Yes, another monitor thread, my head is spinning

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Well as if my head is not spinning enough from looking at and comparing GPU's, I started to look at monitors and I'm almost to the point of brain fatigue lol.

Can someone please help me sort this whole mess out. there is just so much information it's overwhelming.

I like playing games like COD and Assasin's Creed, not sure what else I might get into because the last time I gamed on a PC I was playing wolfenstein ages ago (LOL)

I see a lot of 1440p being the stepping stone between 1080P and 4K and get confused even more. 1080P has been out for a while, but 4K gaming really isn't there yet in my opinion, at least not in a manner that is affordable, definitely no price to performance benefits.

Then there is G-Sync and Free-Sync, which each respectively ties you to Nvidia or AMD respectively.....

So the -Sync technologies are independent of refresh rates? Does a 60hz g or free sync work as well as a non sync 144hz? Lot's to take in here..........

So do I get the best 1080P monitor I can with the highest refresh rate, and wait for 4K to come more into it's own, or buy a 4K monitor and wait..........

I'm coming from console gaming if that's any help to anyone.

Also can anyone comment on the multi monitor 1080p setups vs one bigger display. I will mostly be doing gaming, streaming, music, and some online classes, and general productivity, but I will be on the desktop a lot and want to make the most of the experience, especially for gaming.

For the GPU right now I have an R9 fury (my build is not together yet, still need parts), but I'm very much considering getting rid of the Fury. I'm torn as the benefits of a 980 ti cannot be denied, but then I guess it comes back to what resolution are you gaming at.......

Is it worth the $$ for a 980 ti for 1080P or 1440 since one by itself is still not enough for 4K at decent settings?

Would it be better to get a solid 1080P setup and run an R9 390 or GTX 970?

I feel like I'm coming into this at a bad time because it seems right now is a transition period between the old and soon to be newer tech (1080P to 4K).

Would appreciate any input anyone has to offer.

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1440p is a very good middle ground between 1080 and 4K. It's only 175% hard to push than 1080. compared to the 400% increase from a 1080->4K jump. (1440->4K being 225% harder)

This means you can run 1080/1440p TODAY without having to spend copious amounts of cash on other hardware to run 4K.

The sync technologies are great. The consensus seems to be that Nvidia currently has the better solution. This is probably due to it being a walled garden and locked down to their platform. NOTE: that AMD freesync is based off of a VESA standard so there is really nothing stopping Nvidia from implementing it besides their ass.

Without doing a deep dive. The -sync Technologies Eliminate the stutter and tearing issues assosiate with Vsync and no Vsync. To answer your question: 144hz will objectively be better than 60hz but depending on the game you may or may not have tearing. And depending on the game and your resolution you may not even be able to run the game that fast as the sync technologies do not have an effect on actual framerate put out by your gpu

Here's a good video Explanation of the technology

Depends how, much money do you want to throw at this? New monitors could range from $200 to close to a thousand.

The fury is not a bad card and the 980ti is probably not worth the upgrade cost especially when we're shopping for a new monitor. assuming you already have some of the parts.

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Thanks for the reply @NJM1112 . I am seriously considering an R9 390 or GTX 970 instead of the fury non x. Maybe it's just me but I do not see the price to performance value there in my perspective.

Here's where I am at with the build, obviously the $0.00 items have been purchased. I still need monitor and mouse, keyboard, and sound if more than the monitor provides (if any) is needed.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Pz8J99

I decided to save on the CPU cooler as from what I have read the Xeon brings the better quality factory fan and it is not being overclocked heavily so should not really need it.

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I've tried out most of the important technologies when it comes to displays (4k, 1440p, TN vs IPS, freesync and 144Hz).

4k: It's not there yet, scaling issues with "small" screens like 28'' or 30'' make them annoying to use on a desktop. And while something like a 39'' 4k screens should be great in terms of pixel density, you will need AA if you sit close to it (which will completely wreck your performance) and it takes up tons of space, obviously. Ideally you want 2 high-end GPUs for 4k gaming.

