the 4K either, so clearly PPI matters more than just resolution. Of course, the TV has superior PQ in other ways hence my choice of it, but resolution-wise it's more about PPI & there are diminishing returns past a certain point.

 

[Rifte]

The aspect ratio is far more important to me than the pixel count (within reason)

I dont think I could go back to 16:9 now after gaming at 21:9.

 

[RBImGuy]

Hi guys,

I'm thinking of getting a new monitor, but don't have a massive budget.

Is 144hz worth the money it costs and how does it work?

Am I right in thinking that I need the hardware to ensure that I have a constant 144fps and a relevant monitor and i'm away?

Current set up is a 2500k & GTX970HOF, and I only really play PUBG and Rocket League so obviously I might end up having to do some bargain hunting on MM for a new set up for these bits, but more looking for how it works and what i'd need tbh!

Currently using 27" monitor, so don't mind 1080p, but if there's an advantage to going to 1440 then I can look at that route also

Cheers

144hz and 1440p is the best user price/performance route atm.
ultrawide 3440x1440 100hz+ is next but cost more.
4k unless 120hz isn't worth it.
60hz simply put is not good.

 

[Amnesia]

Really depends what games your running, as the op said rocket league that would be fine, but something like destiny 2 or the division would struggle with games at 1440

i have a few hundred hours in the division, at the time i was using a 980 and a 3440x1440p monitor.
didnt max it out but dont really miss AA at that res

 

[Nasher]

after 1080p res makes very little difference unless you have a much bigger screen IMO.

i had a 55" 1080p tv and now got a 55" 4K and the res is barely noticeable. it's the higher quality stream which makes netflix look better. then the HDR and 10 bit panel. so the colours pop so much more.

i have a 1440p monitor and IMO it makes little difference over 1080p the 144hz is a must though and i'm on a 27" screen now before it was 24 inch.

resolution is overrated IMO. i'd rather have a fully calibrated 1080p screen than a 1440p with a poor panel and no calibration.

Yep, a very good 1080 panel still looks better than a cheap 1440 or 4k one tbh. When gaming you can't really see a whole lot of difference once AA is applied.

 

[Gerard]

Been toying with the idea of going to a Samsung CHG70 myself, freesync 144hz curved display. 4k looks great but is punishing to run. But at the same time I think that trying to get FPS consistently in the 120+ range is just as taxing as running a high res is it not?

 

[TNA]

Yep, a very good 1080 panel still looks better than a cheap 1440 or 4k one tbh. When gaming you can't really see a whole lot of difference once AA is applied.

Lol, you must have tried the worst 4K panel ever made, as there is night and day difference with my monitor and a 1080p one. I even tried, got a good 23" Freesync one in attempt to get away from needing to constantly upgrading my gpu a couple years ago.

 

[Doug2507]

I had 27" 1440p 144hz. I found 1080 to 1440p very noticeable for the better. Couldn't really see much difference above 100hz though. Made the 100hz UW an easy choice. Would like to see a 200hz panel out of curiosity though to see if there's any notable difference.

 

[tyler_jrb]

I had 27" 1440p 144hz. I found 1080 to 1440p very noticeable for the better. Couldn't really see much difference above 100hz though. Made the 100hz UW an easy choice. Would like to see a 200hz panel out of curiosity though to see if there's any notable difference.

Depends on a few variables but 100 to 144 to me is a noticeable difference and while not as big as 60 to 100 does feel more fluid especially if you are keeping 144hz most/all the time.

I swapped out my 100hz UW, to a 165hz 16:9 purely because I couldn’t get used to 100hz after having 144hz for so long.

 

[Doug2507]

That's a fair point. At the time I was on 980ti so might not have even been able to keep the frame rate up.

 

[tyler_jrb]

Been toying with the idea of going to a Samsung CHG70 myself, freesync 144hz curved display. 4k looks great but is punishing to run. But at the same time I think that trying to get FPS consistently in the 120+ range is just as taxing as running a high res is it not?

It’s about the same power wise but with more forgivability. With a high refresh panel you can drop down quite a few frames and not notice a huge difference in fluidity. Going from 60 to 30-40fps is a big difference even with freesync/g-sync applied.

Having had 144hz+ id never go back to 60hz and I’ve had a few ultrawide’s, couple of 27” 4k panel’s for over a year. I had a wow factor going from 1080p to 4k. But 60hz to 144/165hz was huge for me.

The smoothness itself adds a kind of crispness to the image and is like you are aiming the gunnwith your own hands it’s that smooth.

Once you go high refresh you never go back .

 

[Gerard]

It’s about the same power wise but with more forgivability. With a high refresh panel you can drop down quite a few frames and not notice a huge difference in fluidity. Going from 60 to 30-40fps is a big difference even with freesync/g-sync applied.

Having had 144hz+ id never go back to 60hz and I’ve had a few ultrawide’s, couple of 27” 4k panel’s for over a year. I had a wow factor going from 1080p to 4k. But 60hz to 144/165hz was huge for me.

The smoothness itself adds a kind of crispness to the image and is like you are aiming the gunnwith your own hands it’s that smooth.

Once you go high refresh you never go back .

I had a 100Hz Asus ultrawide for a few days and honestly didn't notice much difference over 60Hz. Could be it's more noticeable at double the refresh rate I suppose. Considering a Samsung 144Hz, just not made the jump yet. Going from 32" to 27" might feel a bit of a downgrade. Though there is a 32" model available elsewhere.

 

[Amnesia]

Been toying with the idea of going to a Samsung CHG70 myself, freesync 144hz curved display. 4k looks great but is punishing to run. But at the same time I think that trying to get FPS consistently in the 120+ range is just as taxing as running a high res is it not?

i think thats the panel i was researching about 1.5 year ago but from what i remember it wasnt a good buy, most reviewers missed something important

 

[Gerard]

most reviewers missed something important

What like? The reviews i've read\watched say its a good screen.

 

[Amnesia]

What like? The reviews i've read\watched say its a good screen.

been a while so i could be mistaken but it was something to do with the pixel response wasnt fast enough for the high hz.

the name looks familiar so im guessing it is that monitor, i could be wrong but when you're spending that kind of money it's best to be sure.

 

[Amnesia]

What like? The reviews i've read\watched say its a good screen.

Here you go found it http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/samsung_c32hg70.htm

In practice, this meant that you could see some issues with black smearing on moving content which you can see in our pursuit camera tests above. This was particularly problematic with darker backgrounds. Transitions from light to dark (fall times) were much better thankfully, with an average of 7.6ms G2G measured. It was the slow changes from dark to light (rise times) that were the issue here at 19ms average, dragging the overall combined response time average down to 13.3ms G2G.

This gives rise to another problem, when it comes to refresh rate. This is a native 144Hz capable panel, but for high refresh rates to function correctly you need to have response times that can keep up with the frame rate demands. At 144Hz for instance, a new frame is being sent to the screen every 6.94ms (144 frames per second). The pixel response times need to be able to keep up with the frame rate or you will often see additional motion blurring and smearing. So here on the C32HG70 if we are generous and ignore the particularly slow transitions, the average G2G response time would be about 8.7ms. That is fast enough to support up to 100Hz just about, but anything higher than that will lead to added smearing and blurring. The response times are just not fast enough to keep up with the frame rates of anything above 100Hz. You would probably be best to limit your maximum refresh rate if you are using this 'standard' mode to 100Hz via the OSD menu option.

 

[agnes]

@Megahurtz400 did you end up getting a 144hz monitor then? Here is a great site to list the 'must have' settings to get the most out of it:

https://www.blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/14/