Recommend me a monitor

[Dirty Hipsters]

I'm looking to get a new monitor, one which I'll be using for gaming on my PC and PS4, and which will basically be like a smaller replacement TV. Here's the problem, I know very little about monitors considering the last time I bought one was like 7 years ago (those things last baby), so I want suggestions from all of you.

Here's what I'm looking for:

• 32" monitor (though I'll consider ones that are slightly bigger or smaller).
  2560x1440 resolution preferred
  Low lag (10ms or lower)
  At least 2 hdmi ports (more preferred)
  Wide viewing angle
  A stand that isn't wobbly crap
  $600 or less

Thank you very much for any suggestions, they are greatly appreciated.

Here's a few of the monitors I'm currently considering.

http://www.amazon.com/HP-32-Inch-LED-Lit-Monitor-Quad-HD/dp/B00NNQGHXC
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4JH2UW4020
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4JH1ZW3012
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824014372

Is there anything I should be aware about when looking for a monitor that I specifically want to use for gaming?

 

[Foolery]

Get an IPS panel if you can, and a matte finish. Excellent colours with deep blacks and whatnot, and you won't have to put up with glare.

 

[Bad Jim]

I got a 3D monitor instead. No, I don't actually care about 3D, but you can buy them without the glasses, and they all support 120Hz and 144Hz refresh rates, and getting a really high framerate is rather nice. Also, mine supports Lightboost, an NVidia tech designed to flash the backlight in order to reduce ghosting while the 3d glasses switch lenses, but which can be used without 3d using a third party hack and makes motion even smoother.

The downside is that you have to sacrifice a little for high fps. You get crazy low switching time (1-2ms) but this is achieved with TN panels which don't have the color accuracy or wide viewing angles that IPS monitors have. The standard HDMI spec doesn't have enough bandwidth to support 1440p @ 120fps, so only a small number of monitors supporting the new UHD/HDMI 2 spec offer that resolution. And a significant number of games are locked at 60fps.

But I like mine even if I am stuck at 1080p. Stuff doesn't look quite as good when static, but moves nice and smoothly.

 

[Username Redacted]

You can probably find whatever you're looking for on this list:

http://www.displaylag.com/display-database/

It's a website pretty much devoted to finding monitors by ideal gaming criteria.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Get an IPS panel if you can, and a matte finish. Excellent colours with deep blacks and whatnot, and you won't have to put up with glare.

What's the benefit of an IPS panel versus other ones?

 

[Foolery]

Get an IPS panel if you can, and a matte finish. Excellent colours with deep blacks and whatnot, and you won't have to put up with glare.

What's the benefit of an IPS panel versus other ones?

The biggest advantage is that IPS panels display consistent, accurate colour from all viewing angles. IPS panels are also more resistant to dead pixels. They are quite sturdy.

 

[Bad Jim]

Get an IPS panel if you can, and a matte finish. Excellent colours with deep blacks and whatnot, and you won't have to put up with glare.

What's the benefit of an IPS panel versus other ones?

IPS panels are more consistent with viewing angles. With my TN monitor if I look at it from above or below it goes dark or negative, but IPS panels stay consistent. IPS monitors usually have more accurate color as well. A lot of TN panels only have 6 bits accuracy per channel (ie 18 bit color) while IPS panels typically have 8 bits (24 bit color).

The downside is that switching times 'only' go down to around 5ms, while my TN monitor can switch in about 1ms. TN allows high refresh rate monitors, like I mentioned, but beware that most TN monitors are just cheap rubbish that give you a worse picture but don't allow high refresh rates because they are locked at 60Hz. Buy a 3D monitor if you want high refresh rates, since those need to support 120Hz.

 

[Fallow]

Get an IPS panel if you can, and a matte finish. Excellent colours with deep blacks and whatnot, and you won't have to put up with glare.

What's the benefit of an IPS panel versus other ones?

If you want a serious gaming monitor, you need to get a 120Hz refresh rate monitor.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Get an IPS panel if you can, and a matte finish. Excellent colours with deep blacks and whatnot, and you won't have to put up with glare.

What's the benefit of an IPS panel versus other ones?

If you want a serious gaming monitor, you need to get a 120Hz refresh rate monitor.

If one was to play a game that's locked to 30 fps on a 120hz monitor would that make the game look smoother or would it look more janky?

 

[Fallow]

Get an IPS panel if you can, and a matte finish. Excellent colours with deep blacks and whatnot, and you won't have to put up with glare.

What's the benefit of an IPS panel versus other ones?

If you want a serious gaming monitor, you need to get a 120Hz refresh rate monitor.

If one was to play a game that's locked to 30 fps on a 120hz monitor would that make the game look smoother or would it look more janky?

