I wish my a399u was curved!
@wendell You cannot tease possible(?) Nvidia Freesync compatibility and not give any more info! Is this seriously something that would be possible?
Could you verify you are getting true 120Hz at 1080p?
I have the firmware from Wasabi Mango's website that enabled Freesync, and it is Reak4k0701V1 I saw yours was real4k0721v1. I get frameskipping on my display. Thanks.
@wendell How do the pixel response times on this panel compare to the A399U? I've been planning to get one of those, but I'm wondering how this one does for gaming in comparison. I'm also very interested in the possibility of getting Freesync working on Nvidia cards as I recently bought a 980. :-)
Hi, just wondering in comparison to the A339 which you recently reviewed how the scaling compares.
I'm hoping to buy a 4K TV next month but will hope to use 1080P for movies and some games and was wondering whether, compared to the A399 and a native 1080P tv in general whether quality matches up since this is really important for me.
Thanks!
A user on overclock.net (see post #802) is also reporting frame skipping at 1080p 120 Hz over DP. Any confirmation from Tek Syndicate? Is this a firmware or HDMI thing, do you have newer hardware, perhaps?
I am getting frame skipping also @ 120hz using the UFO test, but how bad it is seems to be affected by OSD settings, which is curious. The monitor is so slow w/the black-to-white time that its pretty obvious, lol. Still testing further. If 3d really is a thing with this panel, though, then I'd expect the higher refresh rates to work. It seems like the 3d options have some kind of effect here at 1080p, but I will have to test further. I should have done more testing for frame skip! d'oh. Well, I'll add that to the checklist for next time.
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Good to know, many thanks for the speedy heads-up. Interesting that the 3D options/OSD settings might be affecting the frame skipping. It would be nice to get a definitive yes/no from Wasabi Mango as to whether 120 Hz will be possible, but I won't hold my breath for that one. If I end up pulling the trigger on this monitor, I'll do some testing of my own.
Would it be possible to mod LG TV's with that scaler? I bought the 40ub800v and am not very impressed with its capabilities. Or maybe someone know a guide to modding that thing?
Thanks for the review Mr. Wendell Sir sadly I don't have the doe. 😆
Anyone know anything about any 1440p 21:9 Korean screens ?
Hello everyone. Mine arrived today, and I just wanted to add my initial impressions. Everything Wendell said in his excellent review fits with my experience thus far, so I won't parrot what I agree with in the review.
Out of the box, the colors were okay. I plugged in the calibration values offered by user AndrewWOT over at overclock.net (post #833), and the results are excellent. Will refine with my own calibration when I get around to it. To the naked eye, the colors seem as excellent as those on other high-end IPS panels. Glow is there, but it doesn't bother me a bit.
The panel is indeed what I'd call semi-glossy: neither a mirror-shine nor a matte. I use mine about 10 feet from a wall-sized east window, and I don't mind it at all, but this may be a sticking point for some. The reflections in a bright room are far less noticeable than those on my wife's iMac, for example, but I'd still prefer a full matte.
I was pleasantly surprised by the build quality and appearance of the frame. The photos and descriptions online led me to expect the worst, but the construction is solid and I actually find the metal trim and overall design quite pleasing. Sure, no one will mistake it for a top-of-the-line Samsung or LG up close, but it is good enough not to get in the way of using the monitor, which is all that matters to me. The bean-shaped feet are hideous, so a VESA stand is in my future.
The edge distortion is immediately apparent from where I sit, about a meter from the display. Again, it doesn't bother me, but if being able to see the last few rows of pixels on your display when sitting up close matters to you, I would at least try to see this monitor in person before purchase. Curiously, I don't notice any shadowing on mine.
As there has been some concern with input lag on this monitor, I tried several tense games where twitch response is key. I can't offer any numbers, but subjectively, the response is indeed slower than top-of-the-line TN panels or the newest high-end IPS screens. For fast-paced single-player or even most multiplayer games, it would be fine, but competitive twitch gamers should look elsewhere.
Other quick notes: the remote is a nice touch. I can't test FreeSync, as I am running NVidia at the moment. The plethora of ports is welcome.
TS regulars may be interested in comparing this to the AMH a399u. Indeed, I agonized for a good few weeks over which one to choose. Here are my thoughts on this monitor vis-a-vis the a399u, and why I chose it. I have seen the a399u in person, but do not own one myself.
