Need help choosing new 27 inch monitor for gaming

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Grasscrest

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Hello everyone. In a couple of months my husband and I will be buying new PCs, and you already helped him greatly on deciding which parts to go for. For the new setup I will also need a new monitor. And I feel really lost after all the reviews and stores I checked out. I moved to Europe to live with my husband from another country and the monitor I had there was one of the Dell`s U27something. I was really happy with it and would like something thats at least not worse than the old one.
My max budget is 670 EUR (800 USD). New PC will have AMD gpu. The games I play are RPGs (isometric like Divinity and 3rd person like Witcher), sometimes I play 4X (like Stellaris) and MMO (like Guild Wars2). The thing I care about in a monitor the most is probably the quality of the image, good color representation. I was happy with what was going on in my old Dell, although the dark colors seemed a bit washed out. If possible I would like to have richer colors and darker blacks. Im after either IPS or VA. From what I have gathered IPS is better colors and VA is better blacks with worse response time. Should I care about response time with the games I play at all?
I saw many people here mention Samsung Odyssey and checked it out in the physical store, I was really pleased with the image and especially dark colors. If I compare just the image from my old Dell and Odyssey, I would probably prefer something like Odyssey. But I am not sold on the curve. I checked the 32 one and it felt like that curve really hit the spot, but it was lost on the smaller 27 one. And Im not really sold on 32 inch with 2560x1440 res either. I guess I would like more options, but not sure what to go for. Im familliar with Dells and Samsungs, but looking at Acer, LG, Asus and others, I feel like I have no clue about how they perform or which ones could be best for me. I think to go for 27 inch, I would probably prefer a flat one, especially if it has better quality/performance. And to go for 32 I would be more comfortable with 4k, but that just sounds out of my price range, and I would rather have a smaller screen with better quality.
The store I will most likely be ordering from also has Dell U2718Q and U2720Q 4K IPS (is 4k a bad idea for 27 inch?), they have Asus ROG swift PG279QE 2560x1440 IPS with G-SYNC (should I care about getting one specifically with Freesync for my AMD?), they have LG 27UL850-W 2560x1440 IPS Freesync. Are there other monitors I should look at? I would really like to look at something that could have Odyssey´s picture but wont have the curve. And I have no idea what to look for. I checked rtings as well and simply got lost in it.
 
LG has the best monitors, would definitely go IPS over VA. 1440p is a good res for that size, I wouldn't recommend 4K as text is too small and you need to use scaling on everything.
 
TheHig said:
The LG 27GL850 is my pick for best 1440p gaming monitor out there right now. It is highly reviewed by numerous sites and If I decide to get another 27in 1440p display this is the one I would get.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...eview-why-we-named-it-the-best-gaming-monitor

https://www.displayninja.com/lg-27gl850-review/

if you like vids:

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Thank you for all the links! It gets really nice reviews. Actually when I started keeping an eye out for monitors in spring, LG was on the top of my list at the time, but I was a bit worried about their blacks. But it seems like its unavoidable, and probably not as bad as I fear.
 
cybereality said:
LG has the best monitors, would definitely go IPS over VA. 1440p is a good res for that size, I wouldn't recommend 4K as text is too small and you need to use scaling on everything.
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I will keep that in mind, thank you! Yeah that was my concern about 4K as well.
 
Dell 2716dgr was the one I liked best for FPS.
Acer ips 27” 1440p was what I ended up with bc I have an Asus 1080p dedicated TN gaming monitor I can just live with.

Dunno why those that crank up graphical quality at the expense of framerate go for VA or TN instead of IPS.
Dunno why people into low graphical quality and max twitch go for IPS.

btw, 1080p 360hz and 1440p 240hz are slowly trickling out.
I’d want HDR10 if I was a graphics quality guy.
 
somebrains said:
Dell 2716dgr was the one I liked best for FPS.
Acer ips 27” 1440p was what I ended up with bc I have an Asus 1080p dedicated TN gaming monitor I can just live with.

