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I'm thinking about getting the Acer XB270H G-synch monitor from Amazon. The price is at $479 and I have $150 in Amazon gift certificates so if it is still at that price next Friday I think I will order it. I'm not overly picky about displays and I want to stay at 1080p for gaming. The monitor seems to get a lot of good reviews even a couple of professional reviews. I was thinking about getting the GTX 970/960 to replace my GTX 660 but my system is running great and I would really like a second monitor to put the BF4 battle map, system monitors and TeamSpeak window. The extra size of the monitor would be nice as well and, later, getting a card that can push the 144Hz refresh rate will be a bonus.
Interestingly enough, as an argument against 1440p, I saw the Rog Swift monitor at a Chicago Micro Center. The monitor was running a test program of a mountain scene and it was running anywhere from 120 fps to the mid 70's I think. Very smooth. Powering it was a Mars card (dual GTX 760's) and the next week it was stuttering, running 70's to upper 20's. They had replaced the video card and put a GTX 970 in it! I would have thought the 70 would out perform the two 760s but it was nowhere near as powerful!
Anyway, I mostly game with the computer and BF4 is the one running most of the time. Any thoughts?

Personally for me, i'd hold out for something higher than 1080p or just not buy a G-Sync monitor yet. We are in a transitional period so this next gen of cards is likely to have 6-8gb cards shooting for 4k capable cards. While I think true smooth 4k is a bit of a ways away (3 yearsish) the first generation of hardware to support it is right around this next corner. if you get a higher res monitor you can always render at a lower res, if its the same aspect it will still look great. On top of that there are lots of "cheats" to make 1080p content look like they are upconverted to 4k with little performance hit.

Since monitors stick typically through 2 and sometimes 3 builds... id shoot for something that will stick around for a while longer than 1080p. Games like Star Citizen will support 4k and there are plenty of others coming out in the next year with supposed 4k support.

The arguement for it is that if its $450 and you have to have gsync now... that in about 4 years you could replace it with a 4k monitor when we are a few generations in and the displays are much cheaper for 4k, something like 350-400. You'd still be even and enjoy your gaming now and have a spare gaming monitor to show for it.. Im basing that off the fact that the Swift is a $800 monitor which is obsured to me. $400 is my max for a monitor and it better be amazing at that price.

$479 for 1080p? Yuck!

I've been gaming on the same 2560x1600 monitor for more than eight years now. I definitely would not recommend less than 2560x1440 for a new gaming monitor.

No thanks on the1440p gaming. I play FPS and games like BF4 demand way too much at resolutions above 1080p. Sorry, but you need $500 video cards to 1440p at any settings much over low and you need to upgrade every couple of years to run the games at Ultra settings. It is just not worth it to me.

Pville_Piper wrote:

No thanks on the1440p gaming. I play FPS and games like BF4 demand way too much at resolutions above 1080p. Sorry, but you need $500 video cards to 1440p at any settings much over low and you need to upgrade every couple of years to run the games at Ultra settings. It is just not worth it to me.

I use a GTX670 2GB and play BF4 at the same 2560x1600 resolution that JAE mentions above. I roll back a few settings and call it good; and I'd much rather have the extra resolution, which translates directly into view distance, than the extra eye candy, FWIW. I'm personally looking at the Acer 34" ultra-wide that was mentioned in a news post last week.

Pville_Piper wrote:

Interestingly enough, as an argument against 1440p, I saw the Rog Swift monitor at a Chicago Micro Center. The monitor was running a test program of a mountain scene and it was running anywhere from 120 fps to the mid 70's I think. Very smooth. Powering it was a Mars card (dual GTX 760's) and the next week it was stuttering, running 70's to upper 20's. They had replaced the video card and put a GTX 970 in it! I would have thought the 70 would out perform the two 760s but it was nowhere near as powerful!

Something is wrong here. If you look at the benchmarks from TR's GTX 960 review, the 970 is 150% to 200% as fast as the 760. Given the less than 2x scaling of SLI, a single 970 should beat two 760s most of the time. According to [H]ardOCP, a 970 does about 60FPS in BF4 at 1440p with ultra settings, HBAO and 4x MSAA, while a 760 gets about 59FPS at 1080p at the same settings.

Anyhow, you asked about that monitor. I have the 28" 4K version, and I'm overall pretty happy with it, but it does have some significant backlight bleed at the bottom of the screen and some minor uniformity problems (a white screen looks slightly blotchy). I wouldn't expect you'll get more than a year or two before you want to upgrade though. $200-$350 GPUs should be plenty for 1440p at ultra settings in 2016 (IMO a 970 is already plenty for 1440p, but YMMV). If none of that is a deterrent and you don't mind TN panels in general, I say go for it. Gsync is awesome.

Airmantharp wrote:

I use a GTX670 2GB and play BF4 at the same 2560x1600 resolution that JAE mentions above. I roll back a few settings and call it good; and I'd much rather have the extra resolution, which translates directly into view distance, than the extra eye candy, FWIW. I'm personally looking at the Acer 34" ultra-wide that was mentioned in a news post last week.

