Spec me an Ultrawide Monitor 34/35 inch?

Jenz

Jenz

Jenz

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Joined
14 Aug 2005
Posts
426
Location
Northampton
Now that I have all my new kit it's time to replace my monitor.

My primary gaming is Blizzard titles (WoW, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2) and not to heavy games like XCom 2 etc.

My GPU is the Sapphire Pulse Vega 56 (moving ideally to Navi later in the year if needed). Have to use AMD due to work (long story).

I am not chasing the highest refresh rate as am not playing FPS.

I am wanting the following for definite:

3440x1440 minimum Ultrawide
2 Year Warranty

I strongly feel I need (but may not be deal breaker):
Picture By Picture
Greater than 60Hz Refresh
Freesync

Nice to haves:
Thunderbolt 3/USB-C (for my MacBook)
USB 3/3.1 Hub
Vesa Mount

I have been going around in circles looking at the following monitors:
New LG34F950 at £1149
Dell Ultrawide 3415W at £320
Benq 3501R (which seems to have a lot of good Youtube reviews) at £640 - no mention in this forum either way
LG 34UC99 at £700 ticks a lot of boxes
Samsung 34H890 at £580
Samsung 34F791 at £680
Alienware AW318DW at £970 G-Sync though
Asus ROG Strix XG35VQ at £770

It's a minefield so anyone have any experience / strong views on this as either "Yes Neil buy this" or "No Neil definitely avoid that one"? Any I missed?

Many thanks Neil.
 
The Samsung C34J791 with 100 hz FreeSync/Thunderbolt hits all the criteria you've listed including the nice to haves (it's the successor to the C34F791). I got mine for £600 on sale, and sickeningly found it was previously on sale for £450 back in January - an absolutely insane price and went out of stock very fast.

I've also owned the Dell U3415W, but I don't think 60 hz without adaptive sync cuts it these days for gaming.

I believe MSI also have a super affordable 3440x1440 gaming ultrawide or two that might be suitable for your list, but I don't know much about them myself. GL with your hunt.
 
Vexr said:
The Samsung C34J791 with 100 hz FreeSync/Thunderbolt hits all the criteria you've listed including the nice to haves (it's the successor to the C34F791). I got mine for £600 on sale, and sickeningly found it was previously on sale for £450 back in January - an absolutely insane price and went out of stock very fast.

I've also owned the Dell U3415W, but I don't think 60 hz without adaptive sync cuts it these days for gaming.

I believe MSI also have a super affordable 3440x1440 gaming ultrawide or two that might be suitable for your list, but I don't know much about them myself. GL with your hunt.
Click to expand...

Just ordered the Samsung CJ791. Silly good price at the moment.
 
I ended up buying the Alienware. Didn't tick all my boxes but Dell had a flash sale and my Daughter had a Uni Discount on top :eek::D
 
Minstadave said:
Just ordered the Samsung CJ791. Silly good price at the moment.
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I've seen :P Not a good feeling seeing a monitor I bought a month ago 'on sale' go on sale again for £150 less than I paid. Oh well, win some lose some. At least hopefully there'll be more CJ791 monitor users to compare notes with soon.
 
Vexr said:
I've seen :p Not a good feeling seeing a monitor I bought a month ago 'on sale' go on sale again for £150 less than I paid. Oh well, win some lose some. At least hopefully there'll be more CJ791 monitor users to compare notes with soon.
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Mine is sat in its box waiting to be opened this morning. Can't wait to have a play.
 
Also picked up the DJ791 - stupid price... was tempted to buy two but justifying to the wife would have been a challenge!
 
The Sammy 791 has slightly more accurate looking colours out of the box, has less motion blur but you can see it dimming at the edges due to the VA viewing angles, which is not visible on the Acer. The Samsung wins overall.
 
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Crappy looking text is VA panels for you.

My Samsung UW has the same light fall off at the extreme edges of the screen. I really don't like VA for office use but the blacks are great for media.
 
Minstadave said:
Crappy looking text is VA panels for you.

My Samsung UW has the same light fall off at the extreme edges of the screen. I really don't like VA for office use but the blacks are great for media.
Click to expand...

Can't say I relate. Text seems good on my UW Samsung VA and no light level-drop offs as far as my amateur eyes can tell. Compared with my old Dell IPS then there's some very subtle screen door-like effect if leaning in too close, but that vanishes when moving back to a more natural position for viewing an UW 34" panel.
 
I agree that IPS do seems to be sharper for text than VA panels, but not all VA panels seem to have the same pixel layout? Some are much worse than others.

Trouble is IPS are terrible for contrast ratios now, as they all seem to have the same cheap matt coating as VA / TN panels rather than the thicker glossy coating which used to help increase contrast ratio.

We seem to be going backwards in picture quality, but it is being hidden because of the resolution increase and size. Funny how a 2500:1 ratio is considered good now, yet my Eizo Foris monitors from 2009 are 5000:1
 
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