Well... last night I was writing about how I had finally picked up a monitor upgrade. This nice little warhorse, Samsung C24FG73... it's an older type of monitor... but still popular due to the great niche that it occupies. It's affordable (at around 199 euros), has a high refresh rate (144Hz), great colour/brightness and contrast (VA technology and Quantum Dot, I hate marketers hijacking science names...).
The resolution does cater for those of us who haven't upgraded their graphics cards recently... I'm on a GTX 1060, which is good enough for pushing out maxed or near maxed out graphics in games at 1080p. 1440p would be the next step up... but would be difficult to power with the GTX 1060. 4K at 144Hz would slaughter every card on the market at the moment!
The size is 24 inches (diagonal) which turns out to be a good fit for the resolution (1080p)... any larger and the resolution density becomes too noticeable. I was eyeing off the larger 27 inch model... but in hindsight, I am very happy that I didn't get that one!
So, the usual electronics unpacking... hoping that the delivery guy didn't get too enthusiastic at any point in time and shook anything loose! I hate this white foam packing... I wish there was something else that could be used... bad for the environment (ha ha... says the consumer who just bought a new monitor...) and most annoying when bits break off it to infect various corners of your household!
Some pretty solid feeling stands and wall mounts. Metal and well manufactured plastic and feeling quite sturdy. I'm pretty happy about this this... although, there isn't anything wrong with plastic stands at this price point, the quality of detail and construction at the moment is pretty impressive!
All the requisite cables (power, HDMI, DisplayPort) are present and accounted for. Again, it is a nice touch... there is nothing more annoying than a manufacturer skimping a few dollars here and there by not including the cabling. Of course, at this price point... it wouldn't be surprising if they chose to do that... but you get more kudos for being generous!
So, the assembled screen... I didn't use the wall mount. To be honest, I would hate to have a monitor locked into a particular position on the wall. It seems so inflexible! Plus, a curved screen would look weird on a flat wall?
My wife came in at this point and told me that I had better clean up the attic today!
Removing the old monitor... yeah... probably should take the opportunity to mop up the dust and all of that... after all, dust is not a friend of electronics! I should do this more often....
There is more screen real estate compared to the older monitor (21.7 vs 24 inches). Which does make it better for the non-gaming productivity... and the stand is a better fit for the mess on my desk... it has a thinner but wider footprint. But the legs let me fit more stuff around the monitor.
The adjustable pitch, yaw and height of the monitor is a giant plus. Again, it isn't a guaranteed feature at this price point... but the fact that is there means that I can really have a better ergonomic set up for gaming. Sitting properly!
Colour and contrast is pretty damn nice... as expected... and the brightness is much better than my old monitor. The VA technology is really knocking the socks off the older TN panel... well, Samsung is really a leader in panel tech, plus that old TN panel was an iteration that was about 8 years old!
Here you start to see the pixel density reaching it's acceptable limit with the 1080p/24 inch pairing. 27 inches would definitely look much less good. For the next upgrade, a larger panel would definitely require a minimum of 1440p... which would require a GPU upgrade. No problem, at that time... the mid range GPUs should easily chew up 1440p at 144Hz and max settings! Get on it Nvidia!
Last task is to enable the FreeSync on the monitor... FreeSync is AMD's open variable framerate technology, and it is now supported by Nvidia cards and drivers from Pascal onwards (10XX series)... of which my card is one of the first variants of. Nvidia has it's own proprietary technology called GSync... but it is quite a good deal more expensive as it requires an extra module in the monitor.
The idea of this technology is to smooth out the frame rates in high refresh monitors. If your GPU isn't constantly hitting 144Hz, then the pictures can tear as various frames get rendered faster and slower... and it will honestly look crap! So, FreeSync (and GSync) will alter the refresh rate of the monitor dynamically with the GPU output.... creating a much smoother experience (when it works!).
.... of course, you have to remember to also enable it in the Nvidia settings (GPU) as well... which I forgot... and then had trouble with. A fresh driver install (and reboot... always reboot...) made the options from the monitor visible to the Nvidia GPU control panel.
What can I say?!?!??... I'm a very happy camper! Fast refresh with variable frame rates to limit tearing... Punchier colours and contrast... much brighter screen for daytime usage... larger screen real-estate... I'm completely happy... now I want a better GPU (2 years...)... and a 1440p, 144Hz, 27 inch screen (4 years..).
Have you heard of Humble Bundle? It's a place to get some really great deals on Games, e-books and comic bundles. However, if you sign up for a Humble Bundle Subscription (12 USD per month) you get some really nice bonuses!
Humble Bundle Subscriptions, it's a no brainer for the dedicated gamer!
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