It wouldn't do anything at all.

The experience comes when you view an unlocked game at 120(or 144)Hz. It simply does not compare with the standard 50/60Hz stuff.

These refresh rates do require a gaming panel (TN), but I think that's what you are after.
The benefits of viewing your screen at a 72 degree angle have always seemed odd to me. Why would you not sit straight in front of your screen?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Get an IPS panel if you can, and a matte finish. Excellent colours with deep blacks and whatnot, and you won't have to put up with glare.

What's the benefit of an IPS panel versus other ones?

If you want a serious gaming monitor, you need to get a 120Hz refresh rate monitor.

If one was to play a game that's locked to 30 fps on a 120hz monitor would that make the game look smoother or would it look more janky?

It wouldn't do anything at all.

The experience comes when you view an unlocked game at 120(or 144)Hz. It simply does not compare with the standard 50/60Hz stuff.

These refresh rates do require a gaming panel (TN), but I think that's what you are after.
The benefits of viewing your screen at a 72 degree angle have always seemed odd to me. Why would you not sit straight in front of your screen?

I also plan on using this monitor as my TV so I want the wide viewing angle so I could see it from my bed or any other odd position of comfort I want to take up.

 

[Rednog]

I can't really recommend a sub $600 monitor, but I would definitely look into gsync if you have Nvidia cards or whatever the ATI equivalent is. I honestly doubt I will ever go back to a normal monitor. I had issues with getting motion sickness/headaches after a few hours of gameplay, since I switched I've done some lengthy sessions with little to no problems.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I can't really recommend a sub $600 monitor, but I would definitely look into gsync if you have Nvidia cards or whatever the ATI equivalent is. I honestly doubt I will ever go back to a normal monitor. I had issues with getting motion sickness/headaches after a few hours of gameplay, since I switched I've done some lengthy sessions with little to no problems.

Never had a problem with motion sickness. Gsync does look pretty cool from what I've heard about it, but I'm not even sure I'm going to get an nvidia card in my next computer so it probably wouldn't be worth getting a monitor that requires nvidia to use all the features properly.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

didn't look TOO deep, but this is pretty fucking nice if you are looking for 4k under 600 bucks and with 2 HDMI inputs

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KJGY3TO/ref=psdc_1292115011_t1_B009C3M7H0

I'm a bit drunk though, so take that with a grain of sea salt.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

didn't look TOO deep, but this is pretty fucking nice if you are looking for 4k under 600 bucks and with 2 HDMI inputs

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KJGY3TO/ref=psdc_1292115011_t1_B009C3M7H0

I'm a bit drunk though, so take that with a grain of sea salt.

It's nice, but I really want something just a bit bigger.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I have a DoubleSight DS-309W. It's pretty good.
Wish I had a decent computer to hook it up to, but I can always run my 360 into it.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I have a DoubleSight DS-309W. It's pretty good.
Wish I had a decent computer to hook it up to, but I can always run my 360 into it.

Seems a waste to use a 2560x1600 monitor with an xbox 360 that only plays games in 720p. Why'd you get it if you don't have a decent computer to use with it?

 

[VanQ]

didn't look TOO deep, but this is pretty fucking nice if you are looking for 4k under 600 bucks and with 2 HDMI inputs

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KJGY3TO/ref=psdc_1292115011_t1_B009C3M7H0

I'm a bit drunk though, so take that with a grain of sea salt.

It's nice, but I really want something just a bit bigger.

If you want to go above 28 inches (which there really is no need to for a gaming PC monitor, I assume you're using it on a PC and not for consoles) then you're going to want to start looking into TVs rather than monitors. Not because TVs are better for gaming than monitors (in fact, they're significantly worse) but because above the 28 inch mark you're going to be paying into the thousands of dollars for a good one. You will also begin to run into trouble with system resources since larger displays sometimes demand more from your GPU.

I run a 27" monitor on my PC and have no trouble viewing it from about 2 meters away on my bed when I want to just lie down in bed while I watch something. The other thing about having a monitor larger than 28 inch is that from up close you actually don't get the full benefit of sitting close to the screen. Things in motion become harder to track on a larger plane, and I always found that the 27 and 28 inch mark was around about ideal for having a large resolution and still being able to track what's going on on screen.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I have a DoubleSight DS-309W. It's pretty good.
Wish I had a decent computer to hook it up to, but I can always run my 360 into it.

Seems a waste to use a 2560x1600 monitor with an xbox 360 that only plays games in 720p. Why'd you get it if you don't have a decent computer to use with it?

It was a gift. My dad got it for me last X-Mas.
Maybe if I get a PS4 I'll hook it up...