Alienware AW3418DW 34" Ultrawide

Savoy said:
Just got another email from Dell. Apparently this is delayed again? Was supposed to ship 13-14. Email this morning says Nov 16-20 now. This makes the third time they've delayed it. Wtf I've never seen this happen with Dell in the past. What is going on?
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Dell/Alienware lies about their super-fast ETA's to get your foot through the door and committed with a payment therefore less likely to back out.

I had a Dell $5000 no interest payments for 18 months so I thought why the hell not and get a completely full Alienware setup to include this monitor, keyboard, and mouse right?

Ordered an Alienware Aurora R7 with the new Z370 system, estimated ETA was 3 weeks, waited 3 weeks just for it to get bumped another 3 weeks. Cancelled the order.
Then ordered an Alienware Area-51 R4 with the new'ish X299 system, estimated ETA 3-5 days, waited 5 days just for it to get bumped another 2 weeks. Cancelled the order.

Went a month without a gaming computer because they lie. I no longer give them my business because of this. I ended up just custom building my own computer again. Still would have rather preferred the Alieneware as I really liked the looks & lines of all their products.
 
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So I got it up and running today so far very nice and I like it alot. I've messed with windows calibration a bit and I sort of have the colors so they pop a bit. I know thats not acurate color but I like my gaming screens to be a lil over saturated and very colorful if you will. So I have the brightness maxed out because my machine during the day is in a very bright room but I'm noticing the greys look a bit washed out and sort of milky? The blacks look great and I lowered the gamma using the windows calibration setup. You think the greys looking to light and milky are becuase of the brightness or gamma or is it the contrast? I left the contrast at the default out of the box 75. So really All I changed was the brightness to max( i like the screen bright anyway) lowered the gamma slightly and raised the digital vibrance in the NVCPL a bit. It's running at 120hz without issue and I made sure its at 120 in the OSD, in monitor properites and in the nvcpl as well. I think gysnc is on but how do you know for sure? It shows display type as gsync and all but not sure. I really didn't wanna download an icc profile becuase I know most of those are going for realistic colors and from what I've read everyone (including tftcentral likes the brightness super low). Should I run one anyway? Would that get rid of the milky looking greys? Input appreciated. Love the screen overall.
 
Seyumi said:
Dell/Alienware lies about their super-fast ETA's to get your foot through the door and committed with a payment therefore less likely to back out.

I had a Dell $5000 no interest payments for 18 months so I thought why the hell not and get a completely full Alienware setup to include this monitor, keyboard, and mouse right?

Ordered an Alienware Aurora R7 with the new Z370 system, estimated ETA was 3 weeks, waited 3 weeks just for it to get bumped another 3 weeks. Cancelled the order.
Then ordered an Alienware Area-51 R4 with the new'ish X299 system, estimated ETA 3-5 days, waited 5 days just for it to get bumped another 2 weeks. Cancelled the order.

Went a month without a gaming computer because they lie. I no longer give them my business because of this. I ended up just custom building my own computer again. Still would have rather preferred the Alieneware as I really liked the looks & lines of all their products.
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I don't understand how that is acceptable to Dell. Shit can change in 2 months and you end up getting less of a computer for the same price from 2 months ago. Guess it is a way for them to get rid of old hardware.
 
Savoy said:
So I got it up and running today so far very nice and I like it alot. I've messed with windows calibration a bit and I sort of have the colors so they pop a bit. I know thats not acurate color but I like my gaming screens to be a lil over saturated and very colorful if you will. So I have the brightness maxed out because my machine during the day is in a very bright room but I'm noticing the greys look a bit washed out and sort of milky? The blacks look great and I lowered the gamma using the windows calibration setup. You think the greys looking to light and milky are becuase of the brightness or gamma or is it the contrast? I left the contrast at the default out of the box 75. So really All I changed was the brightness to max( i like the screen bright anyway) lowered the gamma slightly and raised the digital vibrance in the NVCPL a bit. It's running at 120hz without issue and I made sure its at 120 in the OSD, in monitor properites and in the nvcpl as well. I think gysnc is on but how do you know for sure? It shows display type as gsync and all but not sure. I really didn't wanna download an icc profile becuase I know most of those are going for realistic colors and from what I've read everyone (including tftcentral likes the brightness super low). Should I run one anyway? Would that get rid of the milky looking greys? Input appreciated. Love the screen overall.
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TFTCentral themselves have an ICC profile for this monitor, should you happen to need it: http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/icc_profiles.htm#d

I'm currently using it myself as a standby, until I get an i1 Display Pro colorimeter.

