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I need some input on what monitor to pair with the RX 480 I'm going to be buying this Black Friday.  What I'm looking for:
1.  Freesync support
2.  Max refresh rate exceeding 60Hz (not a necessity, but certainly nice to have)
3.  Cheap (Canadian peso making everything pricey these days, plan to upgrade to 2K or 4K in a year or two when hopefully prices come down, more selection, and better quality control compared to today's offerings)
4.  Preference for non-TN, though I gather some TNs are looking better today - I could potentially be convinced to go TN again.

After extensive searches I've narrowed it down to two monitors:
1.  LG 24MP68VQ-P 1080p Freesync 40-75Hz IPS $199 CAD
2.  LG 29UM68-P 21:9 2560 x 1080p Freesync 48-75Hz IPS $425 CAD

At this point I'm leaning towards the first one - the extra real estate of the 29UM68-P just doesn't seem worth it.  Only issue is the 24MP68VQ-P seems pretty new, and there are very few reviews out there.  Seems like an outstanding deal for the price, though.  Also Freesync is via HDMI, but I don't think that matters.

Anything else I should be looking at?

BTW, coming from an r9 270 with 24" 1080p TN panel.

If possible, choose a monitor with a FreeSync frequency range of 2.5X or more (either from the factory or overclockable).  This allows use of LFC.

http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/so ... freesync#5

$338 Canada.

29" IPS, Curved 2560x1080, Freesync range 40-75 Hz from Display-port only (..and you might be able to further widen that refresh rate).

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/LG-29UC88-29-Inc ... 1920343415

http://www.lg.com/global/business/monit ... g-29UC88-B

I've used the 29UM68 for a couple of weeks, it's a decent monitor and it overclocks enough to run LFC (30-80 is what the controller seems to deal with).

Corner glow on the ultrawide is a bit of a pain in dark films and games; The extra width means the corners are really very off-angle to you and the best option is to turn the lights way up and also crank up the brightness.

Another option - similar price to the 29UM68 over in Europe at least - is the Acer XZ271, which is a Freesync, 144Hz 27" 1920x1080 curved AMVA. Absolutely fantastic as long as you're using it for gaming and aren't going to moan about the low dpi. Assuming it's a sensible price over in Canada, then it's a lot of monitor for the money (and it's what I'm personally using with my RX 480).

Thanks for the feedback, everyone.

That 480 for $180:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 00524&SID=

I plan on going with the 21:9 LG. I rarely game anymore, I don't generally enjoy poorly lit movies, I look forward to the full theater aspect ratio, and having been in my early twenties in the early seventies I don't mind a little purple haze.

To be honest with you (experience with so many screens of varying types because of my day job) the only real way to get a "perfect" viewing experience is going to be OLED and that is almost certainly outside of the price range of 99.9% of people, even if you ignore the subpixel burn-out that still happens with the blue OLEDs.

The best defence against TN image quality issues is to use a high-quality panel and keep the vertical viewing angle narrow - either a small screen close to you or a larger screen at a greater distance.

The best defence against IPS corner glow is to drown it out with lots of ambient lighting and crank up your brightness to compensate. This somewhat compensates for the glow and high black levels of IPS.

MVA is a mixed bag - Some of the slower panels from 2014 and 2015 have fantastic viewing angles, colour stability, contrast levels and deep black levels but they're too slow for gaming and generally never faster than 60Hz. The newer ones used in high-refresh gaming montors suffer from the older pre-2014 VA problem of yellowing when viewed horizontally off-angle. If you get a curved gaming VA (<2000R at least) you get all the advantages without the horizontal angle issue.

TL;DR

• Don't buy cheap TN or large TN
• IPS is best suited to well-lit rooms and daytime use
• Check for horizontal colour shift with VA or get a curved panel.

Picked up that MSI RX 480 4GB for $289.99 CAD (with mail in rebate, approx $215 US) + Civ VI game code (currently going for $72 CAD on Steam Black Friday sale).  Very pleased with that deal - hopefully I can overclock the VRAM to 8+ GHz without any trouble.   

Does anyone know the meaning of the "-P" suffix to the LG 24MP68VQ-P?  I'm seeing the monitor listed as the "24MP68VQ-P" and just the "24MP68VQ" at different places.  I want to to buy the latter as I can get a better deal, but can't tell whether it's the same monitor or not.  The specs look the same, and when I search for "24MP68VQ-P" on LG's website I turn up the user manual for the "24MP68VQ".  All I got from LG Canada was "we only sell the 24MP68VQ-P in Canada", which wasn't at all helpful considering I've seen the 24MP68VQ listed at Canadian retailers.

Potentially it mean PAL instead of NTSC for the HDMI inputs but honestly it's been so long since that was an issue I wouldn't even worry about it.

If it makes any difference, the European LG models I've bought often have a -P on the end despite that not being listed on the product pages.

Chrispy_ wrote:

Potentially it mean PAL instead of NTSC for the HDMI inputs but honestly it's been so long since that was an issue I wouldn't even worry about it.

If it makes any difference, the European LG models I've bought often have a -P on the end despite that not being listed on the product pages.

Thanks @Chrispy_.
I'm playing it safe and going with the one with the -P suffix even though it's a few bucks more.
The FreeSync range is only 40-75 on this monitor, but with the RX 480 I don't expect to go below 40 much if at all for the foreseeable future so I don't think I'll need LFC.  I may tinker with it to see if I can increase the FreeSync range.  I've seen posts detailing success at increasing the range with other LG models in this same price range, so we'll see.  Something like 30-75 or 32-80 would be nice.  

You'll be able to run LFC on that, even if the monitor doesn't overclock, that model will run down at 30Hz anyway, and 30-75 is a 2.5x range as required for LFC.

The one I bought (with a -P) ran at 30-80Hz with the CRU utility, no problems. It would probably go lower but why bother? 30Hz was enough to enable LFC and that means you don't need to go lower. 29Hz, for example, is two 58Hz frames using LFC; Once you have LFC enabled it's basically 0-75Hz or 0-80Hz freesync window.

So this monitor supports FLC out of the box?