1440p: Great middleground, more screenspace, no scaling issues. You'll want to run AA on a 27'' 1440p monitor but that should not be an issue with a single flagship GPU. I actually settled for a 1440p screen after trying out 4k, it just works better for now.

TN vs IPS: I used to heavily recommend IPS over TN, and for most gamers IPS monitors are still great and offer amazing image quality, but TN has come a long way. Both are fine as long as you get a monitor with a high quality panel tbh, gaming will work just fine on either one.

freesync/g-sync: Pretty damn nice, as you said right now both solutions basically lock you in with one GPU vendor, however freesync (or rather the adaptive sync standard) is an open standard and could easily be adopted by Nvidia in the future, whereas g-sync becoming available to AMD users is very unlikely.

144Hz: Only really "necessary" if you play at a very high skill level in FPS games honestly. It's nice to have in other games but not mind blowing. However, it becomes more important when you're going for any of the *sync technologies. My monitor runs freesync from 40Hz to 144Hz, meaning that I have a 104Hz window in which the experience will be optimal. You want that window to be as large as possible, so high refresh rates are actually a genuine advantage here.

As for your GPU choice, with a Fury you'll get performance that is close to a reference 980ti for quite a bit less money, and you also safe up to 200 bucks on an equivalent monitor (freesync over g-sync). If you buy a 980ti you're buying into the Nvidia eco-system, and that means that your *sync monitor will simply be more expensive.

As for what you should do, that's completely up to you. All those things have their advantages and disadvantages, I personally would go for a Fury and a 1440p freesync monitor (which would be 400€ cheaper than a 980ti + a similar g-sync monitor here). Opting for a "cheap" 144Hz 1080p monitor without any of the *sync technologies and a lower end GPU might also be a decent choice if you're afraid of buying into an "obsolete" technology. But I'm pretty sure that we are many years away from 4k actually becoming mainstream and 1440p is a really nice resolution that works right now.

That's basically my shortened summary on the whole thing.

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Thanks for such a detailed reply.

And you don't think an R9 390 would be close enough to the Fury in 1440P to warrant the savings in cost for the card?

I have seen a few reviews with benchmarks like the following, and it just makes me think the Fury is not really there in a price to performance aspect.......

Although the author uses his results to praise the Fury, I disagree with him based on his own findings. And we are back to the same argument, since the one GPU won't handle 4K at playable rates with decent settings, then where do you draw the line.

To me the best bang for the buck is with the 970's and the 390's, and anything above that you might as well go to the 980 Ti..... but I am definitely no expert. These are my own conclusions based on the reviews and benchmarks I have spent hours looking over from various sources.

I'm not sure I would go as far as to say the Fury is close to a 980 Ti, I guess what I am getting at is where do you draw the line, the magic number is 60FPS on whatever settings you want to play right, so is 20-30 more FPS after you passed 60 really worth another $150-$200?

I agree that 4K is not there yet hence why I'm really not considering it although the Korean 4K monitor is appealing for the price......

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You're absolutely correct, pure price/performance ratio the R9 390 (or 290(x) if you find them) are way better than a Fury, the thing is that the Fury gives you that extra bit of performance for a non-obscene price. You'll always get into the territory of diminishing returns the higher you go in price, there's no way around that. So if you want high-end but still the best price/performance ratio you can get then the R9 390 is basically your best bet (or a 290 or a 290x). Just be aware that you will not be running all new games maxed out at 1440p, you'll have to drop the AA down a bit and probably set some settings to high to maintain 60fps. If you're fine with that (and it's honestly not a big deal) then you're not making a mistake with that card.

Any idea on the monitor yet? 1440p vs 1080p makes a difference for your GPU choice after all.

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I know that's what makes this decision even more difficult to me. Because if we belive 1440p is just a stepping stone to 4K then why invest so heavily in it........ better price to performance with 1080p we just don't know for how much longer will it still really be relevant.

