Something for £200?

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Soldato
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As title really. Might be a big ask but my work are offering £160 towards peripherals for WFH. We can top it up if we want.

I'm rocking a hand-me-down (from 7 years ago!) Samsung SyncMaster 2253BW which is… fine. Wondering if it's worth looking at a cheeky upgrade? I don't need bigger than 22-24".

Mainly used for photo editing, there will be a bit of gaming too but only a spot of CS:GO so I'm not too bothered about that performance.
 
Anyone? I've been recommended a Dell P2421D but I'm not sure about that… 144Hz might be nice for gaming. Not sure what type of panels I should be looking at?
 
I was looking at a monitor in that price range and size a while ago and had my eye on the AOC 24G2U (https://www.overclockers.co.uk/aoc-...-widescreen-led-gaming-monitor-mo-053-ao.html). It's a very well reviewed 144hz@1080p IPS with FreeSync / GSync compatible. I'm not an expert but I believe IPS panels are good for photo editing because of they have accurate colors, and the high refresh rate and Freesync should serve nicely for CSGO. I doubt you'll get much better monitors in that price range.

The reason I didn't end up going with it was because my work provided me with a 1440p panel which was an upgrade on my 1080p. The extra screen real estate turned out to be pretty handy for work so I decided to go for a 1440p gaming monitor instead. Just something to consider, 1440p monitors are obviously be more expensive and have further costs in that you might need a more powerful graphics card to run games at that resolution, however that might not be too much of an issue if you mainly play CSGO.
 
Thanks @Steveh_monkey that's a good shout at least on paper. Not sure I can get excited about the looks though; it's so very nineties with the red streaks etc.! :( Not sure the prongs at the back would hang off my tiddly IKEA desk too. Hmn..

EDIT: Also I'm going to be buying a (probably) NVIDIA graphics card to upgrade my rig. Looks like the AOC doesnt support G-sync? That would be annoying not to have right? :confused:

EDIT2: Someone else suggested the AOC C24G1. Besides the curve whats the main difference? It's a VA panel so that's slightly better than IPS right…
 
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The GSync thing is a bit confusing. As far as I understand it there is full GSync which is achieved by hardware in the monitor, and then is variable refresh rate achieved by software. AMD's version of the software variable refresh rate is called FreeSync, whilst NVidia's version is called GSync compatible. The software version is probably what you'll want, full GSync tends to be quite expensive. A lot of monitors are both FreeSync and GSync compatible, and apparently even when a monitor isn't officially GSync compatible it can still work with GSync. I think that's the case with the AOC monitors, but check the reviews.

VA panels aren't better than IPS panels, just different. Pros of IPS are good colours and response rates, cons are poor contrast and backlight which tend to mean poor blacks. VA has good colours and contrast but poor response times which can lead to ghosting, although apparently this isn't much of an issue with the newer good VA panels. I found youtube videos comparing the two to be useful when since I haven't seen both side by side in the flesh.
 
@Steveh_monkey thanks for the explanation. Do you think there are any 24" VA monitors in my price range or is that wishful thinking?

I need to get something bought soon to take advantage of my work's compensation scheme, anything else to consider? :)
 
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