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Decided on GPU, now need recommendations on monitor.

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  • GPUs
  • Monitors
  • Graphics
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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October 20, 2013 7:05:53 PM

So I've recently decided on investing in an AMD R9 290X when it comes available (not sure if it would be a better deal to order asap or order in a month or two). Not really sure which brand either, will have to compare and what not.

But with this, I've been looking at getting a new monitor. I'm trying to stay around the 27" range, but if I can afford bigger and better, why not? My budget will probably be roughly 400-500.
Any suggestions?

More about : decided gpu recommendations monitor

a b C Monitor
October 20, 2013 7:12:52 PM

I would go with the Asus VX279Q. My company has that monitor at work and it is beautiful. As for the GPU, the R9 290X is supposed to be out later this month so it's not far. But of course, they tend to delay it, which they already have. So hopefully no more.
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a c 85 C Monitor
October 20, 2013 7:18:07 PM

Id wait for the 780 Ti .... at the very least it's presence will have an effect on the 290s pricing.

27" at what res ? The human eye can see individual pixels starting at about 96 ppi (pixels per inch)

1920×1200 @ 27.0 is 83.8 ppi
2560×1440 @ 27.0 is 108.8 ppi

So I'd say no to the 1st and yes to the 2nd on that count.

I'm sticking with 23.6" size at 1920 x 1200 with 144 Hz, 3D and Lightboost

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/motion_blur.htm.
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October 20, 2013 7:31:05 PM

I was leaving the res up to the person making the suggestion. Only real reason I would stick at the 1080 is for the 120-144hz. I was thinking about waiting for that TI to come out only to see if it does affect the prices. But I feel it's going to be more than enough more expensive than the 290X that it will just solidify my choice, but who knows.
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a c 79 C Monitor
October 20, 2013 8:17:43 PM

My two cents:

1) MONITOR:
There are some new monitors coming early 2014 with the "G-SYNC" feature that only works with NVidia cards (at least initially). It's a pretty awesome feature though.

G-Sync allows the monitor to display each frame AS IT GETS IT rather than running at a set refresh such as 60Hz and requiring the video card to BUFFER. Lag is reduced to almost nothing (from button press to screen update).

Probably a 120Hz monitor at 1920x1080.

2) 2560x1440:
I love my Dell U2711. I love the large high-res screen for desktop use and it makes a difference in games like Starcraft 2.

Ideally I'd love high-res AND the G-Sync feature but that probably won't be available for a while. High-res tends to be 60Hz whereas 120Hz tends to be limited to 1920x1080. BOTH modes in the same monitor would be ideal for today's technology (and 3D).

I'd rather play Starcraft 2 at 2560x1440 @60Hz, whereas
I'd rather play FPS games at 1920x1080 @120Hz with G-Sync.

3) Video card:
First of all, WAIT. Just WAIT.
Wait for the new cards to release and prices to settle out. Get a sheet of paper to write the pros and cons and then compare the VALUE such as Benchmarks vs Price.

I can't comment yet on the 290X until it's out. I tend to favor NVidia for several reasons but AMD has been making huge strides in several areas.

However, unless the R9 290X hands down beat the EVGA GTX780 with ACX cooler ($660 to $700) in benchmarks I wouldn't recommend it.

AMD vs NVIDIA:
It's actually pretty confusing. I was hands-down NVidia in recent times. AMD has a huge win with being in the consoles so we may see some pretty good optimization for GCN.

NVidia:
- PhysX
- G-Sync
- Adaptive V-Sync
- SLI superior to Crossfire (for now)
- SHADOWPLAY (record video; little CPU impact)
- NVidia Shield (if you care)

AMD:
- GCN optimizations coming?
- Mantle important?
- new Audio solution (may not really get used)

And of course PRICING, game deals etc. I know I missed stuff but I'm tired now.
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a c 85 C Monitor
October 20, 2013 9:10:27 PM

1. Agree on G-Sync tho I think it's impact won't be as great as Lightboost.
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/motion_blur.htm

2. We have a U2711, an Asus 144 Hz and an Asus 120 hz.... I love the Dell for photo work.... but I find it pales next to the 120 Hz and 144Hz jobs in gaming.....not that I actually get on them much ....w/ a 23, 21 and 17 year old in the house.

