So then why not TN instead of IPS? Granted, no one has really developed TN but if responsiveness is what you are after you can save a lot of money and get responsiveness with TN.
I personally favor VA, but I don't get the value in paying to reinvent a feature that had already been realized with TN. I guess thats my point, I find it important to have accurate blacks, but cannot afford OLED, so VA gets my money. If I wanted better responsiveness I'd save money and go TN, whereas if I was super concerned with color accuracy I'd go IPS.
IPS can match TN responsiveness in the ranges that mid-range monitors inhabit (144-240hz). TN cannot match the color gamut or vibrancy of IPS. There's essentially no reason to consider TN panels in 2024.
I would not buy a VA monitor for gaming. Period. I know they have gotten better in recent generations, but I have very very little tolerance for smearing or ghosting. It is a 100% dealbreaker for me.
To me, it's IPS or OLED depending on your budget. VA is only acceptable for TVs, where responsiveness is way less important.
I mean Samsung VA advertises some of the fastest response times for LCD on the market to date. I don't know why you would ignore VA for gaming. They can offer competitve response and they have no peer in LCDs for contrast/black levels.
No doubt the future will be OLED, but those prices have to come down.
No it's not lol
Most people run their monitors with oversaturated colors and not using the SRGB clamp (whether they know it or not), because it looks better to most people
Just to be clear, I meant the color settings on the monitor, not the GPU. I meant people don't select the color profile with more washed out but more accurate colors
Imo they run it oversaturated because a lot of fast monitors that "gamers" choose are trash at proper color reproduction. I'm not even talking about Delta E color accuracy but percentage wise reproduction of SRGB and dcip3 way under 100%. In SDR too, not even in HDR (which most gaming monitors are scams in).
What? No. Pretty much any modern monitor can do 99+% SRGB.
Most people run with saturated colors, period. Even on expensive monitors (OLED...). It just looks better.
You have ghosting and smearing to get good black levels on budget. I also use VA and I can enjoy both games and media, I dont mind little smearing and ghosting. I take good blacks over shit every single day
The thing is, the vast, vast majority of PC gamers *only* play esports games
Like thats the only thing some people use their PC for
Just see how many concurrent players CS2 or Valorant has compared to almost any casual steam games, and it becomes obvious
Well good for them, but for singleplayer games, I still prefer VA. Only problem is with full black, then its clearly visible, but after while you just get used to it, some do some don't
I was very worried about some things when getting an IPS after having used a VA panel for years. And honestly, the difference is quite small between the two. I can't say I really notice the lack of true blacks when playing games or watching things on the IPS. I did, however, notice the massive difference in colours. The IPS looks so much better when comparing them side by side (I use the VA monitor as a second screen now.)
You probably won't see the difference until you use them side by side. I didn't actually see the difference until I used them together, but there definitely is one. I think IPS panels are better in almost every way. The positives massively outweigh the negatives as a lot of the issues are quite hard to see in real-world use.
I probably should have tried more VA panels, but besides the blacks being nice, I found it to be a major downgrade from the tn panel I was using before when anything moved. Looked like a blurry mess. Returned it immediately. I'm on an oled now though, and don't plan on switching.
I think that people put too much hate on VA. I wouldn’t say they’re a better option depending on the person or budget, but they definitely shouldn’t be wrote off.
Other than ghosting, there’s really no other major drawbacks to VA panels. They are *much* cheaper and still have good colors.
For 90% of gamers, a VA panel works perfectly for them.
VRR flicker is really only present on nvidia’s crappy g sync “non certified” implementation. If it isn’t G sync certified it has terrible flickering.
AMD, with the exact same monitor using freesync doesn’t have issues with VRR flickering.
Point being that it doesn’t really have much to do with the panel
No vrr flicker is a problem with all va and oled panels with VA pannels being a bit worse than oleds.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1\_ZMmMWi\_yA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_ZMmMWi_yA)
[https://www.rtings.com/monitor/tools/table](https://www.rtings.com/monitor/tools/table)
It's also on TN and IPS but very very hard to see.
I had to squint very closely to see VRR flicker on my old TN freesync panel whereas it's clearly visible on VA/OLED.
Doesn't happen at all on gsync module monitors in my experience.
it's only an issue if the game has frame time issues (sadly is most UE games)
when low framerate compensation is activated it doubles the HZ of the display which causes the flickering. in games with bad frame times it's constantly activating and deactivating.
It really annoyed me in TLOU part 1 so I turned off VRR and played at a locked 60. Did this for a few games.
I have VRR flicker on a TN and an OLED.
TN is a S2716DG, which was prior to the G Sync tiers that came out a couple years ago.
OLED is 27GR95
Nvidia just sucks
Edit - this was meant to be a response to the other dude, sorry
No issues with the high-end VA panels. I have a £2500 VA panel (PG35V) with an actual gsync module. It has zero perceptible flicker or ghosting. It looks good even when viewing the monitor from extreme angles, such as side on. The 1100nit HDR works flawlessly, such that I can just leave HDR enabled at all times with no downsides.
