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Looking for general monitor advice
My knowledge here is about a decade out of date so I would like to ask for some advice and recommendations. I am looking less for a specific model to buy and more for personal experiences and general tips on what to look at or good review sites or knowledge bases.
Ideally I'd want a general purpose midsized flat monitor with higher refresh rate.
Mostly what I find are either gamer branded items usually without chain linking or data interface or office ones with 60hz though I'll work around of what is available. The image quality is the important part.
What price ranges and display technologies should I be looking at to get a generally good image without too many compromises?
Highly recommend looking at 1440p 27" monitors. I feel it's the sweet spot for gaming and also provides extra space for productivity. 4k is honestly overkill unless you size up to 32"+.
Look for 144hz or higher refresh rate as well. It's a massive difference compared to 60hz. You can definitely see benefits going higher but they are diminished.
There's lots of good ones meeting that spec under $300, sometimes under $200.
Agreed! The key is less resolution and more pixel density. At a point, you're getting diminishing returns on improvements to image sharpness relative to hardware requirements to take full advantage of the resolution.
The one I settled on ~2yrs ago after several returns was an Asus 27" 1440p VA panel. I prefer VA to IPS for desktop situations, better contrast and limited viewing angle isn't as much a concern, especially with a mount. It has one of those fake HDR implementations and g4m3r marketing. I ended up overpaying since there's only a couple like that on the market that aren't curved and I wasn't waiting for a sale (birthday gift for myself that was already taking too long to get right). I paid like 250±30 and saw it on sale within a year for under 200.
Previous somewhat related threads that might also be of use
What you want to be looking at sort of depends on the use case and also your own expectations. For most things a good IPS monitor will do the job and last you for a long time. But, if you also expect to be able to do HDR and all that you might want to look at OLED monitors. Those also have downsides, they do not last as long as traditional monitors do (burnin is not as much of a factor but they will slowly degrade either way) and their pixel layout has been such that you will get some text fringing which many people do not like when doing a lot of text based work. I think the latest generation from either LG or Samsung is an exception and has a "normal" rgb pixel arrangement, but it being the latest generation will also cost a lot if it is even already available. I just remember some recent coverage about it.
I'm super picky about monitors, and have been for a very long time so I'm glad to give advice, but I'd like to ask a couple of clarifying questions:
I kept it purposefully vague but I don't mind clarifying.
Currently I have quad hd 27 inch 60hz monitor and it seems a good compromise on real estate, pixel density and price. Personally I would consider mid sized the 27-32 inches.
I will definitely be gaming on the monitor but it will also be used for general media and productivity, mainly programming. I'd prefer something that can switch between that without problems and has flexibility for the future and I don't mind paying more for it but so far I did not find something really excellent.
Right now I have AMD card, 6700xt but if the economy and the computer parts market was not in such poor shape generally I'd be tentatively looking for upgrade in a year or so and at point the choice of brand will depend on the conditions. I will also drive the monitor from integrated graphics.
What is most important to me is the quality of the image, though quality and longevity of the monitor is important too. Other things can be always worked around somehow even if it is inconvenient.
Apologies, but the best I could suggest re. general recommendations is looking at rtings.com.
In case it helps, perhaps a DisplayPort splitter (example) (internally, they just use MST, same as monitors w/daisy chaining) could help alleviate that requirement? I wasn't able to find any that support DisplayPort 2.1, though, back when I was looking for one, in case that's a must-have.