I've probably been using the 5760x1200 triple screen resolution for about 10 years now and I think it's time for a change. The wide resolution has had it's advantages but I'm getting tired of having everything so spread out. It's also hit or miss with certain games. Sometimes the HUD components are so far a part their a pain in the ass to use. Dropping to a lower res will also give me a big increase in the FPS. Going 4k would drop my FPS by about 17%. So here are my options. 27" 2560x1440 60Hz 27" 2560x1440 120Hz 27" 3840x2160 60Hz 32" 2560x1440 60Hz $500 is my limit but I'd love to stay closer to $400. Thoughts? 27" 60Hz monitors are pretty darn cheap these days. 4Ks can be had for almost the same price as a 1440p at 120/144Hz. I've never seen a 32" monitor and I'm worried it's be to big or the pixels too big at 1440p.
Try and craigslist your monitors and get more money. The Philips 40" 4K Panel was my top choice, but I was worried about my 780tis puffing out with the requirement for 4K gaming all the time. I had a Samsung TN 4K panel the colours were disgusting and that resolution is way too high for a 28" monitor. So your options, save a bit. Get either a high refresh rate IPS panel @ 1440p - maybe with free-sync (Since that amd chip might tempt you) Get a 32" BENQ 4K or any other 32" + 4K monitor with DP Dont get 32" at 1440p its vile. The BenQ is under $1000 now too. Whatever you do get an IPS panel.. Even with my ROG swift I dislike some of the issues associated with TN.
I'm considering the Overlord Tempest X270OC. It's a 27" IPS 1440p that over-clocks to 96 - 120Hz. Price is only $450. These are actually built in the US by a small company and have great reviews. I think I'll skip the 4k only because my initial experience with it on Windows wasn't that great. It seems like too many programs don't support it. I've tried the 5K on Mac and it's so much better than Windows.
Thats epic IPS too. $449 too Yup windows scaling is rubbish.. wish they'd sort it out for windows 10 at least
It's one of several companies that buy rejected Apple panels and then sell them a lot cheaper. Most reviews say they are flawless but some people have issues.
You might also want to look at the ASUS PB278Q. Samsung PLS panel, 27" 1440p. It's $429 and you're not buying something that uses a rejected panel like that Overlord monitor or the Korean monitors. I've read/heard good things about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5iCuzYLN3w
Yeah that one is nice but their are trade offs. Input lag is 23 vs 28.3 and refresh is 96-120hz vs 60hz. Of course without seeing and trying them it's hard to say if any of that actually matters.
For my first attempt at a new monitor I got the QNIX QX2710 LED Evolution Ⅱ 27" 2560x1440 with glossy screen. This monitor has a Samsung PLS panel which is their equivalent of the LG IPS. The panel itself is very nice and I think it's a bit better than my Dell IPS. The response time was very good and no lag or ghosting was noticed. It was also easy to get the refresh rate up to 105Hz. Anything over that had artifacts. So the panel is excellent but the housing is utter crap. The panel was not mounted firmly and it moved when I push it. The stand is week and badly designed. I expect it to break at some point. The menu button response was annoying and the back light bleed was bad. In the end I felt the negative points would be too much for me and I returned the monitor. Fortunately I bought it from Amazon and the return process was easy and free. My second attempt at a new monitor will happen next week.
Are you keeping your U2412Ms as peripheral monitors? I actually really like the pixel density on the 2412. I find it very readable with no scaling. I just want something much bigger. I have my eye on the Benq BL3200PT which is on sale at the moment which has the same pixel density as 24" 1200p. User reviews are extremely positive, but I wish I could try it somewhere before I throw down $600. After my experiences with the X1 Carbon which has a high dpi display, I feel like high dpi is pretty pointless in Windows unless the scaling gets a lot better. You end up with a beautiful display that looks like total garbage in apps that don't support high dpi scaling. Either that or everything is way too small to read if you leave it at 1:1. 27" 1440p is probably on the upper edge of what I would want in terms of pixel density. I was also looking at the Dell U2713HM. My brother has one and really likes it. I've heard mixed things about the U2715H so I wasn't really looking at it. It has a thinner bezel, but otherwise seems like a cheapening on the 2713. The 2713 seems overpriced though. Do you feel like 27" 16:9 was a big upgrade in size over 24" 16:10? I'm a big man, and I need a big monitor.