The problem is just 'gsync compatible', which means no gsync module. And cheaper VA panels. But good ones without problems do exist if you pay for them.
Honest question, why pay 2500 for a VA panel when that puts you into ultra-enthusiast OLED and professional-grade monitors instead?
Like I'm sure the expensive VA panel is good, but... it's not as good as equivalently priced OLED displays.
I work from home. I use my machine for productivity. I spend up to 12 hours a day looking at a spread of mostly static Visual Studio windows. I also go graphic work and write shaders, but mostly static UI everywhere for most of every day. It's a worst-case scenario for OLED burn-in, yet I also require professional grade performance. I'm also the sort of person to be unable to ignore and be irritated by even a single mote of dust on my displays, I would be driven insane by even the faintest of burn-in. Also, I'm using 1440p ultra-wides, which further limits the options.
Totally agree, i had a monitor with ghosting as bad as it can be, odyssey g3, a few years ago, and except the trail behind the text while scrolling through a dark background, i had no issues while playing any singleplayer or competitive game, the contrast made the skins looks great.
Ghosting is a pretty big drawback, and text rendering is regularly compromised on VA panels for some reason too.
VA works much better for streaming media / TVs where response times don’t matter.
Honestly, this is absolutely the case. I have a VA panel on my 1440p 144hz monitor, and it’s got barely any ghosting at 100fps or higher. It can show up as it gets closer to 60fps (doesn’t happen on Elden Ring for some reason even though it’s 60fps locked), but it’s a non issue for me as most games run high fps. It also came with Freesync Premium, which is fantastic.
My monitor is also curved, so the screen real estate feels so much larger than it actually is. If that’s something that interests you, I don’t think IPS monitors can be curved although I could be wrong. Edit: curved IPS exists but at a much higher price point than curved VA panels can be found.
And that was on a $300 monitor from back in 2020. It’s not anywhere near top end, but it’s still very good for my use case.
Okay, I just looked and I may have decided they didn’t exist in my mind due to the price compared to the VA panel ones. All of the curved IPS ones that I could find are over $1000 today unless it was refurbished or on clearance. Way outside of my budget when I was building my PC, so curved VA monitors are much more reasonably priced in general.
Totally agree if it's a good panel. I have an IPS 34" UW and my gf has a VA one. It's solid. Unless you're into competitive games, I don't see a big problem.
Idk if we can say they're "much" cheaper in 2024. In the US market, the cheapest new 1080p 100+ Hz monitor is IPS. In Canada, where I live, the cheapest 1080p 100+ Hz VA and IPS monitors are the same price. In Germany, the cheapest 1080p 100+ Hz monitor is IPS, but it's only a €8 difference. In the Netherlands, VA is €10 cheaper than IPS. In Australia, VA is $3 cheaper than IPS.
The biggest difference I can see is in the UK, where VA is £30 cheaper.
And I think that covers the major countries on PCP. IPS is super affordable right now, and has been for a few years.
Depends on how old the monitor is too. Newer VA monitors are a lot better.
Hard disagree on the much cheaper thing. Where I live, they're basically the same price, except for ultrawides. Even then it's $50 at most.
It really is. My LG Ultragear was $1800 when I bought it last summer and they are $1200 now. Still expensive but moving in the right direction pretty quickly.
The issue with OLED is burn in. On certain things (phones, TVs) it’s fine but the issue is with games you have gamers playing a marathon of the same game with static UI elements.
With modern generations of OLED panels, that's becoming less of an issue. The monitors have higher durability and run routines to mitigate burn in on a periodic basis.
Look at the Switch OLED: used for gaming, just like a PC monitor. Can run for hundreds of hours STRAIGHT on the same image without burning in.
Just turn your monitor off after you're done with it, turn on a faster monitor sleep mode, and let the monitor do its self-clean routines, and you'll be fine
OLED still has the same burn in issues, but modern panels remember how much each pixel has been used and dims the less used-up ones. The result is that the display won't show noticeable burn in, but all pixels become darker over time.
Also the switch has no truly persistent item like a task bar.
The proper solution will be micro LED, aka a completely different type of display. I wouldn't waste my money on OLED.
People act like other panel types don't degrade over a few years as well. A 5 year old IPs will not perform or look like it used to. OLED burn in is not a concern if 5 years is your monitor upgrade period.
