ASUS ROG Strix XG27UCG 4K vs ASUS ROG Strix XG27UCS 4K vs AOC Q27G3XMN/BK Quad HD

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acb

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ASUS ROG Strix XG27UCG 4K Ultra HD 27" LED Gaming Monitor – Black (£350)

ASUS ROG Strix XG27UCS 4K Ultra HD 27" IPS LED Gaming Monitor - Dark Grey (£340)

AOC Q27G3XMN/BK Quad HD 27" VA Mini LED Gaming Monitor – Black (£250)


Not sure which to go for, am I dwelling too much on the higher Refresh rate (320Hz) on the £350 one.

Should I be more concerned about the VESA DisplayHDR 1000 from the 3rd and significantly cheaper one, compared to 400 from the other two?

The main types of games currently being played are the likes of Fortnite, Forza, Roblox, Minecraft, etc (users of various ages). As my boy gets older he will likely move to higher age rated games with more demanding visuals.

The computer is also used for video calls, watching movies and general computer use etc.

£350 is probably top end of budget, is there any sense on spending less on monitors and using a multi screen setup?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Computer spec listed below.

Thanks,
Andrew.
 
BlessedSquirrel

BlessedSquirrel

We love you Ukraine
Your GPU isn't powerful enough for 4k, so the only option is the AOC out of those.

As far as graphical fidelity goes, that AOC is the clear winner under around £500, it offers full HDR1000 which is unheard of at that kind of price, and that makes colours and the image pop. It's a SIGNIFICANT improvement over SDR which most monitors are

Refresh rate over about 120Hz isn't going to make any appreciable difference, be careful of the marketing hype that's out there

The time considerations with various refresh rates

A different take on monitor refresh rates (and the actual fact why 60hz to 144hz is the biggest jump and 144hz to 240hz not so much) When we talk about refresh rates, we talk about a frequency in which the monitor refreshes the image on screen every second. We refer to that as hertz (hz). So...
www.pcspecialist.co.uk www.pcspecialist.co.uk

BUT the AOC is more geared toward gamers who appreciate graphical fidelity over performance. So if the idea is to set graphics to lowest to boost framerates which simply increases available response times, then something with IPS or NanoLED / MicroLED may be a better alternative

There's a good summary here:


I woudln't suggest multi-monitor personally these days as we now have Ultrawide and Superwide which are quite widely supported in games.

You get standard 1440p: 2560 x 1440
You get Ultrawide: 3440 x 1440 (= 1.3 x 1440p on the horizontal)
And Superwide: 5120 x 1440 (= 2x 1440p on the horizontal)

You can get a decent Ultrawide IPS for around £350


Superwide panels are more like £800 upwards

hwc6bv015zm51.png
 
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acb

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BlessedSquirrel said:
Your GPU isn't powerful enough for 4k, so the only option is the AOC out of those.

As far as graphical fidelity goes, that AOC is the clear winner under around £500, it offers full HDR1000 which is unheard of at that kind of price, and that makes colours and the image pop. It's a SIGNIFICANT improvement over SDR which most monitors are

Refresh rate over about 120Hz isn't going to make any appreciable difference, be careful of the marketing hype that's out there

The time considerations with various refresh rates

A different take on monitor refresh rates (and the actual fact why 60hz to 144hz is the biggest jump and 144hz to 240hz not so much) When we talk about refresh rates, we talk about a frequency in which the monitor refreshes the image on screen every second. We refer to that as hertz (hz). So...
www.pcspecialist.co.uk www.pcspecialist.co.uk

BUT the AOC is more geared toward gamers who appreciate graphical fidelity over performance. So if the idea is to set graphics to lowest to boost framerates which simply increases available response times, then something with IPS or NanoLED / MicroLED may be a better alternative

There's a good summary here:


I woudln't suggest multi-monitor personally these days as we now have Ultrawide and Superwide which are quite widely supported in games.