Dunno why those that crank up graphical quality at the expense of framerate go for VA or TN instead of IPS.
Dunno why people into low graphical quality and max twitch go for IPS.

btw, 1080p 360hz and 1440p 240hz are slowly trickling out.
I’d want HDR10 if I was a graphics quality guy.
Click to expand...
I thought the same. If you asked me 8 years ago, when I was doing research to buy my old Dell, which panel I was after, I would have said IPS without even thinking. This time I see a lot of people recommending a VA. Specifically newest Odyssey. So I thought maybe with time VAs have been improved and they are worth checking out.

I looked at color comparison between panels on reddit, I thought the choice is obvious and IPS is hands down the best choice for me. But its also a 3 year old thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/6eoxd8/comparison_between_va_vs_ips_vs_tn_color_and/

Then I looked at comparison of LG gl850 and Odyssey g7 on rtings. Those VA colors seemed pretty nice to me and made me wonder if VA is not so terrible for people who are after best looking picture anymore.
https://www.rtings.com/monitor/tool...odyssey-g7/912/14315?usage=9091&threshold=0.1

Im not familliar with HDR10. I havent seen anything like it in monitors specifications. Or is it a setting?
You mentioned the Acer one you have. Which model is that?
 
Acer xb1
Creatives would care about HDR10 color.
I care about font smoothness bc I stare at code all day long.
I stopped using MacOS I think with Mojave, but definitely with Catalina bc of font smoothing issues on external monitors.

I have a hard time seeing VA as the answer to image quality with low latency and speed.
It's more of a kinda covers the bases the others don't from the panels I've been on.
 
Grasscrest said:
I thought the same. If you asked me 8 years ago, when I was doing research to buy my old Dell, which panel I was after, I would have said IPS without even thinking. This time I see a lot of people recommending a VA. Specifically newest Odyssey. So I thought maybe with time VAs have been improved and they are worth checking out.

I looked at color comparison between panels on reddit, I thought the choice is obvious and IPS is hands down the best choice for me. But its also a 3 year old thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/6eoxd8/comparison_between_va_vs_ips_vs_tn_color_and/

Then I looked at comparison of LG gl850 and Odyssey g7 on rtings. Those VA colors seemed pretty nice to me and made me wonder if VA is not so terrible for people who are after best looking picture anymore.
https://www.rtings.com/monitor/tool...odyssey-g7/912/14315?usage=9091&threshold=0.1

Im not familliar with HDR10. I havent seen anything like it in monitors specifications. Or is it a setting?
You mentioned the Acer one you have. Which model is that?
Click to expand...

IPS and VA both have their own issues that affect image quality. For IPS it's poor contrast and noticeable glow in dark scenes. For VA it would be worst viewing angles and, up until recently, dark smearing. The G7 pretty much eliminates dark smearing and tries to combat viewing angles by making the screen insanely curved which leads to other problems. Really when it comes to VA or IPS, you are just picking whichever panel type who's drawbacks you find to be the least distracting of the two. For me personally, I could not stand 1000:1 contrast ratios and IPS glow in dark scenes so I decided to give VA a chance and found myself to not be as distracted by it's dark smearing and worst viewing angles, and I ended up enjoying games more on it. Back in 2015 when I bought my first 144Hz IPS, I was playing a lot of games that had night cycles (Witcher 3, Fallout 4, MGS5) and the IPS just performed so poorly in night time cycles that I had to make sure I always stuck to day time cycles in game to not get distracted by the absymal contrast and IPS glow. The game that finally ended IPS panels for me was Dying Light, a game where you had no choice but to play during it's night cycles for certain missions/quests and IPS was an absolute nightmare in that game. Playing on a VA with nearly 3x the contrast ratio and no horrible glow was a huge game changer for me in that game, and many other games that I played which have not only bright scenes, but dark scenes as well. There is a reason why contrast is said to be the number 1 factor in image quality, and why every high end LCD TV uses a VA panel and not IPS. If IPS truly is the best panel type for image quality, then surely every TV manufacturer like Sony and Samsung would be using them in their top end sets, and yet they don't.
 
