1080p Budget Monitor for gaming

[zaubertorf]

Hi, I live in the UK and I want to buy a 1080p monitor for gaming.

It needs to be reasonably cheap as I want to buy three of them for triple monitor setup, £90 is probably my limit but a few pounds higher is not so bad, remember on a UK site please, no dollar of .coms

 

[photonboy]

I'm in Canada, but here are some TIPS to help:

1. 5ms or less
2. Good customer reviews (not failing, no bleeding backlight or other major issues)
3. INPUTS (DVI, DisplayPort, HDMI)

Some people want an HDMI input for a game console or DVD/BluRay player and an AUDIO OUTPUT to hookup speakers to. You may not care.

Other:
1) **You don't give your VIDEO CARD specs. You need to verify it supports 3xDVI (one through HDMI) or 2xDVI + Displayport etc..

2) I tried triple-monitor gaming, but I far prefer a single 27", 2560x1440 screen. No bezel GAP issues. High-res for Starcraft 2 and many other games looks much better.

Prices on 2560x1440 screens are still high but expected to come down a lot in six months.

I'll look for a UK site but I thought you should have the basics.

 

[zaubertorf]

I'm in Canada, but here are some TIPS to help:

1. 5ms or less
2. Good customer reviews (not failing, no bleeding backlight or other major issues)
3. INPUTS (DVI, DisplayPort, HDMI)

Some people want an HDMI input for a game console or DVD/BluRay player and an AUDIO OUTPUT to hookup speakers to. You may not care.

Other:
1) **You don't give your VIDEO CARD specs. You need to verify it supports 3xDVI (one through HDMI) or 2xDVI + Displayport etc..

2) I tried triple-monitor gaming, but I far prefer a single 27", 2560x1440 screen. No bezel GAP issues. High-res for Starcraft 2 and many other games looks much better.

Prices on 2560x1440 screens are still high but expected to come down a lot in six months.

I'll look for a UK site but I thought you should have the basics.

I've got a Zotak GTX 770 2gb.

I've never considered a 1440p screen but i will look into it.

 

[photonboy]

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-monitor-ve247h

It's above your budget but you can FILTER other monitors. Here's what I did:
1) all monitors
2) Filter-> check only 5ms and lower
3) Filter-> all 23" and 24" screens
4) Filter-> 1920x1080 or 1920x1200

I then looked at the LOWEST price for something with half-decent reviews.

If you want to pay LESS then be careful. You'll need a smaller screen, higher refresh or buy a crappy monitor with poor reviews.

If your budget is really low my advice is get the best SINGLE monitor setup you can but obviously it's your money so you can do what you wish.

*Again, verify your video card can support 3xDVI or whatever COMBINATION of DVI/Displayport/HDMI exists.

 

[photonboy]

GTX770 and Triple-Monitor:

Performance PLUMMETS with three monitors which is why many people would have a 2xGTX770 setup. Here's an EXAMPLE (5760x1080 is three 1920x1080 monitors):
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2013/05/31/nvidia-geforce-gtx-770-2gb-review/5

Crysis:
1920x1080 - 56FPS
5760x1080 - 21FPS

BF3:
91FPS vs 35FPS

Bioshock Ultimate:
81FPS vs 28FPS

Skyrim:
120FPS vs 45FPS

So you would have to LOWER THE QUALITY quite a lot to achieve 60FPS or else game at a much lower refresh which all defeats the point of buying three monitors (a BETTER experience).

My graphics card is nearly identical to yours and I have almost every games (damn Steam sales). Despite my 2560x1440 resolution I play MOST games at 1920x1080 because most, such as Skyrim, look almost EXACTLY the same but the performance drop is about 30% to get to 1440p at similar screen quality.

So I have a nice, high-res DESKTOP environment, the 27" screen fills my field of view quite nicely, and I game EVERY game at 60FPS with the HIGHEST quality or really close to it. And again, many games do look quite a bit better at 2560x1440.

Here's an interesting COST breakdown in DOLLARS:
1) 2nd GTX 770 - $400
2) 3x 1920x1080 monitors - $500

That's the cost of a good 2560x1440 monitor!! Anyway, not trying to pressure you, just giving you some facts. It's really the PERFORMANCE thing that kills you with a single card.

You really should have MORE than 2GB of VRAM per GPU as well for 5760x1080. While one 770 really isn't enough many games do suddenly DROP in performance if there isn't enough VRAM.

OTHER:
*Read about the new monitors in 2014 that support G-Sync. Unfortunately a little expensive to start. Just thought you'd be interested: http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/18/nvidia-g-sync/

For example:
It would probably be a 120Hz screen. NVidia drivers would cap the output to a maximum of 120Hz (120FPS). You might play a game and have the refresh rate average 90FPS, cap at 120FPS but drop as low as 30FPS.

G-Sync just has the GPU output each frame as quickly as it gets rendered, then the screen displays it right away. Normally the graphics card puts the output frame in a BUFFER when it waits for the next refresh cycle (i.e. 1/60th of a second). This causes a bit of LAG. If you turn VSYNC OFF then you get screen tearing.

It would also pretty much eliminate micro-stutter especially in SLI. Rather than complicated buffering, each GPU alternately fires a new frame to the monitor to process.

This would also be perfect for a new HDTV for game consoles.


**If you have ANY questions on PC's go ahead as I have some time. I recently picked up playing Fallout 3 and NV after fixing the stutter completely using the ifpsclamp method.