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Gaming monitor

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swill453
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Gaming monitor

#461145

Postby swill453 » November 26th, 2021, 12:49 pm

My son is looking to get a high-end gaming monitor. He's looking specifically 4K resolution (3840 x 2160) and a 144Hz refresh rate. We recognise that this will cost £500 - £600.

The problem we're finding is that web sites seem to either lie about the spec, or else they're not talking the same language.

For example this one https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07THFBS43?th=1 has in its specification "Refresh rate 165" (without specifying the units), but if you go to the manufacturer's site it says "Refresh Rate 60Hz"

There have been others where the manufacturer's spec doesn't match what's quoted in shop web sites.

The one we've found that seems to match is this one https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0999Q612J?th=1 but it's not in stock anywhere we can find (though Amazon would take the order for Dec/Jan delivery).

Has anyone else got any experience in this sort of thing?

Scott.

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Re: Gaming monitor

#461149

Postby Infrasonic » November 26th, 2021, 1:06 pm

Even the bricks and mortar sites often have the specs wrong on electronics.
I'd do it the other way around - find a potential shortlist via the respected review sites that tend to be much more accurate on specs and have 'best price' links to Amazon et al..https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/reviews ... ,4533.html

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Re: Gaming monitor

#461157

Postby BigB » November 26th, 2021, 1:23 pm

I have bought some new monitors in the last year (covid SOHO upgrade) and use the product codes to do some searching verification across the web with manufacturers and mainstream tech review sites.

E.g. the AOC monitor has a product code U28G2XU - AOC website has one U28G2XU/BK which I think will be the same monitor in black (BK), and it says it has 144Hz refresh.

In short I use the detailed product codes, and cross ref on the web.

Good luck

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Re: Gaming monitor

#461170

Postby Infrasonic » November 26th, 2021, 1:49 pm

Also - the PC specs to drive modern AAA games at 4K/144Hz are going to have to be pretty stellar - possibly top end dual GPU cards (which are at a price premium currently because of bitcoin mining demand). You'll be looking at a few thousand for a rig that can handle it.

There are a few 4K TV's from the big names that have gaming capability, HDMI 2.1 inputs, G-sync/Freesync et al. That might be a better proposition for overall mixed use?
https://www.ign.com/articles/the-best-4k-tvs-for-gaming

I'm looking at getting a new 4K monitor for non gaming use and am still weighing up the pros and cons of dedicated monitor versus decent 4K TV with picture in picture and other goodies.

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Re: Gaming monitor

#461257

Postby UncleEbenezer » November 26th, 2021, 6:56 pm

swill453 wrote:For example this one https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07THFBS43?th=1 has in its specification "Refresh rate 165" (without specifying the units), but if you go to the manufacturer's site it says "Refresh Rate 60Hz"

Refresh rate was an issue with CRT monitors, particularly before about the turn of the century when it took an expensive high-end monitor to be free of serious flicker. But why is anyone concerned about it today?

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Re: Gaming monitor

#461260

Postby swill453 » November 26th, 2021, 7:01 pm

UncleEbenezer wrote:
swill453 wrote:For example this one https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07THFBS43?th=1 has in its specification "Refresh rate 165" (without specifying the units), but if you go to the manufacturer's site it says "Refresh Rate 60Hz"

Refresh rate was an issue with CRT monitors, particularly before about the turn of the century when it took an expensive high-end monitor to be free of serious flicker. But why is anyone concerned about it today?

My son's a gamer, I'm not. He says 144Hz is vastly better than 60Hz. Who am I to argue?

Scott.

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Re: Gaming monitor

#461262

Postby monabri » November 26th, 2021, 7:09 pm


Infrasonic
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Re: Gaming monitor

#461287

Postby Infrasonic » November 26th, 2021, 8:21 pm

swill453 wrote:
UncleEbenezer wrote:
swill453 wrote:For example this one https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07THFBS43?th=1 has in its specification "Refresh rate 165" (without specifying the units), but if you go to the manufacturer's site it says "Refresh Rate 60Hz"

Refresh rate was an issue with CRT monitors, particularly before about the turn of the century when it took an expensive high-end monitor to be free of serious flicker. But why is anyone concerned about it today?

My son's a gamer, I'm not. He says 144Hz is vastly better than 60Hz. Who am I to argue?

Scott.


I'm not a gamer and I can see the difference. If one was being cynical though it's something to keep upping the ante with from a marketing perspective to get us to keep buying new kit - there must be a law of diminishing returns ( as with super high end audio...).

I see the mobile phone OEM's have latched on now, many of the higher end phones have 90 /120 Hz screens to make your scrolling experience that much smoother... ;)

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Re: Gaming monitor

#461377

Postby gryffron » November 27th, 2021, 10:37 am

UncleEbenezer wrote:But why is anyone concerned about it today?