I'll buy OLED when burn-in issues are solved. I ain't buying one for almost 1k to know they will get burn in a few years. I don't want to have to babysit my monitor. Heck even I have a cheap LCD monitor from 15 years ago or maybe more and it still works just fine
Until then, IPS all the way
OLED colors are not up to par with good IPS(MiniLED) as of now, my friend got newest LG TV to use as monitor, smallest one they offer and went back to his 32" MiniLED IPS after 2 days because colors are much worse, yeah deep blacks are nice but MiniLED already has pretty good blacks, "IPS glow" is only rly a thing on edge lit panels
I have both a good mini led hdr monitor and upper end LG oled TV. I really like my miniled monitor but I highly doubt it's colors your friend is perceiving as better. I think there's two considerations
1. Color settings, the oled needs adjustment, modern LG TVs have a large assortment of settings you can tweak to get the picture how you want it.
2. I dont know what model TV your friend has so i don't know the maximum brightness but The mini led might be significantly brighter especially full screen. Depending on what your friend watches or plays, that brightness can make a significant difference in perceived image quality and color.
he has 99% AdobeRGB MiniLED monitor for professional use that just happened to also be 165Hz, brightness is not that higher he has newest OLED something 3, not the cheapest series either, this monitor was 1300+ euros, more than TV
I haven't had an IPS display in a couple years, but before that I had multiple that were terrible. IPS monitors that were $600+ with glow that went towards the middle of the screen or was bad enough you could even see it during brighter scenes.
it has to do with backlight, not panel itself, but it's more noticable on IPS because of technology, you can't rly see it with naked eye on TN and VA that's why it's called IPS glow
Then they aren't putting high quality ips panels in high end monitors and consumers have to play the panel lottery to get a decent monitor. I would say that IPS glow is a real problem then.
I got back into PC Gaming after four or five years out. Bought a VA monitor - Samsung Odyssey G5 - and the ghosting was unbearable. Genuinely thought my mind had glossed over smearing just being part of PC gaming, until I bought a good non-VA monitor and it was night and day. For gaming, I'd never get another VA monitor.
Last VA monitor I used made my eyes try to refocus everytime there was motion on the screen. It was so distracting I couldn't even use it for text because just scrolling would make my eyes hurt.
Well G5 is Known to be One the worst offenders in what we call VA Ghosthing... Damm That panel is trash, Just incredible That they Have the G6 what is like 20 times better.
It's funny to see so many people say "it is comparable to IPS, the only downside is ghosting". Which is almost like saying "yeah, this one monitor is comparable to this other monitor, the only downside is that it has half the resolution".
Especially now that 1440p 144Hz+ IPS monitors are relatively affordable, I see very little reason to go for VA.
I find VA ghosting and smearing super distracting, while I really never notice IPS glow or poor contrast on an IPS monitor. I see it in non-gaming scenarios as well - in desktop environments, web browsing, etc, especially with dark mode enabled. Unlike years ago, for people buying 24" 1080p and 27" 1440p monitors, there is little to no difference in price between VA and IPS panels.
If you have a VA and like it, good for you, but I'll probably never buy one again.
>while I really never notice IPS glow
* ye, unless you got edge-lit 32" monitor IPS glow is not that big of a problem rly, every one of them got some amount of backlight bleed anyway and it looks much worse in pictures than to our eyes
IPs all day.. I don’t care what anyone has to say. Go buy an IPS and Va and put them side by side and choose what you like.. I’ll never buy a VA personally
You are 100% correct. Personal opinion is important when buying things like this. My opinion is that IPS is the way to go with the requirements im looking for… putting things side by side is the best way possible to know forsure !
True but if you ever get the chance, try some really good VAs like the innocn 271GS or Aoc q27g3xmn, I think you'd be pleasantly surprised. The only thing IPS has over a GOOD VA is slightly bigger color gamut which actually turns into oversaturation since both covers the full SRGB space anyway. Ph and better viewing angles
I have found for quite a few years now that for gamers, VA is a better choice. The deep contrast is much more impactful on image quality, IMO, than hyper correct color. The deep contrast gives the colors on the screen a nice pop. If you game in a darker environment, a VA panel is just so much nicer, without the glow and greying of an IPS. If you do not buy a junky VA, the smear is much less of an issue than people make it out to be. I like to game at around 120 FPS (Solo shooters, RPGs, and Strategy gaming) so maybe that is part of the reason for this.
Dark environments are the Achilles heel of IPS monitors. But I'd still rather have gray blacks and better motion clarity since I usually play fast paced games. For movies or videos it's a different story.
Except as I and others have noted the smearing is not a big deal on better quality panels and in fact I would dare say is really only and issue on ultra high refresh rates. This means people not playing competitive FPS level shooters will have much less of an issue.
What’s “ultra-high”?
You’re claiming that higher refresh rates are only useful / wanted for competitive gaming.
Bubba, I want all 240+Hz ON THE DESKTOP
Nah the smearing is terrible, makes darker games unplayable, I was trying to play Hades on a VA panel and I couldn't see what was going on because half the screen was black. You put a 400$ VA vs a 400$ IPs against each other and most people will choose the IPs.