3. Agree....780 Ti's release in 3 weeks will affect prices of both 780 and 290

4. I'm gonna do a Nancy Reagon and "Just say No" to anything with the "SC" tag on it..... Great cooler but since the 5xx series, the SC is the only factory overclocked card on the market among the major vendors that uses a stock PCB and VRM..... explains its last place finish as an overclocker. Gigabyte Windforce, Asus DCII, MSI N series all use custom PCBs and beefed up VRMs.

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/4639/10/nvidia-geforce-...

As for the green / red war .... AMD has taken some hits but has some good ideas if they can bring to market successfully .... I think the console stuff has as much of a chance of putting on a hurt more than being a help due to division of focus. They have managed to keep nVidia honest at the high end and knock prices down .... however nVidia is still making large margins on all their cards above $150.

However, if nVidia trumps the 290 with the 780 Ti, that will be yet another "walk off home run" in the bottom of the 9th for nVidia .... if AMD gains the top card spot, only to lose it two weeks later, I expect we'll see a top and management purge that makes the exodus from some months back look mild by comparison.

I am more concerned about two things:

1. Among DX11 cards, the top 10 cards hitting steams servers include 1 Intel card, 8 nVidia cards and just 1 AMD card ... the Top 20 adds 6 more nVidia and 4 more AMD. Why is nVidia still getting away with charging what they charge for their cards ? .... with 8 outta 10 cards in the top 10 ..... "cause they can".

2. Lightboost, Shadowplay, G-Sync, GameFlex, Gamestream, Phys-X .... AMD needs to answer in kind with more than Mantle.

OK so ya live in a place where ya have lived for 20 years...ya know ya way around, it only rarely snows, moderate temps for all but deep summer ..... but ya looking at two cars in the same price segment.... one is just a little tiny bit faster 0-60, but one has options the other one doesn't have .... AC, GPS, all wheel drive, rear view camera, Bluetooth i-Pod connection ..... none of which ya really "need" but for the small price difference, why the hell not.
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October 20, 2013 10:41:38 PM

Do you really think the price difference will be that little?
I noticed that it was said that the 780 TI will over take the Titan which is already priced
at 1k, while the prospective outlook for the 290X is around 700 with BF4.
I guess I'm just really trying to get the best I can with my budget.
I really like the Qnix monitor recommended because I play a lot of MMO's and really appreciate the color and resolution.
I do play FPS games on occasion and yea, like I said trying to get the right configuration with a total budget of $1000-1200 for the
monitor and GPU.
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a c 79 C Monitor
October 21, 2013 1:33:49 AM

DevinC said:
Do you really think the price difference will be that little?
I noticed that it was said that the 780 TI will over take the Titan which is already priced
at 1k, while the prospective outlook for the 290X is around 700 with BF4.
I guess I'm just really trying to get the best I can with my budget.
I really like the Qnix monitor recommended because I play a lot of MMO's and really appreciate the color and resolution.
I do play FPS games on occasion and yea, like I said trying to get the right configuration with a total budget of $1000-1200 for the
monitor and GPU.


Don't ask us.
You need to wait for the BENCHMARK results so you can determine the value. As nobody knows the final pricing (AMD's then NVidia's response) nobody can answer this.

Other:
To the guy above who said he though AMD might "split their focus" with the consoles, I think he should Google that a bit. All the experts are describing this as "a big win" for AMD as games will be optimized for the GCN architecture.

AMD in next-gen consoles translates as more desktop card sales.
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October 21, 2013 11:25:05 AM

Well since I've been looking at the higher resolution monitors, since I don't do a ton of fps gaming, that removes the option of gsync right?
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a c 79 C Monitor
October 21, 2013 1:30:32 PM

DevinC said:
Well since I've been looking at the higher resolution monitors, since I don't do a ton of fps gaming, that removes the option of gsync right?


I don't think we'll see G-Sync above 1920x1080 for a long time so if you want a 2560x1440 monitor that won't likely be an option but I could be wrong.

Here's a better description: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/g-sync-geforce-gtx-780...

"Stuttering is almost completely removed, lag is reduced to a minimum, and tearing is eliminated. We saw an incredibly impressive demo that showed two identical PCs (both with a GeForce GTX 760) playing identical content, one with G-Sync, and one without, at 60 Hz. The difference is incredibly obvious, and G-Sync made 40 FPS look incredibly smooth without tearing or lag. "

I think G-Sync will be a HUGE deal.

