Monitor Upgrades

santa2452

Hey everyone, I have had the same setup for about 4 years now, I purchased a Powerspec G313 in 2016 rocking the GTX 1070, with three 24 inch dell monitors. So many monitors have come about, including curved screens and certainly ones with higher resolution and refresh rate options. My question though is upgrading from a 1080p with 60hz going to make a difference, is it really as good as the numbers make it look. In my experience sometimes getting that 1440 resolution may not be the greatest on smaller screens. I play a lot of simulation games such as Stellaris, Prison Architect, Production Line, and Transport Fever. What are you thoughts on the different refresh rates and do you think I would notice a big improvement on these games upgrading?

TSPhillipT

Hello @santa2452, welcome to the Micro Center Community!


I think one of the first things to look at is if your original monitors were using TN panels or not, as monitors have received better color quality in recent years.  It was one of the first things I noticed when upgrading from my 1080p monitor to a 1440p monitor were the significantly better colors as I was upgrading from a TN to IPS monitor. 


I do think refresh rate is more important if you prefer more smoothness in gameplay or looking for every inch of competitive edge during gaming.  If you are mainly playing simulation games and aren't having issues with your current settings, I don't think increasing your refresh rate should be a reason to upgrade or change out your monitor. 


I think the sweet spot for resolution and refresh rate is 1440p with 120-144Hz.  I don't really like the idea of 4K 60FPS gaming as I am currently on 144Hz, and I didn't notice a difference in 1080P 240Hz gaming outside of a few fighting games... though if I were to get back into competitive fighters, I would consider downgrading resolution for the higher refresh rate.  

TSTonyV

Personally speaking, I think the jump from 60Hz to 144 is very noticeable, however the types of games I play are more action/FPS/esports type titles. For the types of games you're playing, I don't think it would make any major difference in terms of gameplay. You'd notice a difference in overall smoothness, but probably wouldn't be the same as what you'd see in something like CSGO where it actually feels better to play because of how sensitive an FPS game is to your framerate. 

Resolution is going to depend a bit. For a 24-inch monitor, your pixel density is still good at 1080p and I'd say 1440p is a little much at that monitor size. For 27" monitors and higher sizes, I'd say 1440p is definitely more worthwhile, especially if you sit close to your monitor. I have a 27" 1440p monitor and I've run it at 1080p, and I thought it was pretty noticeable that 1080p isn't quite enough at 27".  

Ultimately it comes down to personal preference. If you don't plan on using anything more than a 24" monitor, I'd say you can't really go wrong with 1080p/144Hz, and you may find other games you play will benefit a lot from the increased FPS. 

santa2452

Thanks for the feedback, I am glad I was on the right track with screen size impacting resolution. I like the flexibility of having three screens, though I have considering upgrading to larger size. I have seen a lot of ultra wide monitors though and considering upgrading to one of them since it appears some of the larger options, would providing the same screen room as my current triple monitor setup. What are your thoughts on these ultrawide options and even the difference with curved alternatives. I stream a twice a week, and tend to have a lot of windows open, but I always feel like going to a larger monitor compared to three separate smaller monitors might be more restrictive.

PowerSpec_MichaelB

santa2452 said:

Thanks for the feedback, I am glad I was on the right track with screen size impacting resolution. I like the flexibility of having three screens, though I have considering upgrading to larger size. I have seen a lot of ultra wide monitors though and considering upgrading to one of them since it appears some of the larger options, would providing the same screen room as my current triple monitor setup. What are your thoughts on these ultrawide options and even the difference with curved alternatives. I stream a twice a week, and tend to have a lot of windows open, but I always feel like going to a larger monitor compared to three separate smaller monitors might be more restrictive.

Ultrawides are definitely an interesting option, but you need to be careful when considering an ultrawide for gaming. If you game in full-screen mode, you need to make sure your games support 21:9 aspect ratios, or else you'll end up with letterboxing. If you game in a windowed mode, you won't have this problem.

From a productivity perspective, they are phenomenal as you can simply place your various applications and browser windows anywhere on the desktop and view all of them simultaneously, much like you would on a triple monitor setup, but without the bezel interruption.

I personally considered an ultrawide at one point, but eventually settled on a 55 inch 4k OLED TV after I learned they supported Nvidia's G-Sync technology. 120hz, buttery smooth motion with amazing contrast from the OLED panel, hard to beat that gaming experience!

Err0h

I currently use a Samsung CHG90 49" as an ultrawide option for a dedicated sim racing monitor and more recently, a MAG341CQ 34" as my everyday driver.  As @TSMichaelB states, yes using an ultrawide will mean you will want to check to see if whatever game/software supports 21:9 resolutions, otherwise you will see letterboxing.  I've already seen this with Riot's new shooter, Valorant.  

The 21:9 option has been super helpful with video editing as well.