Monitor suggestions?

Big Boss94 · 24 Jan 2017 at 14:09

I've been wracking my brain for the past month or so regarding what monitor to get for my system. I want another screen for personal video editing and gaming. I mainly play Mmo and rpg's, my girlfriend often plays Planet Coaster and the Sims.

I'm currently using a BenQ RL2455HM 24" monitor, 60Hz 1ms which is really the PS4's monitor but the only one I have, I'll be using this for the Nintendo Switch and may possibly upgrade to a 4K screen in the future for 4K console gaming.

I had a couple of ROG Swift PG278Q's one after another roughly a year back but due to numerous QC issues, I returned it. I'm really wary about buying a monitor from the likes of Asus/Acer due to past experience and what I've read on these forums.

I've only got the deskspace for a maximum of a 27" monitor and currently have a EVGA GTX 980 SC.
I'm torn between either TN or IPS and 24" 1080p or a 27" 2560x1440.

Is editing on a 24" in 1080p any good? I appreciate framerates will take a hit going to 1440p but is it worth it for the extra resolution and screen space? Is 4K an option?

Any advice and suggestions would be really appreciated, all the best!

eddiew · 24 Jan 2017 at 16:10

It strikes me that a screen with higher resolution than your video might be the way to go, since you'll have room for toolbars and the like while working at 100%. Most people find 27" 1440p to be a very good size.

4k at anything under 32" is, imho, rubbish on Windows. Scaling just doesn't work properly with most programs, resulting in lumpen icons and fonts, or having a very tiny UI that you struggle to see at arm's length.

You'll also want to be really careful if you go for TN, since not all of them are 8-bit panels and therefore have awful colour accuracy. Hard to do graphics work when you're losing a few billion colours between the GPU and the screen ^^; On the other hand, IPS glow... you can choose your poison, but there isn't a glass without any

I'd be inclined to pick up a 27" Dell IPS if you have the budget, since I've yet to fault their build quality. (Although that said, the state of QC these days is, as you know, not great. Things do seem to be better in 24" space, but going beyond that gets iffy...)

Big Boss94 · 24 Jan 2017 at 17:53

It's a tough one, I do play the odd fps and had been considering the DELL S2716DG, which is an 8 bit panel, similar to the Swift PG278Q which I had, I've done some editing on TN but never an IPS panel and thought I may benefit with it also in games which don't require past 60fps.

Thank you for your thoughts and suggestions though Eddiew, I really appreciate it.

Fireblade77 · 28 Jan 2017 at 08:30

I had the asus PG279Q ROG Swift 27" 2560x1440 IPS G-Sync 165Hz and I sent back due to quality problems with far too much ips glow and they sent another which was a little better but still too much for any kind of money never mind £700 at the time so I then got the Dell S2716DG 27" 2560x1440 TN G-Sync 144Hz and this has great colours once you use NVidia control panel to lower the gamma a little and when I think it was £230 cheaper at the time back in march 2016 than the asus and better at blacks in game and no ips glow due to it not being an ips panel it seems like a bargain to me and no quality problems.

Big Boss94 · 28 Jan 2017 at 17:27

I'm not prepared to buy an Asus or an Acer, can't do with the grief again. The S2716DG's got great reviews and I've heard Dell are first class for customer service, will definitely keep an eye peeled for sale prices. The only issue I've got is the fact that I only play the odd fps, and I do want to do personal editing on it the monitor, whether I'd be better off with a 27" 2560x1440 IPS panel? (Without blb if that were a thing!)

I'm still wondering about a 1080p IPS panel, 24", I've heard blb isn't so bad as this screen size/resolution (no experience though) and it wouldn't be as intensive on my graphics card, not sure about the resolution difference for editing though. I'm planning on potentially upgrading my current monitor to a 4k 27" in the coming year or so for 4k console support and the size difference would bug the hell out of me.