Ultrawide: the future of monitors, or the multi-gpu of the monitor world?

[Devrij]

I'm looking at picking up a new monitor in January, and I'm debating going ultrawide. My concern is that

a) I'll find the lack of support in some titles unbearable (what happens if you have to run it at 16:9? can you have stuff open next to the game or does it just get hidden by letterboxes)
b) the extra pixels will shorten the gpu upgrade cycle even more (currently at 1440p, so looking at staying the same vertical res)

This reminds me of having xfire/sli, where when it worked it was amazing, but overall it was a frustrating experience. Those of you on ultrawide, how do you find it? Should I make the leap or should I stick with 16:9? Do you have an additional monitor as well or have you scrapped any secondaries you used to use?

 

[Devrij]

Can't remember the last time I bought a game that didn't support 21.9, I've just switched back to 16.9 because I'm going to use the same screen for pc and ps5.
If the ps5 had 21.9 I would have stuck with the ultrawide

That's positive, I haven't looked into this for ages and was worried about issues with compatibility. What was the performance tax like?

 

[Devrij]

Which games do you play? For games I have both a 4k monitor and a UW monitor and different games play better on different monitors. Driving games in particular are way better on the UW. (Not that I have any driving games at the moment...)

I tend to play a fairly eclectic mix of shooters, flight sims, driving games and pretty much everything else inbetween. I think typically we're talking first person games though. I'm currently playing a lot of Cyberpunk, Elite dangerous, world of warships and MSFS 2020.

I have a 3080, so for now I reckon I'll be fine on performance, but I don't fancy getting the upgrade itch in 2 years because I need moar powa to drive an extra 1.5m pixels

 

[Devrij]

Thanks gents, that's all really positive. I'm looking at this Gigabyte monitor as a budget option, as I couldn't really see anything better for under the £750 mark. The alternative of course is that I spank my budget on a high end 27" 16:9. I already have a nice 16:19 1440p 144hz asus rog display, but a little fly got in and died right in the middle of the screen and it's doing my nut in. Also, my secondary is a 24in 1080p ancient display so it'd be nice to have a twin rather than a little brother.

Do you guys keep a secondary display for your UW monitors or did you scrap it? I was thinking about a monitor arm to mount a secondary above the UW display.

 

[Devrij]

Take a look at the Iiyama.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Iiyama G-Master GB3461WQSU-B1 34" 3440x1440 IPS 144hz 1ms HDR Freesync Ultrawide Gaming Monitor= £339.95

Total: £351.65 (includes shipping: £11.70)
​

I saw that, but a lot of people in this thread were talking about flickering issues etc that scared me off a bit.

Also, @Faustinooo in my experience, your 1080p monitor will never get used for gaming after you go 1440p.

Sounds like I need an ultrawide then. Just need to figure out which one. I don't mind spending a bit on a monitor because I spend all day looking at it, so I'd rather get a bit spendy on something worthwhile than cheap out and lose colour accuracy or viewing angles etc

 

[Devrij]

I can see that happening, if it does I'll keep it as a secondary monitor for other apps. I'm not keen on playing FPS games on a large screen though and I don't think 1440p is common, or available at all?, below 27".

Reading that thread is also what's put me on the fence with the iiyama and towards other UW monitors or the 32' dell.

I like 27in for shooters, and I think 1440p on anything smaller would make text pretty hard to read. Obviously it's a preference thing, but I reckon you'd soon find your current monitor feeling a bit cramped in comparison.

 

[Devrij]

I've noticed a loot of ultrawide panels are VA (presumably because they're really suitable for productivity work). IPS panels seem to go for a premium. Is anyone using a VA ultrawide that can comment on how it compares to their IPS display? I went from TN to IPS and haven't looked back, so I'm worried about making the jump to VA (although the better contrast sounds nice in theory)

 

[Devrij]

Well all the reviews normally say, "Go IPS for productivity" so I'm not convinced people are buying VA for suitability for prod tasks. VA being worse for colour accuracy, viewing angles, any kind of motion handling.

If only there were some UWQHD IPS for less than £1000 quid tho! IPS in UW format is eye-wateringly expensive, given UW VA can be had for <£500. I'm not sure any IPS screen is worth over 200% the cost of a VA of the same format.

None of them have got HDMI 2.1 yet either. And frankly for that money they should have.

This is the bind for me. I'm not spending that much on a monitor, but nor do I want to spend £500 on a VA panel and find myself looking longingly at my current 27in IPS panel instead of enjoying the UW. I'd rather spend £750 on another 27in that matches/exceeds my existing one in quality.

 

[Devrij]

I think I'm sold on 21:9. I just need to get eyes on one to see how the image quality and viewing angles compare on the VA panels, or whether I have a longer wait until next year's bonus before I make the leap to an IPS panel.