You get standard 1440p: 2560 x 1440
You get Ultrawide: 3440 x 1440 (= 1.3 x 1440p on the horizontal)
And Superwide: 5120 x 1440 (= 2x 1440p on the horizontal)

View attachment 44644
Click to expand...
Thanks for your time, I will give the info a wee study and go from there.

Looks like I was perhaps going to waste a bit of money lol.

Also looks like i might need to read up on the graphical fidelity vs performance as that might explain some of the lagging my boy gets from one of his games (Jurassic World Evolution 2), I assumed he was just building too much into his game, but maybe its to do with the game/graphic settings.

Thanks again.
 
BlessedSquirrel

BlessedSquirrel

We love you Ukraine
acb said:
Thanks for your time, I will give the info a wee study and go from there.

Looks like I was perhaps going to waste a bit of money lol.

Also looks like i might need to read up on the graphical fidelity vs performance as that might explain some of the lagging my boy gets from one of his games (Jurassic World Evolution 2), I assumed he was just building too much into his game, but maybe its to do with the game/graphic settings.

Thanks again.
Click to expand...
I did edit the above to include a decent ultra wide option

When we say performance, that means stupidly high framerates above 144hz, does absolutely nothing to improve graphics, only increases response time potential by a few milliseconds, and only about 1% of human beings can actually gain anything from over about 120hz, its all explained in the links above.

Also worth looking at this

ULTRA GRAPHICS SETTINGS - DONT BELIEVE THE HYPE

Hi all Moving to PC Gaming requires some knowledge on adjusting graphical settings to get best performance, especially when on a more budget system, or with some games that aren't ported so well to PC and have rogue settings that can either be turned down or even disabled. For most games, if...
www.pcspecialist.co.uk www.pcspecialist.co.uk

And bear in mind if it’s an online game, poor performance will normally be due to latency due to the internet connection on that particular server rather than the game itself

Also people don't realise that FPS (frames per second) in game is the same thing as Hz, it's how many times the screen/picture refreshes per second. So your limit is always that of the monitor. You may well be putting out 500fps, but you're only displaying the max the monitor can achieve at any time. Modern monitors and graphics cards have a technology called VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) marketed as Gsync for NVidia and Freesync for AMD, but both will work on either hardware. That synchronises the GPU FPS with the screens Hz, so they're in sync, that way you eliminate things like screen tearing and don't unnecessarily over work the GPU for zero gains.

For the significant majority of gamers and games, you want between about 80 and 144FPS for a decent playable experience.
 
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acb

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BlessedSquirrel said:
I did edit the above to include a decent ultra wide option

When we say performance, that means stupidly high framerates above 144hz, does absolutely nothing to improve graphics, only increases response time potential by a few milliseconds, and only about 1% of human beings can actually gain anything from over about 120hz, its all explained in the links above.

Also worth looking at this

ULTRA GRAPHICS SETTINGS - DONT BELIEVE THE HYPE

Hi all Moving to PC Gaming requires some knowledge on adjusting graphical settings to get best performance, especially when on a more budget system, or with some games that aren't ported so well to PC and have rogue settings that can either be turned down or even disabled. For most games, if...
www.pcspecialist.co.uk www.pcspecialist.co.uk

And bear in mind if it’s an online game, poor performance will normally be due to latency due to the internet connection on that particular server rather than the game itself

Also people don't realise that FPS (frames per second) in game is the same thing as Hz, it's how many times the screen/picture refreshes per second. So your limit is always that of the monitor. You may well be putting out 500fps, but you're only displaying the max the monitor can achieve at any time. Modern monitors and graphics cards have a technology called VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) marketed as Gsync for NVidia and Freesync for AMD, but both will work on either hardware. That synchronises the GPU FPS with the screens Hz, so they're in sync, that way you eliminate things like screen tearing and don't unnecessarily over work the GPU for zero gains.

For the significant majority of gamers and games, you want between about 80 and 144FPS for a decent playable experience.
Click to expand...
Thanks for all the info, I went with the MSI monitor, would you happen to have a recommendation for using the monitors audio jack vs that of the onboard on the computer. Do you think the average person will notice any real difference in sound quality?

