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Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Lao-Tze
Comments
Here is a nice from ASUS: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236294
Or maybe a nice 2560x 1600 30" http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2RY2374289
2K screens like that can be found from about $250 and up.
There is also a 4K screen for $409: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4JH2N89475 3840 x 2160 rocks.
Really, screens have gone down in price lately so it is a great time to get one. $400 would have given you a nice 1080P a year ago but you get far more for that money today.
Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Lao-Tze
Here is however a 1 m/s for $300: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824160253
Gsync puts up the price a lot (to $700 or so) and isn't worth it, 2K resolution is still better than 1080P with Gsync in my opinion at least.
G-sync does basically the same thing as the industry standard adaptive sync, except that it adds an extra $150 or so to the price tag of the monitor and only works with Nvidia GPUs. If it were a year from now and a lot more adaptive sync monitors were available, I'd say to get one of them on the basis that Nvidia will probably support it eventually. But it's not, and monitor vendors tend to be only putting it in higher end products so far.
Gamer? Go 120/144Hz with G-sync/Freesync.
Professional? Go 16:10.
Movie viewer? Go 21:9.
Best jack of all monitors are the new 2560x1440 144Hz IPS displays from Acer and ASUS. But, they're also $700.
Personally, I use a 21:9 display alongside my old 16:10. Tried a 16:9 120Hz with backlight strobing, and it rivaled a CRT and was amazing, but it was just so small compared to 21:9 and I hated the VA panel so I returned it. I'd probably have gotten one of the new 1440p 144Hz IPS monitors if I could afford it, but now better 21:9 monitors are coming out so I'd rather upgrade to a higher res for them instead.
My recommendation is to get a 21:9 monitor. So much better than 16:9 and once you try it you probably will never want to go back. And make sure it doesn't use PWM backlighting, as that's harmful to your eyes (like CRTs) and can cause strain.
Choosing a monitor isn't as simple as asking on a message board either. Get a big pool of recommendations, check them out, narrow down to exactly what specifics you want (aspect ratio, resolution, refresh rate, panel type, size, etc.), then look up reviews for them. A new monitor is an investment you should take very seriously, as you'll be staring at it every day for many years.
Also, might want to try this in the meantime: http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/selector.htm
As for the 144 Hz IPS monitors, here's the links:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009742
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=24-236-466
Note the difference in price tag. That's the difference between the proprietary G-sync and the industry standard adaptive sync.
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-980
Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Lao-Tze
I do think that Nvidia will support adaptive sync eventually, as it would be suicidal not to. But they don't yet.
Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Lao-Tze
But "can" and "will" are two different things, and Nvidia can be really intransigent about not supporting things they don't want to support. See, for example, how they disabled GPU PhysX on Nvidia GPUs if an AMD GPU was doing the rendering. Or how they disabled SLI on Nvidia GPUs if the motherboard vendor didn't pay Nvidia to enable it on the particular motherboard model. (This is one of the main reasons why a lot of motherboards support CrossFire but not SLI: the motherboard has everything physically present to support both, but Nvidia disables SLI through drivers if the motherboard vendor doesn't pay up.)
The game that Nvidia is playing is that they're trying to get people who already have an Nvidia GPU to buy a G-sync monitor rather than an adaptive sync monitor, because Nvidia doesn't support adaptive sync. If they can get you to buy a G-sync monitor, then not only do they get an extra $100 up front from selling the module in the monitor, but next time you're buying a new video card, you might decide to buy Nvidia because you already have a G-sync monitor and AMD doesn't support G-sync--as they can't, because it's proprietary to Nvidia.
In the short run, this sort of vendor lock-in can work pretty well. But in the long run, it's suicidal. Suppose that you're buying a new video card and a new monitor at the same time. If you get an Nvidia GPU with a G-sync monitor, you pay an extra $150 for a similar quality monitor over buying an AMD GPU with an adaptive sync monitor. Even if you think that the Nvidia GPU that you're considering is a better bargain than the AMD GPU, it might be $20 or $50 worth of better, but probably not $150 outside of the very top end or for extreme fanboys. Saving $150 on a monitor swamps that and you're better off going with AMD.
