27" Monitor Purchase

[docbrown]

Hi Guys,

I hope you can help as I am finding it difficult to decide on which 27" monitor to purchase.

My budget is around £200 and the main purpose for the monitor will be gaming.

I currently have an old 24" Samsung T240HD and my GFX card is an older Radeon R9 280.

I am ideally looking for a 75hz monitor with freesync. Even though I cannot use freesync with the R9 280 I feel the 75hz would be a slight benefit over a 60hz monitor and would also give me the option of freesync should I upgrade in the future.

I am also not sure whether to keep it simple and stick to a 1080 monitor or take a step up to QHD.
My main concern with going QHD would be a potential FPS drop in games as the R9 280 is rather old now.

I am guessing that with a £200 budget that a TN panel may give the best bang for buck?

My short list currently is:

Acer Nitro VG270
AOC 27V2Q (lovely looking frame less monitor but not sure if its a bit trashy for gaming?)
Iiyama G-Master G2730HSU-B1

Thank you in advance for any help or insight that you can provide

[kalniel]

Are you sure you want 27" and 1080p? The pixel size will be quite large, which is fine if you sit a distance away, but could be annoying if you're close.

If you want to stay 1080p for performance reasons then maybe go for 24". The VA based AOC C24G1 has very good reviews, 144hz freesync and better colour/blacks than a TN, and is about £190.

On the otherhand if you do want 27" then I'd be looking at QHD, which might also necessitate a new GPU for demanding games.

What type of games do you play?

[docbrown]

Are you sure you want 27" and 1080p? The pixel size will be quite large, which is fine if you sit a distance away, but could be annoying if you're close.

If you want to stay 1080p for performance reasons then maybe go for 24". The VA based AOC C24G1 has very good reviews, 144hz freesync and better colour/blacks than a TN, and is about £190.

On the otherhand if you do want 27" then I'd be looking at QHD, which might also necessitate a new GPU for demanding games.

What type of games do you play?

Firstly, thank you for the advice, you raise a very good point with regards to pixel size as I would indeed be sitting rather close.

I currently play Paladins and Team Fortress 2 so not massively demanding, so I think I may get away with a 27" QHD without a massive decrease in FPS.

[Noxious89123]

If you did want to go to a 1440p monitor, you could consider playing games in 720p. It should upscale onto a QHD monitor better than 1080p.

[Millennium]

If you did want to go to a 1440p monitor, you could consider playing games in 720p. It should upscale onto a QHD monitor better than 1080p.

This is a good point but I've found when you are playing around with 3.5 million pixels it doesn't matter too much. 1080p scales pretty well too (might blur a tiny bit).

[Dashers]

Can't help you with a monitor choice, but there are a few review sites out there that go really into depth on a lot of monitors, you should be able to find a good choice in there. 27" is a popular size, so there won't be reviews for all of them, so you might get lucky.

TN panels suffer from poor viewing angles and colours. Colour doesn't matter if you're just playing games, but viewing angles can be a bit distracting, and becomes more of an issue the bigger the screen.

IMHO 27" is too big for shooters like TF2, you need to look around the screen too much (assuming you're playing on a desk). 23" keeps everything in a good area of your vision, which makes movement easier to spot.

[Ttaskmaster]

Well, I have an Acer Predator XB270HU - 27" IPS 2560x1440p 144Hz 4ms 2xUSB3.0 and GSync, which cost me £280, as I recall.
Not sure if that will work with an AMD card, but that's the sort of spec you should be able to find, especially if you're happy going second hand - That way, you can find one without excessive backlight bleed, or anything.

[Inspy]

It is worth keeping an eye on hotukdeals for the below - I believe now it is out of stock but it might come back in stock again. It is £125.99 when I purchased it.

Lenovo (L28u-30) 28-inch IPS 4K UHD FreeSync Monitor - £239.99 (£215.99 w 10% off newsletter signup) @ Lenovo

However it can only support 4k @ 60hz, however the colour, and the quality of the screen is very good. Reviews are lacking.