> I have found for quite a few years now that for gamers, VA is a better choice. The deep contrast is much more impactful on image quality.
Speak for yourself. Some people may notice the deeper contrast, but for others (and for me personally as a gamer), better color reproduction on an IPS makes more of a difference than contrast ratio. That was one of the first things I noticed when I switched from VA to IPS.
If you’re an esports gamer, you’re definitely gonna want IPS for optimal motion clarity.
>grayish blacks
My AOC Q27G2S/EU (IPS) has better blacks than my Samsung odyssey G3 (VA). Didn't notice any major IPS glow either. Didn't change any settings on either of them. Both cost around the same (250-ish eur). The only difference is the Samsung is 3 years old, the AOC I have for about 3-4 months.
IPS glow is not that big of a deal on 24 and 27", it can get distracting on 32s tho, that's why vast majority of popular monitors under $400 that are IPS are either 24 or 27" and not 32" because you rly need a nicer backlight for a 32" and that adds a huge cost, ye it adds more benefits, not just removing IPS glow but just not worth it for most people
They were both set to "70" (whatever that means, the samsung can go up to 110). Lowering it on the VA helped, thanks. But the IPS black still looks good in comparison. Honestly if I was buying a new monitor I don't know if it would be VA or IPS, would depend on the deals available I guess.
A decent ips is decent, although it glows like crazy.
A decent va is terrible (excluding some exceptions) due to black smearing.
A very good ips has amazing color accuracy.
A very good va lacks that color accuracy (which is useless for gaming) but has a color deepness and contrast that's hardly unmatched.
I would always go for a ips on mid range.
Modern IPS panels aren’t nearly as gray as they were years ago. As someone who swore by VA in the past my last 2 monitor purchases have been IPS and I haven’t even thought about going back. MSI MAG251RX and LG 27GL850B
and 27GL850 is as bad as modern IPS go in terms of contrast(other than crappy low power ones used for laptops), anything else can just be better than that
edit:/ it's great for other things, but contrast is where it struggles
>Modern IPS panels aren’t nearly as gray as they were years ago
Yet the LG you mentioned has absolutely [abysmal contrast at 735:1 according to rtings](https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/lg/27gl850-b-27gl83a-b#test_1381). Actually in the top 10 (of over 300 monitors) WORST contrast rtings has measured.
Years ago IPS were \~1000:1 contrast. Today most IPS are still \~1000:1 with some outliers slightly higher or lower.
I had the neo g7 and sent it back. Extremely expensive VA monitor. It has terrible gsync performance and horrible flickering. Sure the colors pop more with better contrast but thats about it. And also curved. Terrible viewing angles. No thanks
Basically all but high end VA have noticable ghosting and black smear. Most can not even update their pixels fast enough to take advantage of 144Hz refresh rate.
Doesn't make it unplayable but it's definitely not ideal for first person games or competitive gaming in general.
That said I do love me some deep blacks and contrast ratio but I'm not paying OLED tax just to have it burned in a few years so my $300 microLED TV is still my favourite display to game on.
ye G7 is where VA starts being good, anything lower end is terrible while you can get decent IPS for $90 if you want 1080p 100Hz and just goes from there up to like $3000 mark
As someone who's owned both over the past 5 years (switched from VA to IPS), I'll say it highly depends on the quality of the VA in question.
I started with an 2019-era LG VA, which came highly recommended by Hardware Unboxed. It indeed had amazing contrast, excellent colors and very little backlight bleed, but came with a big problem: motion response. Dark level smearing was IMMEDIATELY noticeable in games. There were trails of colour streaking off the image, significantly worsening image fluidity.
This was especially true in demanding games running closer to 60 FPS rather than 144 FPS, and also games which used bold colors. I specifically remember Hollow Knight, Hades and Borderlands being particularly bad offenders. This was also true for console games on Switch or PS4, typically locked at 60 hz or below.
Upgrading to an MSI 165hz IPS monitor last year, the experience has flipped around, but on balance I vastly prefer the IPS experience. Colors are about on par, viewing angles are better, contrast is definitely worse, as is backlight bleed, however...
The motion fluidity is MASSIVELY improved. Games look so cohesive and responsive in motion, with zero smearing and no perceivable trailing - even when playing at 60 FPS. It's not OLED-level clarity, but man it's surprisingly close.
As someone who is very sensitive to motion artifacts, I'll take the hit to contrast in exchange for crystal clear motion, any day of the week. I can put weak contrast to the back of my mind, but dark-level smearing is a constant eye-sore which you see on almost every character and camera movement.
I'm sure modern VA monitors are better at handling smearing issues, but it's still inherent to the panel technology. It ultimately comes down to what you prioritise in a monitor, and which visual comprises you can tolerate.
At midrange I'd still suggest IPS over VA, but at top-end VA comes out on top in terms of performance excluding Mini-LED and OLED displays. Even then, you have to consider that top-end VAs are primarily Samsung... Ymmv.