Nvidia can end that by supporting adaptive sync in drivers. And I think they will eventually, as it would be suicidal not to. But at the moment, there are relatively few adaptive sync monitors, and they're mostly high end monitors that are out of the budget of most people. Give it another year or two for adaptive sync to trickle down to the mainstream as there isn't any real reason for monitor vendors not to support it and it becomes far more painful for Nvidia to still refuse.
There's also the question of whether you want to support this sort of anti-consumer behavior of trying to force vendor lock-in by refusing to support industry standards. Maybe you don't care, and that's reasonable at an individual level. But at a societal level, rewarding companies for bad behavior by buying more of their products than you would if they treated their customers better sends the wrong message.
In my final decision I went with the Asus MX279H monitors .. mostly because I love the thin bezel and having 2 of those will look so sweet.
Oh and if you are interested
http://www.ncix.com/detail/asus-mx279h-27in-widescreen-led-c7-79445-1766.htm
- One 1440p 60Hz monitor. Choose this for bumping up to a higher resolution.
- Add two more 1080p monitors for surround gaming/multi-tasking if you currently have a 19x10 already.
- Third choice is an ultra wide 21:9 aspect ratio 1080p. This choice is basically a QHD monitor minus 360 lines horizontally ie: QHD=2560x1440 vs UWHD=2560x1080
If you live near a Micro Center, Frys, or some other electronics retailer other than Best Buy go and check out the benefits of 1440p and ultra wide in person. I have a 1440p monitor and I can tell you how much a big difference QHD is to HD but you'd have to see it for yourself. I can say this about switching to 1440p: once I went QHD I've never looked back to playing on 1080p.
Edit:
here's a video that samples the difference between 16:9 vs 21:9 aspect ratio
And don't forget.. it is all about the EXACT model number, ABCD-e might be very different from ABCD-f.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
It is functionally the same as 16:9. Supports all 16:9 content without fail. Anything done on a 16:9 monitor can be done better on a 21:9 monitor. The same is true for 16:10 compared to 16:9, but 16:10 actually supports old 4:3 content (proper scaling; ie 1600x1200 on 1920x1200; can't run that on a 16:9 1080p monitor), which is really important for people who play older games, like myself (which is why I've been waiting for years for a 120Hz 16:10 monitor to come out, but the market shifted to TV aspect ratios for PC monitors, so they still don't exist yet).
The extra benefit is that you get so much more space on the sides, be it on your desktop or in games. 16:9 is dwarfed in comparison in desktop usage. In games, the native FoV (if Hor+) on 21:9 is massive compared to 16:9. You can see sooo much more (video linked by boonie shows this). And hey, if you're a movie watcher, well, movies are filmed in 21:9, so no more letterboxing trying to fit it on a 16:9 display.
There are only two downsides to 21:9 monitors. 1) Desk space usage, 2) content (mainly games) that don't support 21:9. Generally, desk space won't be an issue if you only use one monitor (and people have actually transitioned from dual 16:9 displays to a single 21:9 for varying reasons). And games that don't support 21:9 can just be played in 16:9 (if you can't find a way to get them in 21:9; plug for PCGW). Yes, you get pillarboxing, but I personally prefer it over letterboxing on 16:10 displays (which also pillarbox 4:3 content by comparison), something I actually quit competitive Starcraft 2 over.
There is otherwise no reason not to go 21:9 over 16:9.
If you find vertical space is lacking (remember, vert space is identical to 16:9), well, you can get a 16:10 display which aren't made for gaming (60Hz), or you can upgrade the native resolution (ie; 2560x1080 -> 3440x1440).. though that doesn't fix scaling issues with old content like 16:10 displays do. As a bonus, the new 2560x1080 display from Acer supports 120/144Hz (though at 35" the PPI is awful so it's more for distance (TVish) usage), and pretty much all current 21:9 monitors can be overclocked to 75Hz, which surprisingly makes a huge difference in smoothness. In fact, the new 3440x1440 one comes natively at 75Hz, and that's really the best we can get with current technology (DisplayPort, HDMI, Thunderbolt, USB3.1).
Really, just try it. Pick one up at a local store (if you can) with a good return policy, try it out for a while, and if you like it, well, enjoy your new PC experience. If not, return it, no harm done.