MistaSparkul said:
IPS and VA both have their own issues that affect image quality. For IPS it's poor contrast and noticeable glow in dark scenes. For VA it would be worst viewing angles and, up until recently, dark smearing. The G7 pretty much eliminates dark smearing and tries to combat viewing angles by making the screen insanely curved which leads to other problems. Really when it comes to VA or IPS, you are just picking whichever panel type who's drawbacks you find to be the least distracting of the two. For me personally, I could not stand 1000:1 contrast ratios and IPS glow in dark scenes so I decided to give VA a chance and found myself to not be as distracted by it's dark smearing and worst viewing angles, and I ended up enjoying games more on it. Back in 2015 when I bought my first 144Hz IPS, I was playing a lot of games that had night cycles (Witcher 3, Fallout 4, MGS5) and the IPS just performed so poorly in night time cycles that I had to make sure I always stuck to day time cycles in game to not get distracted by the absymal contrast and IPS glow. The game that finally ended IPS panels for me was Dying Light, a game where you had no choice but to play during it's night cycles for certain missions/quests and IPS was an absolute nightmare in that game. Playing on a VA with nearly 3x the contrast ratio and no horrible glow was a huge game changer for me in that game, and many other games that I played which have not only bright scenes, but dark scenes as well. There is a reason why contrast is said to be the number 1 factor in image quality, and why every high end LCD TV uses a VA panel and not IPS. If IPS truly is the best panel type for image quality, then surely every TV manufacturer like Sony and Samsung would be using them in their top end sets, and yet they don't.
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After months of searching I also started thinking that in the end I would have to ask myself which panels disadvantages I can tolerate better. One of the reasons I started considering a VA because I also find myself playing mostly pretty dark games. Not sure if I found IPS drawbacks distracting, but they definitely were bothering me enough to start looking at other options.
 
Grasscrest said:
That looks really new. Was it released like today or something? However nice it seems, my concern would be 4k on a 27 inch. I actually find myself having troubles to read ingame texts sometimes even on 2560x1440. I also play many games with a lot of reading involved. So Im afraid a 4k will simply be wasted on someone like me.
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Different strokes for different folks. I would take even higher PPI if I could leverage it (GPU power being a greater limitation than anything else). You know your own eyes. If you have bad vision, then this may not be for you. No one can tell you what is the best (any)thing for you - you need to be able to make your own choices based around your own criteria. My suggestion is purely based on the market right now and bang for the buck in a monitor.

I personally am not interested in anything unless it's 4k, 120hz, 10-bit, IPS - minimum. You may have your own criteria for your own search. If you only want 2560x1440, then you can probably get away with something for a lot cheaper. And if you want the extreme top end, there is always LG OLED or X27 or Alienware OLED.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
Different strokes for different folks. I would take even higher PPI if I could leverage it (GPU power being a greater limitation than anything else). You know your own eyes. If you have bad vision, then this may not be for you. No one can tell you what is the best (any)thing for you - you need to be able to make your own choices based around your own criteria. My suggestion is purely based on the market right now and bang for the buck in a monitor.

I personally am not interested in anything unless it's 4k, 120hz, 10-bit, IPS - minimum. You may have your own criteria for your own search. If you only want 2560x1440, then you can probably get away with something for a lot cheaper. And if you want the extreme top end, there is always LG OLED or X27 or Alienware OLED.
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You are right, the decision will have to be my own in the end. But I still appreciate the suggestions as theres a lot I might not see or understand on my own. I dont dismiss 4k outright and still see it as a possibility, but it helps to voice my concerns and see what people reply to help me weigh my options.
 
I decided to buy the new Gigabyte G27Q, the price point was hard to argue as i didnt want to pay $600+ for the Asus Tuff IPS so figured why not give this one a go. I should have it tomorrow. Not really sure how to "Review" a monitor, but could happily try out anything anyone wants me to on it..(limited to an RX580 though)
 
I spent months waiting on a good deal on what my research led me to be the best: LG 27GL850
I bought mine a few months back and love it. They recently came out the 950 which supposedly takes it up a notch.
 