As for G-Sync? Turn it on in NVIDIA control panel by clicking on Display --> Set up G-Sync in the left-hand panel. It will give you instructions there. Click "apply" to keep changes.

You can turn on overclocking in the built-in Alienware menu on the monitor itself; just be sure to turn Overclock "On" (from off) and set the Overclock Refresh rate (from 100hz-120hz -- default will be 100 until you change it).
From there, you need to go to NVIDIA control panel --> Display --> Change resolution --> (change tab from 100hz-120hz as needed). Make sure that the number you choose here matches the number you chose in the Overclock Refresh rate in the Alienware monitor menu. Click "apply" to keep changes.
Hope that helps!
 
Savoy said:
So I got it up and running today so far very nice and I like it alot. I've messed with windows calibration a bit and I sort of have the colors so they pop a bit. I know thats not acurate color but I like my gaming screens to be a lil over saturated and very colorful if you will. So I have the brightness maxed out because my machine during the day is in a very bright room but I'm noticing the greys look a bit washed out and sort of milky? The blacks look great and I lowered the gamma using the windows calibration setup. You think the greys looking to light and milky are becuase of the brightness or gamma or is it the contrast? I left the contrast at the default out of the box 75. So really All I changed was the brightness to max( i like the screen bright anyway) lowered the gamma slightly and raised the digital vibrance in the NVCPL a bit. It's running at 120hz without issue and I made sure its at 120 in the OSD, in monitor properites and in the nvcpl as well. I think gysnc is on but how do you know for sure? It shows display type as gsync and all but not sure. I really didn't wanna download an icc profile becuase I know most of those are going for realistic colors and from what I've read everyone (including tftcentral likes the brightness super low). Should I run one anyway? Would that get rid of the milky looking greys? Input appreciated. Love the screen overall.
Click to expand...

The way I would approach color calibration, as a photographer with a calibrator, is to first get the monitor correct. We do this with camera profiles too. Then, adjust it to taste, which would be the same as taking a photograph and upping the saturation (which I do!), among other adjustments. It's a fine thing to do since the monitor is your output.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
The way I would approach color calibration, as a photographer with a calibrator, is to first get the monitor correct. We do this with camera profiles too. Then, adjust it to taste, which would be the same as taking a photograph and upping the saturation (which I do!), among other adjustments. It's a fine thing to do since the monitor is your output.
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That makes sense. I guess I'll try tftcentrals ICC later today and then tweak from there.

Let's say I install an ICC then I want to go back to the factory default ICC how do I do that?

Another thing too. I'm always confused by the best way to adjust color. Osd, Windows settings or nvcpl?
 
Savoy said:
So I got it up and running today so far very nice and I like it alot. I've messed with windows calibration a bit and I sort of have the colors so they pop a bit. I know thats not acurate color but I like my gaming screens to be a lil over saturated and very colorful if you will. So I have the brightness maxed out because my machine during the day is in a very bright room but I'm noticing the greys look a bit washed out and sort of milky? The blacks look great and I lowered the gamma using the windows calibration setup. You think the greys looking to light and milky are becuase of the brightness or gamma or is it the contrast? I left the contrast at the default out of the box 75. So really All I changed was the brightness to max( i like the screen bright anyway) lowered the gamma slightly and raised the digital vibrance in the NVCPL a bit. It's running at 120hz without issue and I made sure its at 120 in the OSD, in monitor properites and in the nvcpl as well. I think gysnc is on but how do you know for sure? It shows display type as gsync and all but not sure. I really didn't wanna download an icc profile becuase I know most of those are going for realistic colors and from what I've read everyone (including tftcentral likes the brightness super low). Should I run one anyway? Would that get rid of the milky looking greys? Input appreciated. Love the screen overall.
Click to expand...

out of the box calibration is bad. as others have said definitely use the icc profile and custom color settings from tft. It will make it look considerably better.
 