Again, I've used 4:3, 5:4, 16:10, 16:9 and 21:9 monitors throughout my PC career (~20 years). After trying 21:9, I can't go back to anything lower. Yes, vertical space still sucks compared to the older aspect ratios, but that's the way the industry has been going and there's really nothing we can do about it. Maybe my dream 21:10 aspect ratio will eventually come out and be the de facto aspect ratio for PCs (it literally supports all content except 5:4 which was niche anyway), but until then, we just have to either deal with the lack of vert space, or use multiple monitors for different tasks (again, why I've kept my 10 year old 16:10 1920x1200 display, which I really need to upgrade from a pixel response perspective.. but I generally don't game on it anymore and just use it for side things).
I prefer 16x10 myself (run widescreen, not rotated). I like having the extra inch or so of vertical resolution. I can see Quiz's case for horizontal resolution: I run a web browser windowed and it does take full height, but only about 2/3 of the horizontal space on a 16x10 (similar to a 4x3 I suppose), but I tile a lot of windows, so the horizontal space doesn't just go empty, there are other windows stacked/overlapped along my desktop.
Just a matter of preference really.
The only advice I'll add for the OP:
You can almost completely ignore whatever the published "specs" are for monitors. All most all of them are made up marketing jargon. Even something that sounds very straight forward, like pixel response time, varies extremely from vendor to vendor. What one monitor may market as "<2ms", another vendor with ~the exact same panel~ may list it as 8ms, just depending on how they decided to measure. The only metric that matters at all is if you like the way it looks and performs, and that varies from person to person by a good bit, so I always recommend that people go out and look at a physical monitor if at all possible, or at least buy from a place with a decent return policy.
You can make a good case for wider, shorter monitors if you're mostly going to use it to watch movies. To that I'd say, it's a computer monitor, not a television. If you want to watch movies, get a television.
I hate the 16:9 aspect ratio as it is, and refuse to get a 1920x1080 monitor because that's such a stupid resolution for a computer monitor. Sometimes I've had to use them at work and I hate it. 1920x1200 is all right, at least. I haven't tried a 21:9 monitor, but I can't imagine that going much further in the extreme that makes 16:9 bad is suddenly going to make it good.
The real point of wider, shorter monitors is that the cost of building a monitor is proportional to area, while the number of inches you can quote is the diagonal. If you're a monitor manufacturer, you want cheaper cost of production while being able to quote more inches, and further from square helps you there. That's why we've gone from 5:4 to 8:5 to 16:9 to 21:9. I figure that the logic endpoint of this is for someone to make a 40" monitor that is 40" wide and 1" tall.
What is useful for more horizontal space is multiple monitors. Having multiple programs maximize on separate monitors works very nicely. But a wide, short monitor leaves you with limited usable space on your main monitor, while making it awkward to use additional monitors.
You say there is no advantage to 16:9 over 21:9. Well, I'll give you a huge advantage: the price tag. The cheapest new 2560x1080 monitor on New Egg right now is $200, and there are only two under $300. The cheapest 2560x1440 is $210 and there are seventeen models from four different brands under $300. The cheapest 1920x1080 is $90. If you get a 2560x1080, you're paying a large price premium over 1920x1080 without getting much to show for it, and paying nearly what it costs for a 2560x1440 monitor that really does give you a lot more usable space.
It of course depends on what you do with your computer, if you tend to watch movies like Lawrence of Arabia a lot then 21:9 might be good for you but for surfing, working in office and gaming it is a pretty lousy use of the screen.
OP will have to decide for himself exactly what proportions he prefer, but no way I would go for 21:9 myself. It is good for TVs though.
http://www.144hzmonitors.com/gaming-monitors-buyers-guide-august-2015/
TFT Central is probably the best site around when you simply must know everything a monitor is capable of (assuming they reviewed it)
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824260174&cm_re=dell_monitor-_-24-260-174-_-Product
I'd buy it, but I also won't accept a TN panel, and don't care too much about 144 hz, as the AAA FPS games where it matters, won't run at those high FPS anyway.
If 21:9 interests you (despite its premium) have a read of the recent Digital Foundry article - http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-vs-ultrawide-21-9-cinematic-pc-gaming