So... I had a bit of a personal "tragedy" and as usual my family wants to step up again and help me "rebuild".

I know absolutely nothing about 4K monitors (really don't know anything about any other monitors either). I hear terms like IPS, LED-backlit, LED, Free synch, TN, Refresh Rate, Hertz, tearing..... and understand almost nothing about they mean.

So, I'll ask my question like this. Let's say you do know what all of those terms mean. And you're almost sole purpose is GAMING. You may watch a streaming movie occasionally, but this is almost 100% for use GAMING, including the top new AAA titles. And you just want the best possible experience you can get (you don't want "tearing" even if you don't know what it isLOL) And let's say you had a budget of $1,500.00 just for a monitor. Let's further say you have a rig with an awesome Intel CPU and TWO, count 'em TWO, 1080ti's running in SLI mode.

From the USian Amazon or Newegg site which monitor would you buy?

EDIT: I'm not sure about any of the "details" I listed above at the moment, so if I pick one that someone recommends it may not be "exactly" up to the specs I listed above because... as I said,, those are "what if" specs and any actual new rig I may or may not get may... or may not... live up to them. But if I settle on one to buy as a result of your recommendation, you choose any of the Bethesda games on sale this weekend and I'll gift it to you.

There are 3 types of LCD monitors - TN, IPS & VA, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.

Basically:

TN - fastest (high refresh rate and short response time, 1ms typical) and most efficient (low power consumption)
- worst colour accuracy and poor viewing angles, lowest contrast (1:800 typical)

IPS - best colour accuracy and viewing angles
- not as fast as TN (5ms typical - with overdrive), higher power consumption, mediocre contrast (1:1000 typical). IPS glow

VA - best contrast (1:3000 typical), good colours, viewing angles (although not as good as IPS)
- ghosting, black crush

So I would say for gaming good IPS is probably the best option, TN only if you're a pro gamer.

Okay, thank you.

BTW, for other readers, I said above something about "from the USian Amazon or Newegg" website because there is another 4K monitor question active on here and a link to monitor that looks cool... but when I search for in on "my" amazon... I get nothing. So I'm guessing there must be stuff that is available on other Amazon's but I wouldn't be able to purchase. That's the only reason I made that qualification. It does me no good to be recommended a monitor on a European (or other) Amazon that I simply can't order.

Probably this Asus ROG SWIFT PG27UQ, but I can't find it on Amazon or Newegg. Apparently you won't find it anywhere until 2018. I don't see other 4k monitors with a refresh rate above the standard 60 Hz.

My advice is to settle for a 2k (2560 x 1440) monitor, if you want high refresh rates, there are plenty of options here. Or stick with 60 Hz for 4k.

You didn't tell what size do you want. I find anything above 27inch way too big, because I don't game from couch.

Edit:
Standard 60 hz.

Oh yeah, you're right!!! I forgot to mention size.

I'm looking for a 27 to 32 (inclusive) inch monitor... not sure what that translates to in metrics though. (NOTE: I have begun over the past two years having serious eye problems (dry eye) that has resulted in having plugs implanted to stop drainage, taking drops 6 to 8 times a day, and still suffering blurry vision... especially in the winter. Last winter I had so much trouble seeing on my 27 inch monitor that I got a 32 inch one to replace it (not 4k, a real cheap one) but I could see better, so at this point I'm probably leaning toward bigger just for my ability to see.

I just thought of something. If someone wanted to post from another country's amazon or newegg they could do so and then I could at least try to see if it's available here on mine. Like I said in the above post, the one example I found in that other thread is simply unavailable to me. I've searched for that monitor diligently and it's just not available here. EDIT: Well, I should say I suck at searches so I suppose it's possible it's available here and I'm just not finding it.

Acer Predator 32 inch. Amazon
Newegg

ASUS ROG SWIFT PG27AQ 27".

AOC Agon AG271UG 27-Inch.

As far as Hz goes (I guess that's refresh rate, right?) I bought a monitor once a few years ago that said it had a refresh rate of 144 Hz (IIRC) but I could never get that option to show up when I went into Nvidia control and tried to change it. The highest rate available was 60Hz. I was told (here I'm sure) that the reason was I was using an HDMI cable and that HDMI can only go at 60Hz for full HD (1920X1080). So if that's an issue with any monitor that anyone recommends, in other words if you recommend a monitor that needs a specific cable, could you let me know that too so i can get the right one this time?

Hey copy cat :o)
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/advice_on_4k_monitors

It's a good topic though as 4K seems to be the in thing nowadays. I am struggling between another of what I have or a 4K one. I just do t really understand it all. People say the colour matching is better n one monitor than another for instance, how do you know? I remember going up the resolutions, and the noticeable differences with everything being smaller and better focus (e.g going from 640*480 to a large 760*xyz - can't remember exactly, and then up to the he res I have now. That being said, for the cost of some of these monitors I could buy two more of what I have got so it's difficult.

Yes, and you need a DisplayPort cable. Read here for more info, and to cite that article "Before getting a 4K display, do your homework." :P
Don't rush buying something now, learn what these technologies and terms mean, then you'll see what suits you best. Myself I would never buy a TN panel. I had one once and the colours were terrible compared with the IPS panel from my laptop.