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Phlorge said:
out of the box calibration is bad. as others have said definitely use the icc profile and custom color settings from tft. It will make it look considerably better.
Click to expand...
I'm gonna try that in a bit. I just hope it takes care of the washed out looking greys. That is really odd putting.
 
So ya that ICC profile from tftcentral did the trick pretty much. I used that set the color to custom and used their setting for red and green. Then raised my brightness higher and used a little digital vibrance in nvcpl and bam great looking poping colors and the greys dont look milky anymore. Blacks look nice and black and I'm pretty dam happy now. :)
 
How much backlight bleed are you guys seeing on your units in the corner?

I have backlight bleed on both bottom left and bottom right. I'm trying to determine how typical that is. It's not terrible, and like typical - it's only noticeable in a dark game or black scene -- but it certainty in there.
 
Savoy said:
So ya that ICC profile from tftcentral did the trick pretty much. I used that set the color to custom and used their setting for red and green. Then raised my brightness higher and used a little digital vibrance in nvcpl and bam great looking poping colors and the greys dont look milky anymore. Blacks look nice and black and I'm pretty dam happy now. :)
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How do you install an ICC profile? I've never done that before.

nm - websearched it
came up with this:
https://pcmonitors.info/articles/using-icc-profiles-in-windows/

Edit. I updated with the TFT profile and frankly don’t see any difference from my manual 93,93,100 setting that TFT recommended custom. Am I supposed to reset back to 100,100,100 with the ICC profile in place?

Savoy, did that get rid of any backlight bleed you had? Or did you have any to begin with?
 
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Here is a cell phone picture of my backlight bleed. Of course it looks worse in the picture than it does in real life, but you can see the Backlight bleed is definitely strongest in the bottom corners. To the naked eye it isn’t really visible anywhere else. I don’t like playing the RMA game and potentially getting a monitor worse than this, but is this typical?
70A629B4-8760-450B-A142-CA305E564A0C.jpeg
 
Archaea said:
Here is a cell phone picture of my backlight bleed. Of course it looks worse in the picture than it does in real life, but you can see the Backlight bleed is definitely strongest in the bottom corners. To the naked eye it isn’t really visible anywhere else. I don’t like playing the RMA game and potentially getting a monitor worse than this, but is this typical?
View attachment 44018
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The top is par for the course with these panels; however, the bottom corners seem a bit extreme. Are you using default brightness settings?
 
Absalom said:
The top is par for the course with these panels; however, the bottom corners seem a bit extreme. Are you using default brightness settings?
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No at default it’s much brighter in the corners. I’m at a brighness setting of 30 instead of 75. Which is where I use it. My room is very dark. It’s a dual purpose home theater room with black ceiling and black walls and no windows. Here it is at everything default with a reset on the monitor. Brightness at 75. Again it looks worse in the picture. In person it’s just a greenish glow in the bottom two corners.

47CE7451-755B-481A-8BB6-EC067C67DA32.jpeg
 
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Let's just say I've been using a VA panel with no backlight bleed the last year. 3 of them in fact, with my HP Omen Eyefinity setup and it had none of this IPS glow or backlight corner bleed anywhere.

I know IPS and VA are a series of tradeoffs. IPS Glow or Black White Transition smearing - pick your poison.

I'm not a novice to the world of monitors, as I cycle them every year or so and work in IT as well with exposure to quite a few different panels.

The monitor I had berfore my HP Omen was the infamous Dell 3014, and a fine specimen at that - so I know what IPS monitors should look like in top fighting form - and I'm not saying this is bad, or inexucable - again pictures make it looks worse than it is --- and I've also read that a bit of corner hotspotting is expected on any curved panel- so -- it's just that I'm uncertain how much I should actually see.