MrGuvernment said:
I decided to buy the new Gigabyte G27Q, the price point was hard to argue as i didnt want to pay $600+ for the Asus Tuff IPS so figured why not give this one a go. I should have it tomorrow. Not really sure how to "Review" a monitor, but could happily try out anything anyone wants me to on it..(limited to an RX580 though)
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Hey, congratulations on your new monitor! I hope you will like it and I hope you will tell us your first impressions once you have it :)
 
DOOMHAMMA said:
I spent months waiting on a good deal on what my research led me to be the best: LG 27GL850
I bought mine a few months back and love it. They recently came out the 950 which supposedly takes it up a notch.
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It apprears to be the most recommended one for sure. Glad to hear it didnt dissappoint.
It seems like gl950 is to be out this autumn. UnknownSoljer suggested LGs gn950 earlier as well, which also came out very recently.
Im actually having troubles finding difference between their gl and gn lines. Seems like gl has some extra ports and haze surface instead of anti-glare. At least if you compare gl850 and gn850. Does anyone know if I missed something?
 
Well, I have my G27Q in hands and hooked up, so far, looks awesome out of the box, but that is just me, comparing it to my Asus MG28U (4k) Gaming so far just played TF2 / CS:Go and world of tanks, the game ran butter smooth and in FPS picture mode.

ANyone want me to do anything to show it, let me know..
 
MrGuvernment said:
Well, I have my G27Q in hands and hooked up, so far, looks awesome out of the box, but that is just me, comparing it to my Asus MG28U (4k) Gaming so far just played TF2 / CS:Go and world of tanks, the game ran butter smooth and in FPS picture mode.

ANyone want me to do anything to show it, let me know..
Click to expand...
Thank you for sharing :) Good to know you can see the improvement
 
jarablue said:
I have the LG and I'm glad I do.
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Thank you for sharing your opinion. LG 27gl850 is definitely on the top of my list. And as people mentioned, there are also 27gl950/ 27gn950 being released. But they are still not being sold in Denmark, which is where I will be buying from, so Im still waiting on them as well to at least see if they will be in my price range to even consider them.
 
Grasscrest said:
Thank you for sharing your opinion. LG 27gl850 is definitely on the top of my list. And as people mentioned, there are also 27gl950/ 27gn950 being released. But they are still not being sold in Denmark, which is where I will be buying from, so Im still waiting on them as well to at least see if they will be in my price range to even consider them.
Click to expand...

I would get 27GL83A instead, it's very similar but without wide gamut and cost much less.
Gamers paying a big premium for wide gamut is comedy
 
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BenWah said:
I would get 27GL83A instead, it's very similar but without wide gamut and cost much less.
Gamers paying a big premium for wide gamut is comedy
Click to expand...
I remember checking it out as well at some point. I honestly dont know enough about technology to undersand if I will be able to notice that difference. For me the price difference between 27gl850 and 27gl83a is around 40 euro. Even though I also like to look for the best bank for my buck, I dont mind paying extra 40.
 
Also a small update. I found 27gn950-b that was suggested earlier in one of the local stores. US price according to LG was 800 dollars, which is within my budget, although its my max. For me this monitor would cost 1300 dollars. I thought the price might be higher in Europe, but had no idea it would be such a huge difference. So of course because of that, I wont be considering this monitor as an option.
 
I'm curious about the Eve Spectrum. If you're a couple months away from needing a monitor it may be worth considering, as two of the models are supposed to ship Q4 2020. Eve's last product was infamous for long shipping delays, but they claim this time around their “operations are backed by a well-known supply chain company, PCH International, that essentially boosts the scale and capacity of our small team in Finland to those of major tech players by providing fulfilment, sourcing, inventory management, and other services”.