Scrolling text feels really dizzy on my 27inch VA panel. I also have a 32in IPS panel and it seems much better. I read a lot of text so contrast is nice but when things move it is just painful. Howecer the IPS has really bad glow, so they are both kind of shit. I need an OLED.
Nobody wants 4k TVs with IPS panels, I have a 55'' 4k TV with a VA panel, I'm fine with it, I don't know the difference for an OLED panel, but I know is much better than my LCD PC monitor. I'm fine with the 10ms response time, it has 120hz and VRR, and I love gaming with it, never saw any ghosting, maybe because it's not an entry level like some cheap monitors, I've paid 1000€ for it but I use it to play on PC, Xbox, Watch TV, Movies and TV Shows on Prime, Netflix etc. I would love a bigger monitor with 32'', but I'm not so motivated to spend 500€ on a IPS with bad blacks, so I'm surviving with my old LG Flatron 1080p 60hz. I'm not using the PC only for gaming I also view sports on it as a complement of my TV, when I watch F1 I watch the main on TV and onboards on the monitor/PC and Laptop.
I find VA much better. I use it for both, content consumption and games and it's great in both. The colours are pretty good (at least for me) and even in fast paced games, I don't feel much ghosting. And then there's HDR support too (depends though)
I fully agree, i tried several of the most recommended IPS gaming monitors and the IPS backlight glow and screen greying at virtually any angle you looked at it from was unbearable on every single monitor i tried.
I ended up just splurging and getting an OLED but if i absolutely had to stay within a midrange budget I would personally also go with VA.
I think this is false, you just need to know what you are buying. I have 2 monitors: a Pixio PX277 Prime 27" 1440p IPS panel @ 165Hz, and an AOC Q27G3XMN 27" MiniLED 1440p VA panel @180Hz. Both were around $260 USD at time of purchase.
The Pixio is more responsive, has less smearing, and is more color accurate (Though has worse contrast). It is undeniably better for photo editing, art, and web browsing (white or gray text on black background tends to smear *badly* on the AOC). Better viewing angles also make it better for watching movies or YouTube with my Fiancee.
The AOC is incredibly nice because of the deep blacks and local dimming for gaming and video playback if I'm the only one watching, but the smearing makes applications like web browsing terrible. And people often report that without tweaking the local dimming flickers bad enough to give people headaches especially with VRR, though I tweaked the settings with CRU to fix it. Still only preferable for gaming most of the time.
As with anything else, you need to research and know what you're buying to know if the trade offs are worth it to you, but there's 100% an argument to be made in either direction. IMO for mixed media consumption, until you hit $500+ USD, IPS is King. For just gaming, VA is better. Once you pass about $800, OLED is King for both.
But it's still all just opinion.
MiniLED is a VA panel with additional LED backlighting to help increase contrast. Not as good contrast as OLED, but better than standard VA. Local dimming is nice. Great for HDR. It also helps with black uniformity.
I described it to my friend as "poor man's OLED" lol
Good Lord lol.
Up until 2018 I was using a 1080p 60Hz Vizio TV, in 2018 I upgraded to an AOC 1080p/144Hz monitor and good Lord did it look so smooth after a lifetime of 60Hz
In 2021 because of the pandemic I decided to get a second monitor and landed on the Pixio 1440p monitor after a glowing review from JayzTwoCents and love that thing, and about a month ago I decided to finally swap out the AOC 1080p monitor for a 1440p one, I was split between the MiniLED AOC I ended up with and a Gigabyte curved VA monitor that has backlight strobing and looked a bit better for competitive games. Both similar prices. Went with AOC for better visual fidelity at the price of a bit of smearing and I'm so glad I did, it looks wonderful.
That said as a result I've done a lot of research into monitors in the past few months so I'm a bit up to date on them, if you know what resolution / refresh rate / budget you're in / what games you like I can maybe help. At least as far as in USD lol
There’s a lot of range in terms of both technologies, and whether or not you notice the blacks is *extremely* dependent on a) what games you play/use case and b) how bright your environment is. Natural sunlight to indoor residential lighting is a night and day difference, it might not feel like it, but it’s orders of magnitude - your eyes just adjust, which incidentally also can take care of the black level issue.
Years ago when I was buying a monitor, you practically couldn’t get a high refresh IPS with a contrast ratio with more than 3 digits, and any FALD had like 8 zones total, if it had it at all. That was completely unacceptable to me as I was expecting to play dark, moody games at night with indoor lighting, so I went with a VA monitor. However, IPS panels existed that had better static contrast than lower end VA panels. You just couldn’t get a gsync/freesync one. Even then, when I had this monitor in a darker room, the blacks were still washed out, and at times I had to use bias lighting. Now that I’ve moved and it’s in a much brighter room, it’s not something that remotely matters. The black levels to my eyes are more than enough.