a399u advantages
better response time
VA provides deeper blacks
more understated design
available with a matte panel
weighs less
less edge distortion
price, price, price (currently hovering around 535 USD vs 700 for the UHD 420)
UHD 420 advantages
IPS provides better color reproduction (although the a399u's panel is excellent)
no PWM flicker
more connectivity options (d-sub, +1 each HDMI 2.0 and 1.4 ports, 3.5 mm audio out, USB 3.0 hub, service port, but no DVI)
FreeSync
removable power cable
remote
The a399u is terrific, and I'm sure I would have been satisfied with it as well, but the features of the UHD420 made it worth the extra cash to me. I do serious photo and video editing from time to time, and while the a399u would probably be fine, there's just no beating IPS color reproduction. The extra connectivity really does come in handy in my case: I have several ancient machines kept on life support by Linux that can only output VGA, the audio out means that I can play my Chromecast audio through my preferred speakers instead of the tinny monitor speakers, extra USB ports are always useful, and the service port is what enabled FreeSync upgrades in the first place. The remote means not having to grope around the back of the monitor, or get up to turn it off when I'm watching it from across the room. And while I'm not yet using FreeSync, the presence of this monitor will very likely induce me to go AMD when my next GPU upgrade comes around. The a399u is probably the better overall value, but the UHD 420 seems to have been worth the extra money to me, at least so far.
A final note on the buying process: I purchased mine from green-sum on ebay, and was very pleased. Mine took six days to arrive here in Tokyo, but Japanese customs are notoriously slow. I ordered the "pixel perfect" version, and it arrived as described in perfect condition with nary a smudge. Taking a hint from previous buyers on overclock.net, I pre-emptively contacted green-sum to request that the monitor be double-checked for pixel defects before it left the factory, and green-sum promptly fulfilled my request. It's only my first purchase from him (her? them?), but at least based on my limited experience, I would happily buy from green-sum again. Mine was on sale for the equivalent of 666 USD, so you just know that's a stroke of good luck.
I will add updates if anything comes up or my impressions change as I use the monitor. If anyone has any questions or concerns, fire away. Sitting here dwarfed by this thing on my desk, I can't believe that there isn't more excitement about this monitor here on TS or elsewhere on the web. Sure, my thoughts may change as I use it day to day, and with the pace of change in the world of displays, there will likely be something even better or cheaper in a couple of months, but I have to admit, I struggle to recall a time when I've been more impressed by a monitor on the first day.
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Had mine for 6 days now, my only regret is that I don't have enough space to run two U2412Ms or U2415Ms in portrait mode and two 6.5" bookshelf speakers (which are on their way). Will have to post pictures in the rig thread when it's all set-up.
Haven't done much gaming on it, apart from TF2, had to manually update the display to enable freesynch, just updated the AMD Drivers and now I can do free synch. However in TF2 I very rarely got below 60FPS even on a single card. I can confirm that 4K has done wonders eliminating the bottleneck of my I5 750, with my 2 R9 290 PCS+. In Metro LL for instance, GPU usage hovers at 99% rarely dipping much below that. And DX12 might help even more..
Still I feel like you almost need a third 290 to play some of these games at 4K max settings, to make sure you stay in that sweat spot during intensive scenes. Will have to try turning the settings down. And I really don't want to run Win10 outside of a VM with dGPU passthrough... Might be able to pick up a Haswell with VTd second hand, and piece something together, really don't want to throw too much money at it, when there is only a few games that my CPU can't handle (COUGH ARMA COUGH)...
Yeah I have some stuff to add to that:
The 40" I had on my desk before seemed much smaller (took up much less space on the desk even with its big bezel), so I can only imagine how much smaller the 39" would look. IMO sitting at a desk, I think this is a pretty good size, its actually equivalent to 3 24" 16:10 (which is fairly similar although smaller in size to 27" 16:9 monitors) side by side, in portrait model.
So that is a significant amount of screen real-estate their, and as an added bonus, if you grab yourself something like a Dell U2415M (which have a 4 year, global next day replacement warranty) which are rock solid, fantastic and reasonably priced monitors, you can put it in portrait beside the monitor. Its almost the same physical size, it almost has the same amount of vertical resolution, the PPI is just slightly lower, and you can line the screen up pretty well. So its very good, it looks very nice, and works very well.
Hi, everyone. I just wanted to post some updated impressions of this monitor now that I've owned it for several weeks. Overall, I'm still extremely impressed by the quality of the display, and it has fulfilled all of my needs.
Colors are still great, and I have not had any issues using any features of the monitor. PIP works fine, and the remote is handy. The glossy panel does not bother me at all. Member Sihastru has posted a helpful set of tests over on the AMH A409U thread for gauging color bleeding. For me, with my panel and color settings, the magenta test did not seem to produce any bleeding, but I did notice the faintest hint of bleeding with the rainbow test, only visible to me by squinting and using the specific range of dark grey backgrounds that Sihastru recommends.
I've done more gaming in the last few weeks, and I still find the monitor excellent, but I will reiterate my earlier comment that the response time and refresh rate do not compare to top-notch gaming panels. It's fine for most people, but anyone who plays competitive FPSs will of course immediately notice the difference between this and a 144 Hz sub-5 ms response time panel.
The only two minor issues that stick out to me are the edge distortion, which I mentioned before, and the fact that it "blinks" once for about half a second about ten minutes after I wake it from a long sleep. Neither of these bother me, but they might bother someone.