I like the monitor - and overall with Gsysnc - it's probably an upgrade from my three HP Omen Panel array -- so - just throwing this out there for inspection and commentary.
 
Archaea said:
No at default it’s much brighter in the corners. I’m at a brighness setting of 30 instead of 75. Which is where I use it. My room is very dark. It’s a dual purpose basement home theater room with black ceiling and black walls and no windows.
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This seems bad then. I think you just got unlucky?

For reference, here is the bleeding on mine at 25 brightness:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ec8r292ugtp93ke/00000IMG_00000_BURST20170525234501.jpg?dl=0

Keep in mind, I have an Asus, but the Alienware supposidly uses the same panel.

When I use mine in the dark, the bleeding is slightly noticable at the top corners even when I game. When the room is well lit, I can't see any bleeding at all. In the end, it was not a dealbreaker for me. In actuality, the photo I took makes it look worse than it is in person.

If yours is as bad in the photo as it is in person, I'd send it back for a new one. That's borderline defective, imo. Especially for a premium product.
 
had an Acer 35" that was really bad before, unacceptable to me really. and this Alienware is better than that Acer 35" as I recall.

You can't really see it with the Alienware 34" with the lights on unless the scene is dark. I just played through the campaign in EA Star Wars Battlefront II and noticed it at loading screens and such on the Alienware. It's tolerable, but not ideal.




Here is my former Acer 35" VA 2560x1080 panel for comparison. It was bad.
You could see it's hotspotting even with the lights on. This was unacceptable to me. The alienware isn't that bad and is borderline acceptable.​

img_0402-jpg.11791


image-jpeg.6837
 
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Absalom said:
This seems bad then. I think you just got unlucky?

For reference, here is the bleeding on mine at 25 brightness:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ec8r292ugtp93ke/00000IMG_00000_BURST20170525234501.jpg?dl=0

Keep in mind, I have an Asus, but the Alienware supposidly uses the same panel.

When I use mine in the dark, the bleeding is slightly noticable at the top corners even when I game. When the room is well lit, I can't see any bleeding at all. In the end, it was not a dealbreaker for me. In actuality, the photo I took makes it look worse than it is in person.

If yours is as bad in the photo as it is in person, I'd send it back for a new one. That's borderline defective, imo. Especially for a premium product.
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Yeah I can see in your photo that your worst looks like my top corners - which is wholly acceptable and expected.

If my bottom looked as good as my top - or like your monitor does in your picture - then I probably wouldn't be asking this question. I guess I'll reach out to Dell and see what they say. I'd agree - if this was a $300 monitor then I probably wouldn't be worried about it. But at $1k or $1.5k even as MSPR -- it's not really that ok.
 
here is my Alienware at a full rest and the only change being to 25% brightness

D478C4E0-09E0-49F4-ABEA-D0CA954221D6.jpeg
 
Archaea said:
How do you install an ICC profile? I've never done that before.

nm - websearched it
came up with this:
https://pcmonitors.info/articles/using-icc-profiles-in-windows/

Edit. I updated with the TFT profile and frankly don’t see any difference from my manual 93,93,100 setting that TFT recommended custom. Am I supposed to reset back to 100,100,100 with the ICC profile in place?

Savoy, did that get rid of any backlight bleed you had? Or did you have any to begin with?
Click to expand...

https://pcmonitors.info/articles/using-icc-profiles-in-windows/

That's the site I followed and was very straight foward. MY unit has some BLB of course but I don't think it's terrible. I mean all these panels have BLB it's not terrible though. But again ignorance is bliss to a certain extent. I try not to OCD about it if you know what I mean.
 
Archaea said:
Yeah I can see in your photo that your worst looks like my top corners - which is wholly acceptable and expected.

If my bottom looked as good as my top - or like your monitor does in your picture - then I probably wouldn't be asking this question. I guess I'll reach out to Dell and see what they say. I'd agree - if this was a $300 monitor then I probably wouldn't be worried about it. But at $1k or $1.5k even as MSPR -- it's not really that ok.
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Yeah, don't get timid with these kind of defects. If it bothers you, send it back. If these vendors are going to make these products and charge a premium, then they need to deal with the issues and just eat most of the cost. If they can't handle it, then the product shouldn't exist in their lineup. That's my two cents anyway.