I have been looking at the 4K screens myself. Someone else may correct me on this, but here is where my knowledge stands:
4K hold the amount of pixels of 4 1080 screens, which are the "standard" screen size for the past... many years. If you are thinking about buying one, please pay attention to the cables you can use to connect to your graphic cards. Your budget can get you two nice 4K screens.

Now the jargon:
TN and IPS refer to the technology that drives the screen itself. TN provides a faster refresh rate which may be more relevant to fast action games. IPS is much slower (by 3 times or more), but seems to benefit of larger viewing angles and color. They are measured in the time it takes for a pixel to change color (response time), usually in the ms (millisecond) range. A lower number means that your screen lags less.

Refresh rate means the number of times that your screen is able to update the image in a second. It is measures in hertz (Hz), which means (number of cycles per second. Your CPU is measures in millions of hertz per second [MHz]). In practice, I suppose that you will never be able to get a greater number of frames per second that the refresh rate can provide. This should be affected by the response time (see above).

Now, imagine that your screen starts drawing one frame, and half way through it starts getting another image. You would get the top of one frame and the bottom of the next one. If this keeps happening you would notice a line in the middle of your screen, and it gets annoying (and disconcerting) very quickly. This is what is called tearing as it makes it look like the image is ripped in the middle.
Programmers have been using many tricks to solve this, but now there is some hardware method to solve it and should not incur a performance penalty. When the screen is about to refresh, it sends a signal to the graphic card that sends it the data for the next frame available, and then will wait before sending the next one. No more mix-ups, the screen and the graphic card are synchronized.
NVidia calls it G-Sync and charges a lot of mony for it. ATI created a similar solution and does not charge for it, calling it FreeSync. It should be nice to have. Go for a screen that supports G-Sync if you can.

The image emitted by the screens can be created using a number of technology. The image is usually drawn on a transparent surface but it is hard to see. Like transparent sheets, slides or x-rays, if you shine a strong light behind then all colors and contrasts pop up. More modern screens use LEDs instead of the older bulbs of... 20 years ago? That is the LED-backlight you mention. Some screens do not need the extra back light and can provide all the light using only the LEDs that produce the pixels. You can imagine that one LED is just a very tiny light bulb. The size of this lamp is called the dot pitch. If you know the screen resolution (the number of pixels) and the size of the display, then you can calulate the dot pitch. The smaller the dot pitch, the smaller the pixels, the smaller the image.

Another confusing thing is called the color space. Adobe RGB, sRGB... Imagine those as extra colors that the screen is capable of producing. So, if the snow is white, sunlight shining on the snow is extra white. Programmers can generate this super white without having to use gray to simulate the "less whiter". sRGB is more similar to traditional RGB but is more wasteful than Adobe RGB.
This is related with the HDR (High-Definition Range).

[Contrast ratio] should measure the difference between the brightest and the darkest pixel the screen can produce. I think they are a bit meaningless nowadays. Most screens should provide adequate performance in this regard.

Cables... DVI, HDMI, Display Port.... I think that the Display Port may provide a better refresh rate (120 Hz in 1.4 vs the 60Hz of HDMI 2.0 at 4K resolutions) along with other benefits such as a wider color space support — no use in paying for the nice things and not being able to make us of them due to the cable.

Based on this, you should be able to make a good choice on your own. Even if I think that you do not need to compromise based on your budget. However, you may want to think what really matters to you. Update speed, screen size, color accuracy, cost, design, extra features...? I think you will feel better with your purchase if you pick it up yourself.

I hope I may have been of help. Good luck on your acquisition. And please, let me know your thoughts on it.

Hm if i had a budget like that and if i was mainly interested in gaming id probably get something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Predator-UltraWide-Widescreen-X34/dp/B06ZZDYVQM/ref=pd_cp_147_3?_encoding=UTF8&refRID=Z8GD7RKY7RFCHETP4FNK&th=1

Cant see the appeal of curved screens for TVs since it doesn't really make sense when watching from further away, but a computer screen is something different. Must be nice to sit in front of it without any bezels in view.


...but if eye strain/small screen size is a problem why not game on a TV instead?

If you buy 4K now then you are paying top dollar for a bad to mediocre refresh rate.

Plus, any 4K monitor that you can buy now is going to be made obsolete in the next ~12-16 months when 4K monitors with 144Hz refresh rates come out.

So buying 4K right now is not the best value IMO. A lower resolution at a higher refresh rate will give you a better value for your dollar than 4K at the moment.

Buying a new monitor is a very stressful experience. If you want the best CPU or GPU you can just look at the benchmarks, the higher the number the better, simple. But monitors... every one has flaws, there is no such thing as a perfect monitor. For example I'm happy with my monitor, until I enter a dark area in a game and then I remember how terrible the black levels are.

For what it's worth, the exact same screen (from a technical standpoint) may very well be available in 'our' Amazon, but with a different SKU. They gotta differentiate not just the monitor but also the stuff in the package, such as the power cord, manuals, blah blah. Thus, different SKU and model number.

Hell, here in the States you'll sometimes see different model and SKU numbers for the same product just by going to a different store. All specs match, but here's Best Buy's version and here's WalMart's version and here's the generic-but-identical everyone-else version.

But I see what you mean.

Good luck with your search. Let us know how it turns out.