I added a comparison with the AMH A399U to my previous post, but in the meantime, two new monitors, the AMH A409U and the MicroBoard B400 UHD HDX, have appeared. I haven't had a chance to test either of these in person yet, but the A409U looks to be even more impressive than the A399U, and the B400 looks promising as well. The B400 has not been reviewed yet, but the A409U catches up with the UHD 420 in many ways, and for less money. I'd say, if you can live with VA and/or you are primarily a gamer, the A409U looks like the best choice at the moment. If IPS color accuracy is crucial to you (as it is to me) and/or you need guaranteed FreeSync today, go with the UHD 420. We'll have to wait and see about the B400.
It still puzzles me that this particular monitor didn't have at least a few more takers, given how popular the A399U was when it was selling for $600 and the presence of AMD fans in the TS audience. The UHD 420 usually goes for $700+, but it frequently goes on sale for $650 or less. Perhaps $600 is an important barrier. In any case, I still think it's a solid purchase.
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I will likely be getting one of these monitors again. The first one I had was V1.0 and it was fine except for some weird glitch on the left hand side, hopefully I don't get that or any other issue again, and to ensure I don't I will likely pay the extra money for one of those Perfect Pixel versions which have been through tougher testing?
PP ones sell for $799usd, I can buy a $700usd one from another seller but their ad scares me a little as they haven't updated it to V2.0 model even tho that is what they claim it is via communication, and they don't seem to care about advertising as an official seller. (gn_australia).
If I receive a monitor with ANY defect at all, I will refuse it on day-1. I'll make sure the seller understands this so they don't try and cheat me by sending out some defective screen again. (had 2 defective korean screens so far)
AND LASTLY, my experiences with the AMH409 have led me to believe they are NOT better response rate then wasabi mango screens, they also have rather bad 'bright red/red' color lag which is noticeable in certain games.
Overall if people want a good response rate screen, go for the AMH399 with its 1ms rating, sure it will NEVER have freesync in the future but that is the price. Shame the AMH399 didn't get a v2.0 with simply a new scalar board in it to support future freesync.
Riddick, could you provide a bit more detail about the glitch you had on this monitor? I haven't noticed anything funny with the left side of my screen, but if you can tell me your specific issue, maybe there's a way I could do some tests on mine.
I have only bought one, but at least from my limited experience, I can recommend Green-Sum on Ebay. They were courteous, and when I sent them a note, they checked my monitor for defective pixels before it left the factory floor. It looks like they now also indicate in the item description whether they will ship it in a wooden crate; mine came in one, and if you are concerned about defects, this would be another plus. Several other people on overclock.net seem also to have had a good experience with Green-sum. Right now, the perfect pixel version is going for 799.90 USD, which is 140.00 more than I paid for it during a sale. If you wait a bit longer, the price may come down again.
It sounds like you have had several issues with monitors already, and it would be a shame to be disappointed again. At this point, it might be worth it to consider buying from a more established manufacturer with a proper QA pipeline, such as Seiki. The Pro SM40UNP is now selling for about 900 USD, not much more than the UHD 420.
Here, sorry about quality as I only have shit cameras because I spend all my money on monitors/3D-printers :(
I'm looking at getting one of the 49" monitors off green-sum. Most people get decent screens, however I seem to have this DARK cloud over me all the time which constantly jinxes me :( 3rd times the charm!
This time I intent to send off many messages to the seller to FORCE them to really get fed up with me before buying, so they know I'm ULTRA ANAL, and hopefully won't send me a broken monitor! :)
I spent 2 months buying cables in, and also tried different videocards to no avail! i.e. triple confirmed as monitor issue.
Ironically this fault could have been fixed if they sent me out a replacement scalar board (like maybe the v2 ones). I didn't think to ask for that originally which might have been the BETTER option.
They might not have wanted to do so. (selling parts) I am still fucked over your bad luck with 399/409. I can even get parts for AMH, and did so. To me that is a very good sign, fly-by-night operations hide the make or the availability of components. To me , your best is a 409 or 399, with their little do-hickeys , than keep on driving yourself nuts. (not that it is unwarranted). Maybe talking to dream-seller and making sure of the product perfect or near perfect performance.
I could try , with you, to help in solving this matter to your satisfaction (to me it is enjoyment). I remain convinced that something can be done.
I really mean it; turning these monitors in the morning is a burst of pleasure each morning.the display is OUTSTANDING.
Let s try maybe together................
If you were close by, I would definitely have you over for 4k scrutinizing. (lol) but sincere.
@maxcat Are you talking to me ? hard to tell. I have NO 4k monitor anymore, I plan to buy a 49" wasabi mango next week. Like I said, I already returned the 2 faulty monitors I had so no help needed.
I will be buying off green-sum this time, and demanding a quality check be done on monitor for defects/dead pixels.