New Monitor Woes : 4K help please

[hkintheuk]

Good evening and thank you for looking in at my first post.

I rarely use forums because I'm the kind of person who does my own research, but this nut is proving more difficult to crack than I imagined.

My 10 year old Dell 2560x1600 3008WFP finally gave up the ghost, so I thought it time to upgrade.

I like the 30" screen size, I can get more done in terms of writing, running Virtual Table Top games, playing RPGS and strategy games, a bit of WOW, and Far Cry like games.

I needed to buy a new telly, so I ditched my old plasma and went for an LG 4K...and was blown away.

So that's what I am looking for...sharp, vibrant, colourful and vivid. I want to see all the textures and detail. 4K seemed obvious.

I went to PC World (Yeah I know, I ain't a noob...I build rigs and the like).

I expected to see, oh, I dunno, 40-50 monitors, all lined up for inspection.

Nope.

They had 4. All HP's. Biggest was a 27" 4K.

4 !

Feeling pretty hacked off, I spent weeks afterwards looking at online reviews, checking forums, and have now reached peak "Analysis Paralysis". I have lists upon lists, and have put my life on hold, trying to find an elusive monitor.

My rig (well the gaming one at least) runs an EVGA 1080TI, W10 Home, M.2 Nand SSD for boot and games. It's plenty fast for me when I built in in Jun 2017.

My criteria was simple, or so I thought.

4K 30" IPS, 100-120Hz. Display Port 1.4 compatible (as that's what the GTX 1080TI uses).

I can find plenty of 27" screens that hit the mark, but, well, going down from 30" to 27" seems a bit odd to me. I'll loose screen estate.

But then I thought...if I go 30" 4K, how will that look compared to 27" 4K ? Pixel density will be larger will it not ? So detail and crispness lost ?

Crazy that when buying a telly, you can go in many stores and look at all the makes, but can't seem to do the same with monitors !

Curved ? Don't know. Guy has one at work and I sat at it for 5 mins. Didn't feel comfortable to me.

I keep seeing the 32" Acer XB321HK come up on many of my lists..IPS...which is good for 4K, but again, the pixel density worries me.

I'm after sharp, crisp, beautiful and textured. After getting a 4K telly, I realised how bad my old Dell looked.

So, dear reader, if you have stuck with my ramblings for this long, what ticks the boxes for me, do you feel ?

Mu budget is 1K, but I'm in no rush to buy. Happy to wait for Black Friday, or in to 2019 if something amazing is just around the corner.

Thank you!

 

[hkintheuk]

Thank you Legend for your very thoughtful and helpful reply, especially about the “monitor lottery”. I have indeed been out of the game for over 10 years as far as monitors are concerned, so this was timely and intuitive advice, thank you. I will read up on these things, so that’s a helpful starter list.

And perhaps you are right when you mention not discounting curved screens. Over in another forum post, there is a lot of chatter about the LG 34GK950G. I have read that they are easier to push thank 4K, and I expect it would be easier on my 1080ti.

I just wish there was a high street shop where I could compare a 4K monitor with a 1440p curved ultrawide. I might not notice much difference.

Quartz, that was very helpful about which tiers to be wary of. I’d always suspected AOC were at the lower end of the scale (I mean no insults to anyone with an AOC, because there are always “diamonds in the rough”). I did assume that the Acers and Asus though had such high market saturation because the products were upper tier. Yeah, I know marketing does have a role to play, but seeing them again and again in so many reviews either means they have a colossal marketing budget and/or nearly every review site is a bit “swayed”, or they genuinely are that good? I assumed the latter, perhaps wrongly ?

I can’t grumble about my 10 year old Dell…it has lasted well. My wife’s one is still going (I’ve probably cursed it now). Funny thing is, after the whole screen went white with weird artifacts, (and I tested my GPU and it was fine), I left it off for several weeks in a corner of the room. Tried it last night and it looked fine. I’m sure it will go again though, so not worth chancing it. Plus I turn 50 next week, and the missus is asking what I want


Iiyama…well that’s funny you mention them. Always used them at a previous place of word (CAD Design for music equipment….honking great CRT’S..yes, that was in the 1990’s). When my 30” went pop, I picked up an Iiyama and I was not impressed…looked washed out and the detail was terrible. Ok for general office work, so I put it on my music workstation. But it did surprise me and make me wonder if their quality had taken a nosedive.

I did look at the Phillips Brilliance BDM4065UC but it doesn’t have G-Sync, nor mention it’s Hz, so I’m doubtful on that one.

Never heard of Eizo, but at that price range, I think my music workstation would get first dibs..nah, scratch that…more soft synths

Thank you Squid Vicious for the nod on the Acer. G-Sync is a requirement. Intrigued about the BenQ though. Just checked and it's very much aimed at design work. Was that a major requirement for you ? Only 60Hz, so probably not as strong in the gaming arena though ?How does your 980ti handle it in 4K ?
What FPS rates do you get in games, if you play any ?

Update….seeing a lot of posts from a long running forum elsewhere on OCUK about the LG 34GK950G. Read some reviews online and they look very promising. This warrants more investigation. It does look somewhat gorgeous !

Thanks everyone who commented. Much appreciated.

 

[hkintheuk]

Thank you again Legend for your helpful advice. It's going to be a tough call...The LG does look pretty stunning and will be kinder on the 1080ti as you say. If I can find an independent store somewhere that has a 2K Ultrawide and 4K monitor, I'll be able to settle it once and for all !