Computer sound card =
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
 
BlessedSquirrel

BlessedSquirrel

We love you Ukraine
acb said:
Thanks for all the info, I went with the MSI monitor, would you happen to have a recommendation for using the monitors audio jack vs that of the onboard on the computer. Do you think the average person will notice any real difference in sound quality?

Computer sound card =
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Click to expand...
Which specific monitor did you go for? Unusual for any decent gaming monitor to have speakers
 
BlessedSquirrel

BlessedSquirrel

We love you Ukraine
acb said:
Sorry, I wasn't specific enough lol. I meant connecting the speakers via the monitor's headphone jack vs the computer's ouptput jack.

Monitor is https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CPQ62RMF?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1

MSI MAG 401QR - 40 Inch UWQHD Esports Gaming Monitor​

Click to expand...
Man, congrats, for the budget that's a serious monitor!

Apologies, totally misunderstood you there.

It's a bit weird with audio, totally depends what you're looking for.

This is coming at it if you're looking for serious sound quality for music or something like that:

Any audio chain is simply about limiting loss from the source as best you can, all cables, and all components and especially any kind of conversion form digital to analogue and vice versa, results in some kind of loss.

Rule of thumb is, with any kind of route, including cabling, you want the absolute minimum you can get away with, so putting the speaker terminal from the motherboard and extending it all the way to the monitor isn't necessary and the extra cable adds more connectors (each time resulting in loss) plus additional cable length (the longer the cable the more the resistance for the signal to travel).

IN THEORY, the output direct from the motherboard to speakers will be higher quality. This is all hugely subjective because running off a PC soundcard isn't going to be that level of audio that's really going to be impacted that much by that level of loss anyway.

TLDR, totally up to you, personally I would run any speakers direct from the motherboard but I'm an audio snob. I personally have my PC connected by USB to a high res audio interface (intended for audio production, but useful for hifi as well), and then via 6.3mm jack to 2 x Phono into the amp.

Will say this also, if you are looking at really good quality for say movies or films, or looking at specialist speaker setups, then an external sound interface (different types depending on requirements) may be a better option. Happy to give some pointers if that's what you're interested in at any point.

Sorry, this is all probably totally irrelevant, but better to give the info and you not need it than the other way around, and I always love thinking about audio!
 
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acb

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BlessedSquirrel said:
Man, congrats, for the budget that's a serious monitor!

Apologies, totally misunderstood you there.

It's a bit weird with audio, totally depends what you're looking for.

This is coming at it if you're looking for serious sound quality for music or something like that:

Any audio chain is simply about limiting loss from the source as best you can, all cables, and all components and especially any kind of conversion form digital to analogue and vice versa, results in some kind of loss.

Rule of thumb is, with any kind of route, including cabling, you want the absolute minimum you can get away with, so putting the speaker terminal from the motherboard and extending it all the way to the monitor isn't necessary and the extra cable adds more connectors (each time resulting in loss) plus additional cable length (the longer the cable the more the resistance for the signal to travel).

IN THEORY, the output direct from the motherboard to speakers will be higher quality. This is all hugely subjective because running off a PC soundcard isn't going to be that level of audio that's really going to be impacted that much by that level of loss anyway.

TLDR, totally up to you, personally I would run any speakers direct from the motherboard but I'm an audio snob. I personally have my PC connected by USB to a high res audio interface (intended for audio production, but useful for hifi as well), and then via 6.3mm jack to 2 x Phono into the amp.

Will say this also, if you are looking at really good quality for say movies or films, or looking at specialist speaker setups, then an external sound interface (different types depending on requirements) may be a better option. Happy to give some pointers if that's what you're interested in at any point.

Sorry, this is all probably totally irrelevant, but better to give the info and you not need it than the other way around, and I always love thinking about audio!
Click to expand...
Cheers for that, I'm not using high quality speakers, just Bose Soundtouch20 so i'll just plug into the PC direct.
 
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