It's just a guessing game without being able to see any of these monitors in action. There is nothing in my state. I use to go to San Jose, CA for business and it was great. They had huge tech stores out there with everything on display. I don't know if I'll keep my 24"s or not. I think it will depend on how happy I am with the new monitor and if I want to recoup my cost. The 27" didn't feel much bigger than the 24" 16:10. I mean it was but I was never totally amazed by it's size. The thing is I've been 5760x1200 for a long time so going to a single 27" actually felt smaller. The extra height was nice but the width wasn't anything special. In fact I had a hard time with it in Titanfall. It felt like I was watching through a small window. Of course I'll get used to that over timed. The pixel density was higher and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I did have to increase the text size on the screen and of course that blows in Windows. So then next monitor I have coming is a Monoprice 30" 16:10 IPS 2560x1200. It's a 100.6 ppi pixel density vs 108.8 ppi on the 27" and 94.3 ppi on the 24" U2412M. The 2560x1200 resolution really interested me but so few are being made these days. I think Dell was the last big company to make them.
Here is a review comparing the Benq 32" BL3200PT to the Monoprice 30". Looks like the Benq wipes the floor with every other monitor when it comes to color accuracy. I'd only wonder if the resolution is too low for a screen that big. Where did you see it on sale? Maybe I'll get both and compare them. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/monoprice-30-inch-led-monitor,4046.html
Looks like there are reports of screen flicker with the BenQ. I wonder if it's normal or a few bad panels. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=BL3200PT+screen+flicker
A colleague of mine got a BenQ BL3200PT on my recommendation. It's a great monitor with very good low black levels and colour accuracy out of the box. He uses it on a Mac Pro just for design work and hasn't mentioned any problems with screen flicker. I've used it for a few hours all up and didn't notice anything also. I have a Dell 27" QHD which I calibrated myself with a borrowed xrite i1 and find the benq's calibration to be a little off compared to what I'm used to but not much. The contrast and lack of IPS glow make it a much better monitor than my Dell, although I probably wouldn't need the extra size personally. I don't find the ppi too bad with the 32" size, it still looks better than most 23"-24" 1080p monitors to me in this regard even though the ppi is similar. That said if you're buying for gaming then look into one of the new ASUS ROG monitors coming out. There are new gsync/freesync ones coming with 1440p 27" IPS panels that can do 144Hz. I do prefer VA and PLS to IPS personally, but the refresh rates and adaptive sync more than make up for it. The only downside to the technology is that you're stuck with a single GPU vendor. Adaptive sync is an open standard, but unfortunately nvidia won't support it just yet.
Because Windows doesn't do 4K very well. Have you ever seen it? Icons and text are super small and then the scaling to make them bigger makes them all fuzzy. And it's not even consistent. You might have an app with super tiny text next to mega large fuzzy text. Even the scaling at 1440p is nasty. Maybe that will change with Windows 10. Mac seems to have mastered the Ultra high definition so I'm not sure why Windows is so far behind. Here are two Win 10 pics with scaling issues. itunes and File Explorer. Which gives you a headache? Device Manager
Yeah that's a huge down side for me. I mean some people will always go Nvidia no matter what so the $200 premium for gsync might be worth it. I swap vendors every few years and I wouldn't want to be married to one. I might consider freesync just because it's about $150 less. I wouldn't feel like I wasted my money if I went with an Nvidia gpu.
That's exactly what windows looks like on my X1 Carbon. If it hadn't been a free upgrade from a much cheaper model, I probably would have returned it and gotten something with a lower resolution display. The display is beautiful, but the scaling issues make me a sad panda. I would much rather just have a 14 inch 1600 x 900 display than try to scale a 2560 x 1440 display to look like 1600 x 900 to make it readable. Windows scaling is such a mess at this point that you really should just buy a monitor that looks exactly how you want at 1:1. That may change, but I would imagine it will take a few years to get to where the Macs are right now.
1440p is perfectly fine in windows 8.1.. I assume you were having issues in windows 7? anything higher than 1440p in windows 8.1 will have issues though. it was reported awhile ago that microsoft will be supporting up to 8K in windows 10.