All from a TV documentary:
When they started putting telemetrics on racing cars, Indycar hired a researcher to study the data to see how they could make cars safer.
He quickly discovered drivers were hitting braking points, turning points etc accurate to about 5ms every lap, and could react to slides/lockups etc in the same.
But it had long been known the "speed of thought" is around 25ms. That's how long it takes brainwaves to shoot across your brain and back. It's a little less for small children, and slows a bit after 50yo. But it is pretty consistent for all adults.
So how could they be driving accurate to 5ms if takes 25ms to think? That's a big difference. Racing drivers may be considered pretty exceptional individuals, but surely they couldn't be that much better?
They couldn't fit a brain scanner in the car. So to study this, they set the drivers to driving an xBox racing game while sat in a brain scanner.
They discovered the drivers weren't using their "thoughts" to drive. They were using only a tiny central part of their brain. Furthermore, any experienced car driver (or video gamer) was exactly the same, and had the same 5ms reactions, so racing drivers weren't that exceptional after all. But when they sat teenage girls in the machine, who were neither gamers nor drivers, they were using all their brain to think about it and taking the expected 25ms to react.
It turns out, the human brain has a prefetch cache. It's located right in the centre of your brain just behind the eye stem so it gets first call on visual data.
What they had discovered was the essence of "skill". "Skill" is training your prefetch cache to carry out actions automatically, long before your "thoughts" have a chance to catch up.
The adage "practice makes perfect" had long been used. But no-one had ever understood why. This discovery explains it. Endless repetition trains the prefetch cache to carry out the action for you - much quicker and therefore more accurately than your conscious thought. Nor is this a matter of intelligence, because it's a completely different part of the brain. In fact, more intelligent people can often be slower at learning "skill" because they overthink it, or get bored by the repetition.
Turns out, this "skill" applies to everything. Hunting, football, tennis, music, video gaming...

Why am I explaining all this? Because of their 5ms reaction times, yes it really does matter whether your screen updates at 144Hz vs 60Hz. It could let a "skilled" gamer react 10ms faster than their opponent. Even though you can only see, or at least, think about what you see, in 25ms.

Although - back to gaming now, you're going to need a very hefty graphics card to benefit from 144Hz screen refresh. The game is only as fast as its weakest link.

Gryff

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Re: Gaming monitor

#461402

Postby xeny » November 27th, 2021, 12:51 pm

Fascinating reply - do you have any links to recommend on the topic?

I can see the logic in going for a high refresh rate, but second Infrasonic's observation that driving that high a resolution at that rate will be very challenging. It may be worth assessing GPU utilization at current refresh rate/resolution and extrapolating.

Buying a 4K resolution 165 Hz refresh rate and discovering you can only drive it at 100 Hz at 1080p or 30 Hz at 4K may prove frustrating/a poor allocation of resources.

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Re: Gaming monitor

#461450

Postby BobbyD » November 27th, 2021, 7:17 pm

Infrasonic wrote:Also - the PC specs to drive modern AAA games at 4K/144Hz are going to have to be pretty stellar - possibly top end dual GPU cards (which are at a price premium currently because of bitcoin mining demand). You'll be looking at a few thousand for a rig that can handle it.


It's possible to buy at retail if you have a knack for that sort of thing. I managed it without too much hassle a couple of months ago. FE cards are dropped via Scan in the UK at RRP, and there are numerous different ways of getting stock alerts.

Infrasonic wrote:There are a few 4K TV's from the big names that have gaming capability, HDMI 2.1 inputs, G-sync/Freesync et al. That might be a better proposition for overall mixed use?


You can currently get a 48" LG C1 OLED for £899, which is a bit above price and 120Hz not 144Hx, but it's a hell of a lot of monitor, and a seriously good tv. People do put these on a desk and use them as PC screens*.

* Burn in is an issue with OLED, so non-video use requires some precautions with regard to desktop icons etc.

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Re: Gaming monitor

#461499

Postby servodude » November 27th, 2021, 11:36 pm

xeny wrote:Buying a 4K resolution 165 Hz refresh rate and discovering you can only drive it at 100 Hz at 1080p or 30 Hz at 4K may prove frustrating/a poor allocation of resources


Or they could consider it headroom?

Depending on viewing distance, screen dimensions and one's eyes the capabilities of the monitor can be considered part of the set of options you have available when configuring a game
- I'd probably buy one that exceeded the rest of the rig and expect that relationship to shift over time

If the options allow it's worth trying an A/B on 2k and 4k at max frame rates on a game

-sd

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Re: Gaming monitor

#461539

Postby Infrasonic » November 28th, 2021, 9:45 am

servodude wrote:
xeny wrote:Buying a 4K resolution 165 Hz refresh rate and discovering you can only drive it at 100 Hz at 1080p or 30 Hz at 4K may prove frustrating/a poor allocation of resources


Or they could consider it headroom?