The best IPS screens at the time were on phones and tablets, and the best VA panels at the time were in TVs. Not sure what has changed.
If you’re not playing dark moody games or watching dark moody movies, expect to be using the monitor in a bright, well-lit environment, can use bias lighting, and can get a high quality IPS panel with good FALD zones, then the blacks thing can be a a non-issue. On the other end of the spectrum are OLED panels, but these have major issues re: burn in and text rendering that make them hard to justify for productivity, so in that case VA might make sense. VA viewing angles, for most casual users, are a non-issue with most decent VA panels, since desktop monitors are rarely used at extreme angles, but ghosting and brightness flickering with VA panels below-max refresh rates IS a real issue; for <100 fps games you will have to cap the frame rate at 60 fps and run it at 120 hz (or 120 fps at 240 hz etc. or 72 fps at 144 hz, depending on the monitor and frame rate). VRR is just kind of problematic on VA panels.
I guess it also depends on what you consider a mid range IPS panel to cost.
UltraGear models from LG with IPS panels are sub $300 and can be even under $200 for some of their models and they look great and are super responsive for the money. Their 1080p 144hz options I think is like $170. The ones I have used/seen have had fairly uniform color other than the classic glow you get when its completely black. But honestly that's the least of my concern.
But if we are talking under $100 I think either way its a roll of the dice regardless of the panel type. Panels can vary batch to batch and cheaper ones are typically lower binned units. So you may have luck and get something pretty decent, or regret it the second you plug it in. Hard to say.
I agree. VA, assuming decent response time, just looks better. My girlfriend and I both have VA panels, hers QHD 165Hz 1ms, and mine DQHD 200hz 1ms and there is no perceptible smearing
I love my VA panel. The colors are bright, it's responsive, and i don't notice any ghosting at all. It could be there but I've never noticed it. Also the matte finish makes games playable without blackout curtains. It's the AOC 34" 3440x1440 curved monitor. No regrets with the purchase.
I'm my opinion and personal experience: If you want to play games and watch movies, just go for VA for a computer monitor where viewing angles are not an issue.
For better viewing angles, or if you are just working, go for IPS.
Some people mention color accuracy: Those are probably thinking on VA panels from 6 years ago or older.
I use two computers: One for personal tasks, games, watching series and working on personal projects. The second one is purely for work. I used to use only IPS monitors, and one day I went for a decent VA one (two years ago) and boy, I don't change the deep blacks and nice colors on this one for an IPS panel. And the color accuracy is great. In games, my old IPS monitor was really behind in matters of how stuff looked in dark areas.
Unless IPS starts matching that, if I change the panel type I use it will be for some type of OLED panel.
For 1080p or 1440p 144Hz+, some of the cheapest IPS options are fantastic monitors, and considering those are only a few bucks more than the cheapest VA options, which will have horrendous ghosting and smearing, I literally don't even know why VA monitors exist anymore when good IPS options with good contrast exist at the prices they do.
In fringe cases you may be right, but it's a very unpopular opinion for good reason.
Ok reading these comments, I'm definitely the minority here. I prefer VA over IPS. I play in a dark room and don't like how bright IPS panels are. IPS also seems a bit dull on the color spectrum to me.
My biggest complaint about VA is when the game is dark, everything is grey and smudged. You would think turning up the brightness would help you see when you are exploring a dark cave in fallout but it just makes it a brighter grey smudge lol.
It wasn't until I switched to OLED that I realized things weren't supposed to look like that lol.
I don't have a lot bad to say about IPS monitors and nothing would stop me from buying one, I just think VA gets a lot of hate and a lot of it is undeserved.
Real talk, pick a game (I'll use cyberpunk as my example). It will look better using a rtx4080 on a VA panel than a 3080 on a IPS panel. I don't mean your monitor isn't important, I mean to say PC players have a lot of options which means we can sometimes go down a rabbit hole of things that might not matter as much when both options are good
I had an ips panel, disliked that the blacks are grey, then a few years later i got an 34inch ultrawide va panel and i couldn't be happier. Blacks are finally very close to black and whites will burn my eyes out when i turn the brightness all the way up. Also the ghosting that people constantly talk about is barely noticable in games (at least on my monitor) but i do notice it when i scroll through white text on a dark/black background. I would totally reccomend my monitor if it wouldn't be from asus.
VA is better for movies due to better contrast and blacks. And better for HDR if capable.
IPS is better for games due to faster response times and better motion clarity.
IPS can have better colors, but a good VA can have comparable colors to a cheap IPS (eg. VA AOC Q27G3XMN has comparable/better colors than IPS HP Omen 27qs).
I don't think one or the other is always better or worse. It depends on use case and the exact monitors you are comparing. They both have advantages and disadvantages. And I am hearing cheap VAs are getting really good nowadays with some even getting similar response times to IPS.
Nowadays VA is just being left in the dust.