Also, holy crap that VA non-uniform bleeding in a lit room. That's utter garbage.
 
Do people actually use these big monitor for gaming?

I think there's a thing such as too big when you have to pan your head from left to right while playing a FPS to spot enemies.
 
Web4Life said:
Do people actually use these big monitor for gaming?

I think there's a thing such as too big when you have to pan your head from left to right while playing a FPS to spot enemies.
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Fair enough question. In the context of this thread, and to answer your question, yes. There is a market for these.

A 34" Ultrawide is just a 27" 16:9 with slightly more real estate at the sides. Vertically there is no difference.

As far as turning your head... that entirely depends on the person. If you sit too close to the screen, yeah, you'll turn your head. Simple solution is to not sit too close to the screen. If you have bad vision that warrants sitting closer, then this isn't for you.

Admittedly, I went from a standard 27" to a 34" UW and had to teach myself to sit just a little bit back in the chair so the entire screen was comfortably within my vision so I would not need to move my head. Sometimes you develop habits that need to be broken.

In summary, the difference here isn't dramatic enough to support a claim of loss of comfort. Now going from a 27" 16:9 to a 38" or 40" 16:9, that might be a juicy topic...
 
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Web4Life said:
Do people actually use these big monitor for gaming?

I think there's a thing such as too big when you have to pan your head from left to right while playing a FPS to spot enemies.
Click to expand...

The curvature of these Ultrawide monitors helps greatly in that regard (haven't needed to pan my head at all), and I sit about 2.5ft away from my monitor.

I previously used a 42" 4K TV (no curvature) as a monitor, and that sometimes required a bit of panning (at 2.5ft viewing distance).

Also, for those who need it, an easy backlight bleed test:

http://www.lightbleedtest.com/
 
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Archaea said:
How do you install an ICC profile? I've never done that before.

nm - websearched it
came up with this:
https://pcmonitors.info/articles/using-icc-profiles-in-windows/

Edit. I updated with the TFT profile and frankly don’t see any difference from my manual 93,93,100 setting that TFT recommended custom. Am I supposed to reset back to 100,100,100 with the ICC profile in place?

Savoy, did that get rid of any backlight bleed you had? Or did you have any to begin with?
Click to expand...

No you can set the color then load the profile. You should have instantly noticed a difference in the Gamma because that is what is calibrated poorly. It should seem a lot brighter.

Web4Life said:
Do people actually use these big monitor for gaming?

I think there's a thing such as too big when you have to pan your head from left to right while playing a FPS to spot enemies.
Click to expand...

Its not too big. I did get an monitor arm in order to set it closer to the wall and further away from me. But for the most part I'd say you spot more enemies because your FOV is huge. But I havent tried csgo on it.

Absalom said:
Yeah, don't get timid with these kind of defects. If it bothers you, send it back. If these vendors are going to make these products and charge a premium, then they need to deal with the issues and just eat most of the cost. If they can't handle it, then the product shouldn't exist in their lineup. That's my two cents anyway.

Also, holy crap that VA non-uniform bleeding in a lit room. That's utter garbage.
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Naw I need to stop you right there. BLB and IPS Glow for these monitors is NOT something that you should be returning your monitor for. If you are that sensitive to it, stop buying IPS monitors. If you had a dead pixel or the screen doesnt work, send that shit back. But you need to ask yourself does this effect my use of it? Gameplay, movies etc? The answer is almost always no.

These Dells have incredibly good QC as well. If anybody thinks theirs is bad they should buy an X34 or PG348Q for fun
 
Phlorge said:
No you can set the color then load the profile. You should have instantly noticed a difference in the Gamma because that is what is calibrated poorly. It should seem a lot brighter.



Its not too big. I did get an monitor arm in order to set it closer to the wall and further away from me. But for the most part I'd say you spot more enemies because your FOV is huge. But I havent tried csgo on it.