Depending on viewing distance, screen dimensions and one's eyes the capabilities of the monitor can be considered part of the set of options you have available when configuring a game
- I'd probably buy one that exceeded the rest of the rig and expect that relationship to shift over time

If the options allow it's worth trying an A/B on 2k and 4k at max frame rates on a game

-sd


I agree it's worth having a bit of future proofing headroom wise - the difficulty is getting the balance as if you get too far ahead of the median curve you risk going out of date with the new hardware protocols that tend to come out every few generations.

Firmware updates are also an issue across the board, so many security issues are firmware related.

There's a deliberately short lifecycle in most electronics, hence the right to repair legislation that many developed nations are starting to introduce. I see Apple are on board there now - we'll have to see how really committed the OEM's are or whether it is a just a PR stunt to take the spotlight off them as anti trust momentum builds in the US/EU.

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Re: Gaming monitor

#461561

Postby servodude » November 28th, 2021, 11:32 am

Infrasonic wrote:
servodude wrote:
xeny wrote:Buying a 4K resolution 165 Hz refresh rate and discovering you can only drive it at 100 Hz at 1080p or 30 Hz at 4K may prove frustrating/a poor allocation of resources


Or they could consider it headroom?

Depending on viewing distance, screen dimensions and one's eyes the capabilities of the monitor can be considered part of the set of options you have available when configuring a game
- I'd probably buy one that exceeded the rest of the rig and expect that relationship to shift over time

If the options allow it's worth trying an A/B on 2k and 4k at max frame rates on a game

-sd


I agree it's worth having a bit of future proofing headroom wise - the difficulty is getting the balance as if you get too far ahead of the median curve you risk going out of date with the new hardware protocols that tend to come out every few generations.

Firmware updates are also an issue across the board, so many security issues are firmware related.

There's a deliberately short lifecycle in most electronics, hence the right to repair legislation that many developed nations are starting to introduce. I see Apple are on board there now - we'll have to see how really committed the OEM's are or whether it is a just a PR stunt to take the spotlight off them as anti trust momentum builds in the US/EU.


True. I wouldn't drop funds on a monitor running a novel interface (like some if the new USB classes)
But if it does what it needs over HDMI or display port or wherever other options it offers it will likely continue to do so for as long as that interface exists given the layers of interchange involved.
I get your points about firmware in general though and find built in obsolescence f""ING offensive; my record for a FW instance is 7 years between reboots; (it was a large solar telemetry install and the final lead acid battery died - so the code restarted on sunrise) - I figure if I can write it to last with the constraints I've got other twunts should at least give half as much concern to longevity

-sd

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Re: Gaming monitor

#468313

Postby Albert90 » December 24th, 2021, 5:46 am

If you are looking for a new gaming monitor, you should consider some factors before making your purchase decision. A good gaming experience starts with optimal display settings and the right screen size. You can get this done with 1080p or 1440p monitors, so don't worry about it too much, but do some research on the different types of screens (LCD/LED/OLED) because each has its own pros and cons (for example OLEDs are great for motion blur reduction but they produce more input lag than other types).

Nowadays, most monitors come in either 16:9 or 21:9 aspect ratios; both of these aspects make good displays for single-player games like Fortnite, Overwatch, etc. But if you play competitive games like PUBG, Rainbow Six Siege, etc., then the 21:9 aspect ratio is better because it will give you a wider viewing field compared to the 16:9 monitors. The downside of this type is that some games see black bars on either side of your screen (so you don't get any real advantage).

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Re: Gaming monitor

#470261

Postby swill453 » January 4th, 2022, 6:25 pm

To update this, my son ended up with a Gigabyte M32U Quad HD 31.5" 144 Hz 4K (3840 x 2160) monitor.

This one https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/gaming/pc ... 1-pdt.html but it was slightly cheaper when purchased.

He's very happy with it, says his gaming PC drives it great.

He sent me a picture of his setup:

Image

Keeps him occupied!

Scott.

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Re: Gaming monitor

#470384

Postby BigB » January 5th, 2022, 9:03 am

swill453 wrote:To update this, my son ended up with a Gigabyte M32U Quad HD 31.5" 144 Hz 4K (3840 x 2160) monitor.

This one https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/gaming/pc ... 1-pdt.html but it was slightly cheaper when purchased.

He's very happy with it, says his gaming PC drives it great.

He sent me a picture of his setup:

Image

Keeps him occupied!

Scott.


Very nice! Do you call him Warlock (sp?) ?


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