165hz overclock on Acer 27" XB271HU, whats the story?

[saas1980]

Yesterday I received a replacement for my new Acer XB271HU bmiprz 27.0" 2560x1440 165Hz Monitor and hooked this up using a DP cable to my 1080 TI GPU.

Out of the box, the default setting was 144hz. The manufacturer lists the 165hz configuration as an 'overclock' in the displays settings. I turned this feature on and my Nvidia control panel successfully recognised the adjustment @ 165hz. I'm under the impression I am good to go.

Was that all that was required in terms of settings? I have to admit, the displays setting 'overclock' surprised me a little as I was expecting 165hz out of the box. Is there a reason why the manufacturer defaulted at 144hz?

My new rig was put together for work and gaming. For work purposes I'm constantly on the machine, image editing, office apps, accounts, emailing, etc etc. Are there any disadvantages running at 165hz whilst working? Whereas for gaming the higher the refresh rate, the better, not that i expect to hit the 165 mark!! (thinking it might be best to turn it off unless the GPU can push on it in max settings)

 

[Barty1884]

Yes, you'd need to OC it in nVidia's control panel.

I'm not sure why monitors won't ship with 165Hz natively though.

FWIW, the "165WHz" aspect of the monitor is a 'guaranteed' OC.... you might want to see if you can push a little more out of the monitor.

I can't think of any disadvantages using the higher refresh rate for work.... but that'll depend on the specific apps in use.

 

[saas1980]

I configured the OC in the monitor settings as per manual instructions. Nvidia automatically adjusted to 165hz.

My acer doesn't provide an option to stretch the refresh rate any further. Nvidia control panel max selection is 165hz too. I think if I can find a way to clock it higher in the Acers display, Nvidia will auto-adjust or from the refresh drop down menu offer the selection.

I don't know much about the relationship between FPS and Refresh rates. Assuming my setup is not able to produce more than 120fps in Battlefield 1 (on max settings), would 144hz native settings be sufficient? (monitor is GSYNC compatible)

 

[iamacow]

The reason why Acer and other companies say 165 OC is because up until the Pascal cards, 165 was a really big hit or miss. with DP 1.2 it is using 95% of the bandwidth. If you have a cheap cable, any interference or a poorly made port, it will not work. Pascal ships with DP 1.4 port. Even though the cables are the same, the specs changed making companies have to keep tighter specs when manufacturing.

Besides that all the bugs haven't been worked out. like 1080TI SLI for me gives a black screen at 165, but a single card works fine. No company wants to guarantee something when they aren't the one in control of it. Tons of people would RMA the second they don't see 165 as a option.

I just leave it at 144hz because of the hassle of having to enable "gaming mode" to see 165hz option and when you turn off the monitor it resets to defaults again. Kinda makes the feature pointless.

 

[saas1980]

I turned the monitor off and on, phew!!...mine sticks with 165hz.

How can i tell if my cable is 1.4...can't see the cable specs for this monitor?

 

[iamacow]

I don't know how to tell what "cable version" you have. They don't say it like HDMI does. I just bought a of Startech DP cables a few years ago that are bulky and very shielded. Works great.

 

[petriandy]

Old message but for everyone who doesn't understand the point of higher refresh rates-->

The more refreshes the monitor does every second, the more frames that can be displayed each second. Even if your video card can make/process 1000 FPS, your monitor can only display it's own maximum refreshes per second (60hz==60fps, 120hz==120fps, etc). Therefore, high refresh rate monitors can utilize higher powered video cards, and if your video card can't put out that many frames it's a waste of time, & vice versa.
That said, you can reach higher frame rates with lower graphics settings etc, and I personally think the higher refresh rate on the monitor makes more of a difference for gaming and everyday use than maxing out anti aliasing etc...

I configured the OC in the monitor settings as per manual instructions. Nvidia automatically adjusted to 165hz.

My acer doesn't provide an option to stretch the refresh rate any further. Nvidia control panel max selection is 165hz too. I think if I can find a way to clock it higher in the Acers display, Nvidia will auto-adjust or from the refresh drop down menu offer the selection.

I don't know much about the relationship between FPS and Refresh rates. Assuming my setup is not able to produce more than 120fps in Battlefield 1 (on max settings), would 144hz native settings be sufficient? (monitor is GSYNC compatible)