Naw I need to stop you right there. BLB and IPS Glow for these monitors is NOT something that you should be returning your monitor for. If you are that sensitive to it, stop buying IPS monitors. If you had a dead pixel or the screen doesnt work, send that shit back. But you need to ask yourself does this effect my use of it? Gameplay, movies etc? The answer is almost always no.

These Dells have incredibly good QC as well. If anybody thinks theirs is bad they should buy an X34 or PG348Q for fun
Click to expand...

I agree with you. Part of why I didn't jump on the first wave of these ultra wides(Acer and Asus). Was because they were charging big money they were hard to get and the defects were insane imo. This Alienware (Dell) I have to say it's very very much acceptable in the world of ips monitors. Not to mention their rma policy is very very good. That plus advance exchange and 3 year warranty out of the box. At 1k. That's why I jumped all over it and I'm super happy I did. Once I got that ICC profile loaded and tweaked the settings to my liking in stoked. Fucking monitor is awesome. Seriously.
 
Seyumi said:
Dell/Alienware lies about their super-fast ETA's to get your foot through the door and committed with a payment therefore less likely to back out.

I had a Dell $5000 no interest payments for 18 months so I thought why the hell not and get a completely full Alienware setup to include this monitor, keyboard, and mouse right?

Ordered an Alienware Aurora R7 with the new Z370 system, estimated ETA was 3 weeks, waited 3 weeks just for it to get bumped another 3 weeks. Cancelled the order.
Then ordered an Alienware Area-51 R4 with the new'ish X299 system, estimated ETA 3-5 days, waited 5 days just for it to get bumped another 2 weeks. Cancelled the order.

Went a month without a gaming computer because they lie. I no longer give them my business because of this. I ended up just custom building my own computer again. Still would have rather preferred the Alieneware as I really liked the looks & lines of all their products.
Click to expand...

Not that I disagree with because if that happened to me I would also be pissed off - But my last three purchases (Area 51 R2 X99, 27'' gaming monitor, and an Alienware 17) all shipped when they said they would.

I will say that they all initially gave me multiple week wait build times, but the systems typically ended up being built within a few days.

At the end of the day even with the wait I don't mind it because typically with 15% off military coupon, 5% off MPP, and 3% off cashback it tends to be cheaper then building my own.
 
Mchart said:
Not that I disagree with because if that happened to me I would also be pissed off - But my last three purchases (Area 51 R2 X99, 27'' gaming monitor, and an Alienware 17) all shipped when they said they would.

I will say that they all initially gave me multiple week wait build times, but the systems typically ended up being built within a few days.

At the end of the day even with the wait I don't mind it because typically with 15% off military coupon, 5% off MPP, and 3% off cashback it tends to be cheaper then building my own.
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23% total savings? Yeah, almost impossible to beat that. :)
 
I remember Dell's 45% coupons. I bought my first gaming laptop from them with that coupon. Plus my employer gave a 12% discount for Dell products. Dont see that anymore.
 
I used my dell epp to get 17% off ontop of the sale price. So $829.99 for me + free shipping made this a no brainer purchase.
 
So I'd been posting in the other thread, but I swapped out the AMD card with my brother's GTX 770.

Still having trouble getting it to overclock past 110hz.

If anything, it seemed to have MORE trouble and wasn't even sticking 105hz or 110hz when I did that...
 
My backlight bleed looks a lot like the others in the thread above. It's noticible in black loading screens but that's about it. For the price, and considering my last display is a Dell 24 from 2007, I'll take it. 120HZ is VERY nice to have. I have been waiting a LONG time to upgrade but the tech just hasn't been there. Hey, it only took 17 years to get close to having CRT response times again!
 
Wasn't the 980ti close to the 1080? I am fine running mine native 1440 w/ Shadow of War ultra on my 1080.
 
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I'd think the 980 ti would be fine, just might have to run at 9/10 instead of 10/10 quality one some things. I used my 980 ti with a 60Hz 4K display for a long time and just turned down the quality settings a bit to maintain frames.
 
Can anyone tell me if this display has ULMB, and will run in ULMB at 120hz? Thanks in advance.
 
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