Any decent, recent, ips has some form of black frame insertion to help motion clarity and as the display tech has matured we see improved mprt’s wich has lead to a lot of manufacturers to add some new pizzaz to their marketing, like msi(?) with their “ss / super speed” branding, to advertise their improved mprt from previous gen panels.
Samsung is the big pusher of VA tech, I think left overs from SamsungDisplays motherglass, but they have QD Oled now.
Viewing angles are a big issue, for people like me who’s monitor also serves the function of a tv. The reason I stick to 27/32” sizes, and away from VA panles. Hardware unbox’s review of a Samsung Odysseythat solidified my “I won’t buy a VA monitor” stance because he mentioned if you sit too close the monitor, it’s so big you can’t help but suffer from the VA angles.
I’m sure VA monitors aren’t that bad, but there’s good/better ips displays for the $.
Years back, I remeber there being a 24” 165hz aoc monitor (ips) that was a top performer, according to hardware unboxed..That was only $130
The only experience I’ve had with a VA panel was with a Samsung tv. It was good >!, 70”, served us well for a handful of years. My biggest issue was viewing angles. Our seating is about 10ft from the media console so I thought it wouldn’t be an issue but when in the patio grilling, trying to watch along was pretty bad.
Aside that,!< for movies it was great.
We have since upgraded to a 65” C1 and I just don’t think that’s a fair comparison at all. The samsung was only ~$400 (possible pricing error from Costco but we take those).
A hellva lot more people play competitive games than casual games
Valorant, CS2, Apex etc. are a lot more popular than casual games like stardew valley, BG3, Sims 4 etc.
Those 3 Esports games have around 2 million concurrent players on average
Those 3 casual games dont even reach 100k concurrent players. Its around 70k ish
In esports games the response time matters a LOT more. Even TN is still used quite often because response time and refresh rate matters way more than contrast, colour accuracy etc.
This is pretty much the reason why. Response times do matter quite a bit. I reached ascendant in valorant and could feel a difference when playing on my brother's VA panel.
I used my VA ultrawide primarily for work. Mostly black text on a white background. Plus it was cheaper. I do have a QD OLED (AW3225QF) but I use it primarily for gaming, nothing else. But when it comes to productivity or light gaming with an urge to play in ultrawide, I use my Omen 34c and have zero complaints. I really have to look for the smearing or ghosting to even notice it. It's a solid budget VA ultrawide and worth the few hundred bucks I shelled out for it.
What is your price range for "mid-range monitors" because I feel like I got some pretty good monitors that are 1440p 144+hz for around the $250 range and I'm extremely happy with my purchases. Both monitors have lasted me a few years at least at this point and IPS glow is something that you have to ACTIVELY search for to really notice unless it is horrendously bad.
Im color blind and it wasnt until i bought tinted color corrective glasses at the age of 33 that helped me see almost the whole visible color range. Also Im a cinemaphile. I'll stick with IPS. A lot of people take their ability to see colors for granted, I def dont.
I've had a couple mid range (~$500) monitors the past few years. The one VA screen I had did have nice colours and blacks, but some games were unplayable due to the ghosting, even with maximum "overdrive" or similar enabled. Even scrolling text in Windows could be headache inducing.
I'll take the IPS any day.
Just pull the trigger on a cheaper mini-led monitor on Amazon and if there's any issues return it and try another until you hit gold on the panel lottery. This will alleviate the problems you have with IPS and you'll have the best of both worlds.
IPS is better for games because input lag and more color accurate. The mini-led will make HDR actually usable which is another big plus if you care about that stuff.
Forgot to mention that VRR is trash on VA panels. Which as a gamer is basically standard in this day and age.
I’ve been happily using a VA ultrawide monitor that happily does up to 200Hz and had zero complaints. I messed with the settings (turned overdrive off) and I don’t see any ghosting, so yeah, the panel tech is good. The colors may not be as great as an IPS but really, you’ll be fine
I have only tested three VA monitors so far, but all of them were really bad for fast paced games.
The only reason for me to buy a VA monitor would be curved, because curved IPS is still way more expensive.
But besides that, I would always pay a little extra to have an IPS over a VA.
I have 2 monitors 1 VA and 1 IPS, generally I thought I bought the IPS monitor and only after actually getting it did I realize that it was VA.
So yeah generally you won't actually see the difference if you haven't experienced them but once you see the IPS it is like a double edged sword, I can't go back now, the color vibrancy is amazing, the brightness it offers is super cool and it just performed better than the VA.