It's only $100 (refundable) to reserve one. I'm thinking about it.

https://evedevices.com/pages/spectrum/
 
Grasscrest said:
Hey, could you explain a little bit more why you feel that way? I does look nice. I like that it seem to have better blacks and contrast.
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  • To me wide color gamut is a big flaw rather than a perk. There's 83A but it has its flaws compared to 850:
  • For me as a CRT owner black frame insertion was a must. And Asus has it unlike LG. It's nor perfect but I still find it very useful and turn it on when I'm gaming. And it doesn't kill brightness like some models.
  • 165Hz.
  • Haven't seen LG myself but there are lots of complains about poor black levels, and Asus seems to be better in this regard as well. I'm pretty happy with the blacks of VG27aq unless I stare at a black screen in complete darkness. BLB WAS an issue for the first couple of days, but than magically disappeared almost completely after a week.
  • LG is faster according to tests, but I don't think It makes any real difference. Asus is very fast. Actually, I wasn't expecting it to be that good. I bought the panel out of curiosity because I've never tried a gaming IPS panel before and was going to return it almost certainly. But I haven't. And I have a FW900, so it says a lot. CRT still has an edge in motion clarity and speed, but I personaly can live with what VG27aq has to offer. There are complains about Asus poor performance at lower frame rates, but I personaly don't see any big issues here. Maybe if I tried LG I would see a difference, but I probably wouldn't even notice anything had I not read the reviews.
  • I like the Asus stand better.

You can find lots of bad reviews mentioning pixel problems and high minimum brightness. As far as I know they were adressed in the 2 revision, which I have. My unit has no such issues (have the fixed low frame rate performance as well?).
Here's a great review which pushed me to buy it:
 
Epos7 said:
I'm curious about the Eve Spectrum. If you're a couple months away from needing a monitor it may be worth considering, as two of the models are supposed to ship Q4 2020. Eve's last product was infamous for long shipping delays, but they claim this time around their “operations are backed by a well-known supply chain company, PCH International, that essentially boosts the scale and capacity of our small team in Finland to those of major tech players by providing fulfilment, sourcing, inventory management, and other services”.

It's only $100 (refundable) to reserve one. I'm thinking about it.

https://evedevices.com/pages/spectrum/
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I am a few months away from buying, but I prefer to live by the rule - dont preorder anything, however tempting it sounds. And what little I saw about evedevices doesnt sound tempting, to me personally. I like to know as much as possible about anything I spend my money on. I like to understand what Im buying and be sure its worth the money Im paying. I havent checked their products, but I checked out the company. And with so many people on reddit and trustpilot warning you to not trust them, I would probably be a bit more cautios about giving them my money. The reviews on trustpilot are either 1 start or 5 stars, and about 90% percent of 5 star ones are exclusively from users from Russia. That is over half of their overall reviews. My guess is that either those people from Russia got free screens (or rubles) for good reviews or this company from "Finland" is not entirely finnish. Personally, I wouldnt even trust them with money for charity :p
 
Grasscrest said:
I am a few months away from buying, but I prefer to live by the rule - dont preorder anything, however tempting it sounds. And what little I saw about evedevices doesnt sound tempting, to me personally. I like to know as much as possible about anything I spend my money on. I like to understand what Im buying and be sure its worth the money Im paying. I havent checked their products, but I checked out the company. And with so many people on reddit and trustpilot warning you to not trust them, I would probably be a bit more cautios about giving them my money. The reviews on trustpilot are either 1 start or 5 stars, and about 90% percent of 5 star ones are exclusively from users from Russia. That is over half of their overall reviews. My guess is that either those people from Russia got free screens (or rubles) for good reviews or this company from "Finland" is not entirely finnish. Personally, I wouldnt even trust them with money for charity :p
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It's certainly prudent to be cautious, but I wouldn't necessarily put all my faith in a site like trustpilot. Amazon has 2.3 stars on trustpilot, for example. Not to say those people didn't have a bad experience, but those sites tend to attract people with a bone to pick.

