Triples!!!

Finally I decided to go triples. Apart from Oculus Rift being always on the horizon like a constant thread, I needed an outlying view of what was happening at my sides. When you are racing with the top guys racing parallel lines comes to be essential. Nobody is going to let you pass easily and need to be careful and precise with your moves.

So, what options do have we in the market? Budget or splurge? 24 or 27?

Bigger the better, 27 inches seems enough to enjoy and get a perfect immersion. I was not planning to renew my graphic card, so 144Hz screens were out of my scope. Let’s take a look at some of the best thin framed 60Hz models.

Samsung S27D590P

Samsung S27D590P seems to be a more modern evolution of the S27D930H.

The Samsung S27D390H combines unique Samsung style with an equally attractive image performance. Its well-tuned AD-PLS (Advanced Plane-to-Line Switching) panel with light matte screen surface provides rich and vibrant colours that are accurately represented, accompanied by a PWM free (flicker-free) LED backlight to improve viewing comfort.

For gaming on either a console or PC this monitor also makes its mark. It comfortably performs as well as you will see any 60Hz LCD monitor perform with well-implemented grey to grey acceleration and very little input lag. This leaves the image free from unsightly overshoot or trailing and aids the responsive feeling of the monitor. Forget those supposed 1ms TN panels, at 60Hz this monitor gives you exactly the same if not better responsiveness in practice with far superior colour quality.

Benq EW2740L

The BenQ EW2740L is a slim-bezel monitor that provides exceptional contrast throughout the screen. It doesn’t suffer from any loss of detail near the screen edges due the sort of ‘glow’ seen on IPS/PLS/AHVA panels. The backlight uniformity tends to be very good when displaying black and dark colours, too, giving scenes good depth and atmosphere throughout. Colour reproduction is also good with strong contrast bringing out some really lush, bold and vibrant colours – but not in an oversaturated way. With its ‘Colour Shift-free’ technology, which is actually a characteristic of the ‘AMVA+’ panel, the consistency of these colours and therefore the variety of closely matched shades is strong. It can’t quite match IPS (or IPS-like) panels in this respect so wouldn’t make as good a candidate for colour critical work. For everything else, though, it gives a really nice viewing experience.

Responsiveness is excellent for a VA panel – but as is a characteristic of VA there is considerable variation in response times depending on the shades involved in the transitions. In layman’s terms – some response times are several times higher than ‘4ms’ and this can give some noticeable trailing. This doesn’t bother everybody, though and not everyone even notices this. We’ve actually recommended this monitor to some fairly serious PC gamers and they were surprised how decent they found it for gaming. They didn’t notice anything that would put them off their gaming and just loved the image it produced. Other attractive features include a flicker-free backlight and an excellent set of ‘Low Blue Light’ modes to reduce visual fatigue and aid a restful night’s sleep.

Both conclusions were extracted from pcmonitors.info and these screens seems to be very popular among gamers. Try to check them in the real life before buy.

Once you make your choice it is time to configure and fight with the graphic card, drivers and configurations. I will try to cover Eyefinity configuration basics of the AMD cards within the next weeks.

PS: Don’t forget you need a DP active also.