Ex, on the case of the multi monitor setups what seems cutting edge now is multi 1440p or a higher resolution main screen with one or two additional screens in 1080p.......

For the free sync/1440p this looks good.

And then I like this wide screen in 1080p, but it caps at 60 hz.......?

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2560x1080 makes absolutely no sense IMO. You're giving up vertical pixels for a different formfactor, might as well go 1440p.

Also, 1440p is by no means a "stepping stone" on the way to 4k. 1440p is a pure enthusiast and professional resolution, there is no native 1440p content (except for games of course), you're meant to have a 1x1 1080p video + editing timelines (for example) on one screen. 1440p will evolve into 5k, just like 1080p will evolve into 4k. The question is, do you want to be on the normal "consumer" resolution or the enthusiast/professional/odd resolution. And as I said, it will be relevant for quite some time when it comes to gaming at the very least, the absolute vast majority of people still run 1080p or lower res monitors, and that means that GPUs will mostly be capable of driving modern games at that resolution as well. GPUs won't suddenly be able to keep up with the most demanding games at the highest possible resolution, that's not really how it works since game devs are either bound by the existing hardware or take it to its limits depending on how advanced it is.

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Then I presume the next logical question I have for you is: what monitor do you recommend in 1080p and 1440p......?

Are triple monitor 1080p setups worth it over one 1440p?

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Very few games properly support triple monitor setups, if you're into racing games it might be something to look into but besides that, not really.

As for the monitors, if you don't want to commit to any *sync technology then you're basically stuck at 1080p as well. As far as I know all the 1440p 144Hz screens are either g-sync or freesync monitors. The Acer monitor you posted had some issues with QA if I remember that correctly and the stand seems quite bad (no proper height adjust, no pivot). Besides that it'll probably be totally fine but check out indepth reviews.
Then there's the BenQ XL2730Z, it's basically the exact same panel as the ROG swift and it's petty damn nice. It also has blur reduction (lightboost) which is amazing, but it doesn't work when freesync is enabled. Also there is a firmware bug that had to be resolved, I was unlucky enough to get one of the older monitors and I had to ship it back to BenQ which is now taking over 6 weeks to fix. Blergh. That shouldn't be an issue anymore but the fact that it takes so long is really freaking annoying.
Asus is coming out with the MG279Q, an IPS variant that works from 30-90Hz, if you really want an IPS variant then that would probably be it.

That would be a good starting point, compare reviews for those monitors on prad.de or tft-central and decide based on that. I'm more than happy with the BenQ one but the firmware issue and their shitty customer support was a real shame.

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So then the quest is on for the best 1440P, Freesync, 144hz Monitor?

Something like this?

Or the comparable on the G-Sync side.........

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The list is fairly short anyways, read up on them, tft-central should have reviews on most of them. Then it's up to you, what features do you prefer, how much do you value IPS over TN, what company would you trust the most out of them, and how good do they actually perform compared to each other.

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Ok I will read over on the website you suggest and see what I come up with.

Thanks for the help.......

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I would stay away from 144hz unless your super into csgo or something like that. 60fps is usually pretty fine for most people. Anything above that the cost almost doubles. My favorite is a 27inch 60hz 1440p monitor. Awesome sweet spot. 4k doesn't mean anything to me in a monitor unless it's super huge screen or something.

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Except that it becomes a fairly big deal once you use any of the *sync technologies and that the price difference isn't that harsh. The freesync 1440p 144Hz monitors can be bought at 500-550 dollars easily, so it would only "double the price" if you compare it to some of the korean monitors.

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Must be different here in Canada. A sync 144hz 1440p goes between 750-1000$

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So is keeping up with a 144hz monitor a GPU rat race?

As in every year or so you will have to be buying a newer and better GPU? Because if not at 1080p I'm not sure how you maintain anywhere near that in the higher resolutions as new and more demanding games come out?