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So in the waning ours of our 'Murica celebration, I find myself eager to spend some cash. I recently took a new job that I couldn't be more in love with that not only offers a significant upgrade (read: lifestyle change) in the financial department, but also in the career department. My only regret is not jumping ship from my old job sooner.

Anywho - I find myself at a strange crossroads. I still consider myself a gamer at heart, but lately I haven't finished a single damn game I've purchased - be it AAA titles or indie nickle-and-dimes. I play league of legends impulsively and guild wars 2 occasionally, but nothing really holds my attention. Maybe I'm growing out of it... I didn't buy a single steam summer sale game. Nothing.

That said, the G-sync monitors in the 28" range are calling to me. I'm not sure I want to spend 800 on a monitor, but a 4K monitor with gysnc is probably about as future proof as it gets. The only problem then, is I'd most likely need to upgrade my video card to something that can push the pixels to that beast. That said, my current graphics card is not old at all, and would probably still fetch a reasonable resale price in the bargain basement, leaving me to probably splurge on an upgrade to a 980 unless something with better price:perfromance ratio comes out. Another factor is that my desktop is my sole means of entertain electronically. I have no wants to buy a large screen tv ever.

For the non-gamer professional in me, the larger screen space would be nice for programming (I use VS2013 most of the time) and utilizing other apps I use in my day to day dealings. I've also been dabbling in Unity and I can definitely see a huge screen being used there effectively.

Currently I'm using Win7 pro 64bit, I have 2 non-matching monitors. Will I have issues running 3 displays for-non gaming modes? I was never a fan of the multi-monitor gaming stuff, I think one honking display is plenty when it's ~2' from my eyesballs.

I've also heard tale that with larger display formats, it's often not necessary to turn up the eyecandy as much. I'd love to hear feedback as to any tales of woe, regret, or endorsements for any G-sync monitors at or around the 27/28" range.

So what say you ladies and gents or large displays and the cards to utilize them?

The one I am eyeing up is this one :http://www.amazon.com/PG278Q-27-Inch-Screen-LED-Lit-Monitor/dp/B00MSOND8C/

this one isn't bad, but the refresh rate isn't as good as the ROC above.
http://www.amazon.com/Acer-XB280HK-bprz ... c+monitors

Lastly, if I do buy this beast, will my 760gtx be able to run it moderately well enough or will it be brought to it's knees in even the most casual of games?

Having just gone from a GTX 660 (only marginally slower than your 760) to a GTX 970 on a rather basic 27" 1920x1200 display, I would say you should definitely upgrade your GPU if you end up with a high resolution or high refresh display.

I don't play a lot of bleeding edge games, but Project Cars with all settings maxed at 1920x1200 runs beautifully... until I enable high levels of downsampling AA. Playing races in the rain with DS6x makes it crawl at under 30fps (or at least it feels that way). I imagine that many other AAA titles these days are probably in the same boat, and often much worse. Running at a higher resolution will make it even harder to crank the settings up. My 660 is a fantastic card and is being used in another system I own, but there's no way it could have handled these kinds of graphics settings.

$738 for a 27" 2560x1440 TN LCD monitor is more than I could stomach. Monitors with variable refresh that use superior LCD panel technologies are starting to appear on the market. Are you using 3D Vision shutter glasses now?

steelcity_ballin wrote:

Will I have issues running 3 displays for non-gaming modes?

There is no reason that you should. The Windows desktop handles multiple monitors gracefully.

steelcity_ballin wrote:

To splurge on an upgrade to a 980 unless something with better price:perfromance ratio comes out.

$535ish GeForce GTX980 does not have an appealing price:performance ratio at all. There are plenty of graphics cards already available that have a better price:performance ratio.

$325 GeForce GTX970, $280 Radeon R9-290 and $310 Radeon R9-290X provide only slightly less performance for much less money, making them much better values in terms of bang for the buck.

If you really wanted to splurge on the last of the 28 nm GPUs for 2560x1440 gaming at high refresh rates, you would spend $670ish or $650ish.

Save your money. Now is the worst time in years to buy a monitor, TV, CPU or GPU.

+1 on Blackdove.

The next generation of both monitors and GPUs hold high hopes for huge improvements. Fast refresh rates, adaptive sync and OLED for monitors, and 16nm plus whatever newfangled memory they put on GPUs.

But if you really must part with your money and you're considering a 980, then might as well spend less and get the 970, or more and get the 980Ti. The 980 IMO isn't very good value because the 970 is almost as fast for significantly less, and the 980Ti is much faster for a little bit more.

It is well established that glorious pirates and aventurers prefer the 16:10 format, especially if IDEs are involved. Unfortuantely a good 2560x1600 display costs a lot more than $800...

On the plus side, a $1400 Ultrasharp would probably count as a family heirloom. I wouldn't put too much stock in Gsync whatever you decide, it's an unproven technology trying to take hold in a place where the majority of potential users already have a really nice monitor (because "buy good stuff and use it for 10 years" has been standard advice for a long time).

All in all, I agree with BlackDove at leat on the monitor part. 4K isn't ready for primetime, 16:10 options are atrocious, adaptive sync is a false prophet and anything more than 1440p requires making at least on compromise you'll regret later.

On the plus side, a $1400 Ultrasharp would probably count as a family heirloom. I wouldn't put too much stock in Gsync whatever you decide, it's an unproven technology trying to take hold in a place where the majority of potential users already have a really nice monitor (because "buy good stuff and use it for 10 years" has been standard advice for a long time).

I have one, it is nice. I got mine from Newegg for ~$1000 when they had a discount on them. And NovusBogus is right, a good display will last much longer then the rest of the computer will.

All in all, I agree with BlackDove at leat on the monitor part. 4K isn't ready for primetime, 16:10 options are atrocious, adaptive sync is a false prophet and anything more than 1440p requires making at least on compromise you'll regret later.

I would wait a few more years before jumping into 4K myself.