LucidLogix tried to fix these issues with Virtu MVP but that was a big fail mainly because the main issue is the monitor fixed referesh requiring the video card to buffer to stay in synch. It's the monitor that needed to be changed.
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October 21, 2013 3:08:56 PM

So the main thing I'm getting at is the Adaptive V-Sync and PhysX. Those are the two things left on the nvidia side with higher res monitors. Opinions on that. I just wanted to thank you for the replies back here, it's been really helpful.
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a c 79 C Monitor
October 21, 2013 3:53:32 PM

DevinC said:
So the main thing I'm getting at is the Adaptive V-Sync and PhysX. Those are the two things left on the nvidia side with higher res monitors. Opinions on that. I just wanted to thank you for the replies back here, it's been really helpful.


Adaptive VSync:
Nice software (driver-based so AMD could do it too but hasn't yet). The ONLY issue is that it also causes screen tearing in any video that's lower than the game refresh (pre-rendered 30FPS cut scenes).

Adaptive VSync monitors the refresh rate to disable VSYNC if you fall below the target (i.e 60Hz/60FPS) which is a good idea, but that's what's causing the cut scene issue as VSYNC is disabled there when you don't want it to be.

Hopefully we see something added to the drivers that monitors to see if a video is running to leave VSYNC ON for that period.
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October 21, 2013 11:42:06 PM

So I guess it's just a waiting game. Kind of a pain. I was hoping to replace my card I pulled from my old computer. It's a XFX radeon 5850 black edition that I over clocked. Still runs damn well, but I haven't even seen anything from a better card yet due to not knowing many people who build computers.
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a c 79 C Monitor
October 22, 2013 2:18:52 AM

DevinC said:
So I guess it's just a waiting game. Kind of a pain. I was hoping to replace my card I pulled from my old computer. It's a XFX radeon 5850 black edition that I over clocked. Still runs damn well, but I haven't even seen anything from a better card yet due to not knowing many people who build computers.


Make sure your CPU is good enough or else don't spend too much money on a graphics card. Since you mention swapping with your HD5850 it made me wonder what CPU you had.

An i7-920 for example is still a pretty good CPU but it's going to bottleneck a good graphics card slightly.

If you want to know how new cards compare just look up benchmarks.
EXAMPLE:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_770...

I really like the Techpowerup reviews that have a PERFORMANCE SUMMARY as it averages several games which is the best way to compare.

For reference, a stock HD5850 would be slightly faster than the HD7770. An EVGA 780 with ACX cooler ($660 to $700) is faster than a stock 780 and roughly 3x faster than a stock HD5850 though that will vary due to the new architecture.

Get a minimum of 3GB of VRAM if spending over $400 for a graphics card. It's looking like the extra Video RAM will get used by BF4 and future games.
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October 22, 2013 6:44:27 AM

Alright, definitely a lot to keep in mind xD my current setup is an i7-4770k clocked to 4.6, ASUS Maximus VI Formula, G.skill Trident X 8gb x2 2400 with cas10 and an XFX XXX 850W PRO Series power supply.
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a b C Monitor
October 22, 2013 7:59:07 AM

120/144hz is for competition level first person shooter gaming, and you will need an insane amount of gpu power to hold 100fps or higher in modern games like bf3/bf4/crysis3. a titan, two 680's, two 7970's, take your pick, cant even hold 100fps in battlefield 3 on a 64 player conquest map, and will get dips into the high 80s and spike at around 145fps. yet, a single 680/7970 can easily hold over 45fps and will average around 60fps with peaks at around 75fps on a 1440p monitor. make the smart move, get 1440p
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a c 79 C Monitor
October 22, 2013 7:54:39 PM

G-Sync will be available on monitors up to 4K (3840x2160) though bandwidth will still limit to 144Hz at 1080p and 60Hz at 2160p, though I can see 2160p getting a small boost.

The BEST monitor you can get looking at all the Pros and Cons would be one that:
a) 2560x1440 max res
b) G-Sync at 2560x1440 @60Hz (possibly a little higher)
c) G-Sync at 1920x1080 @144Hz

(remember "@" is the max as G-Sync monitors can update at whatever rate the GPU sends the new frame at to eliminate stutter, lag and tearing all at the same time)

I've been reading more about it and I'm very, very impressed at the difference it makes.

The 1080p model from Asus will be $400 but apparently it's roughly a $150 premium for G-Sync. No idea on dates for 1440p.

AMD:
It would be nice to see G-Sync work with AMD GPU's as well but currently it's NVidia hardware. It appears to be a DRIVER implementation on the PC side but hardware on the monitor side so in THEORY it could happen.

This technology would be awesome for HDTV's to synch with CONSOLES.
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