Nobody has a screen yet, all the reviews would be for their previous product. That said, I don't know much about the company either. The specs on their screens look great however, and I like that you can purchase them without a stand. No point in paying extra for that if you already have a monitor mount.
 
BenWah said:
I would get 27GL83A instead, it's very similar but without wide gamut and cost much less.
Gamers paying a big premium for wide gamut is comedy
Click to expand...


For me in Canada this was the cheapest IPS panel 2k screen. all others are $550+
 
Yuriy83 said:
  • To me wide color gamut is a big flaw rather than a perk. There's 83A but it has its flaws compared to 850:
  • For me as a CRT owner black frame insertion was a must. And Asus has it unlike LG. It's nor perfect but I still find it very useful and turn it on when I'm gaming. And it doesn't kill brightness like some models.
  • 165Hz.
  • Haven't seen LG myself but there are lots of complains about poor black levels, and Asus seems to be better in this regard as well. I'm pretty happy with the blacks of VG27aq unless I stare at a black screen in complete darkness. BLB WAS an issue for the first couple of days, but than magically disappeared almost completely after a week.
  • LG is faster according to tests, but I don't think It makes any real difference. Asus is very fast. Actually, I wasn't expecting it to be that good. I bought the panel out of curiosity because I've never tried a gaming IPS panel before and was going to return it almost certainly. But I haven't. And I have a FW900, so it says a lot. CRT still has an edge in motion clarity and speed, but I personaly can live with what VG27aq has to offer. There are complains about Asus poor performance at lower frame rates, but I personaly don't see any big issues here. Maybe if I tried LG I would see a difference, but I probably wouldn't even notice anything had I not read the reviews.
  • I like the Asus stand better.

You can find lots of bad reviews mentioning pixel problems and high minimum brightness. As far as I know they were adressed in the 2 revision, which I have. My unit has no such issues (have the fixed low frame rate performance as well?).
Here's a great review which pushed me to buy it:
Click to expand...

So much info, thank you! The Asus review was also helpful and in depth, I watched some others as well. This Asus is definitely a strong candidate.
 
Epos7 said:
It's certainly prudent to be cautious, but I wouldn't necessarily put all my faith in a site like trustpilot. Amazon has 2.3 stars on trustpilot, for example. Not to say those people didn't have a bad experience, but those sites tend to attract people with a bone to pick.

Nobody has a screen yet, all the reviews would be for their previous product. That said, I don't know much about the company either. The specs on their screens look great however, and I like that you can purchase them without a stand. No point in paying extra for that if you already have a monitor mount.
Click to expand...
You certainly have a point. Im probably overly cautious at times and Im very uncomfortable with spending my money on anything. So I probably miss out on a lot of great stuff that I could have had otherwise. I just really like to play it safe, and with my overly cautious mind I feel like if I trust negative reviews about a product, I wouldnt loose anything, but if I trust a wrong company, I could loose my money.
 
MrGuvernment said:
For me in Canada this was the cheapest IPS panel 2k screen. all others are $550+
Click to expand...
It also seems like the price difference between gl850 and gl83a used to be at least 3 times of what it is now. So it definitely made a lot of sense to choose gl83a over gl850 back then. I dont know how it is in Canada right now though. At least in Europe the price difference is less significant now.
 
Grasscrest said:
You certainly have a point. Im probably overly cautious at times and Im very uncomfortable with spending my money on anything. So I probably miss out on a lot of great stuff that I could have had otherwise. I just really like to play it safe, and with my overly cautious mind I feel like if I trust negative reviews about a product, I wouldnt loose anything, but if I trust a wrong company, I could loose my money.
Click to expand...

Makes sense and you gotta do what you're comfortable with.
 
I just picked up an LG 27GL850. I'm very pleased with it. The Rtings and TFTCentral reviews were spot-on. It's a great monitor. (My biggest hangup was the lack of swivel. Since it sits in my central location (3 monitors), it's been a non-issue.)

FWIW.
 
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