Higher resolution translates into more view distance?
Pretty sure it just means that the graphics have more cleaner edges, and picture looks more clear on the whole.
Unless its BF specific behavior, resolution shouldn't affect FOV.

That said, 1440p does look pretty nice. I had a 1920 * 1200 Apple Cinema Display before I got the Asus Rog Swift at 1440p, and while I never tried them side by side, the Rog does feel a lot better. I mean in terms of image quality. Still, if you don't want to be forced to use 1440p, maybe the 1080p is the way to go for you since you really do not want to game at non native resolutions.

Edit: I know enough people have said it already, but I really wanna emphasise that not all TN panels are bad. There are some good quality ones.
Even with the announcements about the recent IPS 144Hz Freesync monitors, I do not regret buying the Rog. Even as a TN, it really does look and feel nice.

Edit: resolution.

rahulahl wrote:

Higher resolution translates into more view distance?
Pretty sure it just means that the graphics have more cleaner edges, and picture looks more clear on the whole.
Unless its BF specific behavior, resolution shouldn't affect FOV.

It gives better detail in the distance. A tiny object that's only about 100 pixels (total, not per side) at 1080p will be about 200 pixels at 1440p.

Melvar wrote:

rahulahl wrote:

Higher resolution translates into more view distance?
Pretty sure it just means that the graphics have more cleaner edges, and picture looks more clear on the whole.
Unless its BF specific behavior, resolution shouldn't affect FOV.

It gives better detail in the distance. A tiny object that's only about 100 pixels (total, not per side) at 1080p will be about 200 pixels at 1440p.

Nailed it .

rahulahl wrote:

Edit: I know enough people have said it already, but I really wanna emphasise that not all TN panels are bad. There are some good quality ones.
Even with the announcements about the recent IPS 144Hz Freesync monitors, I do not regret buying the Rog. Even as a TN, it really does look and feel nice.

I use my HP 30" IPS side by side with actually crappy TN monitors; each has it's purpose, and a good TN would be more than acceptable for gaming and other daily driving tasks.

Unfortunately, as my signature implies, photography is my other hobby and I'm not interested in making compromises there .

I agree with what you say Welch. I do believe in 3 or maybe even less years mainstream video cards will capable of running 4k games at reasonable settings. And while you can render at lower settings it never looks as good and seems to mess with my eyes a bit (at least on any monitor I have had). But then BF4 messes with my eyes when I am away from it for too long (I work on the road a lot). Also, why would I buy an expensive 1440p monitor if I intend on running at 1080p? I have used the DSR mode but at low settings my GTX660 can run it at there isn't much benefit other than when we are in the pre-round mode in BF4 and it gets that stupid round disclaimer out of my direct view.

I'd rather have the fun of a better monitor for the next couple of years than to sit and wait for technology or prices to catch up. So for $310 out of my pocket for a 144Hz monitor with G-Synch I'll take my fun now, your mileage may vary. Heck, if you wait for something better/cheaper you never will buy because something better/cheaper is always around the corner if you just wait!

AirmanTharp I do see your point that the about photo processing, it is always important to have the proper tool. And on the 1440p resolution as well. My main problem right now seems to be lag related. Some players I just can't beat on any battle. It seems to be related to better equipment and faster refresh rates possibly. An the fact that I'm getting old... While I can't do anything about getting old, and I don't have the money to do both a monitor upgrade and GPU upgrade,m I can upgrade to a faster monitor and take that out of the equation. It will be interesting to see what difference it makes with G-Synch and a faster refresh rate. I can run nearly utla on my current system but the FPS is a but jumpy so I will interested in how well the G-synch handles the frame rate that runs from low 30's to high 70's in the nearly maxed out setting. I also intend on running medium/low setting and pumping the FPS to an average of 110 to see how that changes things.
I will post a "review" of the monitor when I get it up and running. I should be home either Thursday or Friday and the monitor will be there tomorrow. Can't wait to play with my new toy!

Just be aware that if you want to get full benifit out of 144Hz, you would want to setup the game so you get high FPS.
And if you have high FPS, GSync will barely make it look smoother. Personally at 144FPS, I cant tell when GSync is on.
You might be able to tell the difference, but its gonna be a small impact at higher FPS.

I am aware of that. My GTX 660 won't do 144Hz except maybe on the the lowest settings. I know I can average 110 FPS with no issues but I think that I have some mix of medium and low but I can't remember. It cracks me up when I see a review of a 1080p G-Synch monitor and they are running something like GTX 980... Which can run most any game at the highest settings at 144Hz (at 1080p) so whats the point?

Some people are addicted to having big numbers in front of their AA setting, and even a 980 can't maintain 60FPS (much less 144) all the time in every single game at 1080p maxed out with 8x MSAA.