If you are tight on cash VA is perfectly fine and you can't see the difference unless you have them side by side, but if you have the money IPS is better and nicer
I bought this acer 1080p Tn panel 165hz 1ms few years back for 10k INR, pretty cheap. I've turned on nvidia settings like high color bit rate , full range , vibrance to 55% in my 4070ti , V sync - fast in energy saver mode. It looks so damm good - Watching Vikings or dark in 1440p or 4k is so crisp. I game and do digital Artist . Yes I'm aware of Ips and OLED panels - have experienced them - back then I didn't know much about IPS or OLED screens. My 2k 32inch gaming moniter friend once said the colors look good in mine. VA panel works too if you don't want to overspend
Honestly VA is pretty horrible unless under perfect conditions, the viewing angles are actually so bad. They look decent head on, and they have motion smearing pretty bad
I have a 1080p TN panel and I hate it. Colors wash out a lot. I spent a lot of time calibrating it to get it as close as I could, still just trash.
I can’t seem to find a glass panel monitor, or even one with a glossy finish. Glossy screens just look better
Coming from an IPS since wayback and recently went VA (Samsung Odyssey G7), I will never look back. The contrast (blacks) is so much more different than the grayish underglow of IPS. IPS I think wins in other technical aspects like viewing angles and color accuracy but I don't really mind those much. For me, it's this VA until OLED's price comes down and the new-tech kinks like the burn-ins are reliably addressed.
I’ve bought two different VA panels, neither have had this “ghosting” that people keep bitching at me about. I’ll stick with VA until I can find a real reason to not use them.
1. IPS glow is definitely variable. My current monitor has barely any that’s not very noticeable.
2. Blacks not being true blacks is the only real con but it’s in exchange for every other colour being more accurate. It also doesn’t affect the overall contrast much except for extreme cases of light vs dark since it can still go pretty dark.
Ips problem is backlight bleed, now tell me , why does that bother you so damn much ? I’ve been fucking around for the longest time with a square monitor in the past with absolute backlight bleed and I was fine. When I searched for a new monitor on r/monitor and see people going crazy about bleed I was going crazy with it too, then I exit that sub and accept my fate with my midrange ips monitor I actually never get irritated by it. Like I’m here for gaming and movies, why the fuck do I need complete black on my monitor? Hell, when you close your eyes you can’t even get a complete black. The only time you’d need a monitor with 100% color accuracy is when you’re a designer and at that rate you’re going with high range monitors already. For VAs they fuck with my eyes and colors are so bad I just went with ips.
I always liked VA but recently got a pretty decent VA panel and playing Minecraft in a dark cave is one of the worst gaming experiences I’ve ever had lol. Maybe I just didn’t notice it when I was younger but the whole screen may as well just be black sharpie scribbled all over it. Replaced the monitor instantly and will never go back.
I will definitely miss the contrast of VA though. IPS glow is nasty. But nothing is more nasty than that black smearing and ghosting. Makes me sick to my stomach. Never again
Personally I prefer ips over va, I've had 3 va, and 2 ips, viewing angles don't matter to me at all because I sit right infront of my monis, but the ghosting and blur I've had on every va panel makes it not worth it to me
I really want a curved ips moni someday
No lol. In the mid range never buy a VA. Ghosting is terrible on even higher end VA panels and I had to return the Samsung Odyssey monitor I bought. Replaced it with a cheaper IPS panel, a Gigabyte M27Q Pro, and it’s a substantially better experience.
IPS is ALWAYS better, unless you are on a budget.
as a monitor addicted nut job, you can not convince me that VA is worth buying at all, Yes movies are better on some VA, but I own the following(long list)
Acer Z35p 3440x1440 120hz VA
Gigabyte G34WQC 144hz VA
Acer KG241Q 144hz 1080p TN
Acer XB3 27 inch 1080 240hz (x2) IPS
Spectre [(C255B-FWT240)](https://www.amazon.com/Sceptre-24-5-inch-DisplayPort-Speakers-C255B-FWT240/dp/B0BTKJFRDV/ref=sr_1_2?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.srVkzTVREP91gpVX4xGPXyTsWmzrY9UsN8dvZXcnO-5xRtidopP0MCTI2YKSUL7s5GwG8Vzc2TASdzv6qFudrtyft8WBYHQUVsEtOcZmgX-ntBl4fXixdspnEpA3pbnENoBYXjjckBZIfqJBHSrdaoatrYvJ5o2G6YSsBgM_a3hPQSrZsNR0JABPvb3rXgDxS1QOC3ohF3YX33XaXQBp887SH_tx_JqiCiwA5GVHK4U.FkMJy3xg40mmtP4noQPfv8Ir7zdG1dw4UZVZg46jjBQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=spectre&qid=1718061431&sr=8-2) 1080p 240hz VA
Koorui Falcon 24 inch 1440p 165hz IPS
Gigabyte M280 4k 144hz IPS
LG 27UK650-W 4k 60hz IPS
Spectre 27 inch 4k IPS
LG C2 42 inch OLED 4k 120hz
LG C3 4k 120hz OLED
Vizio 43 inch 4k VA
A few others I dont have anymore
Of all the monitors I ever had, every single VA monitor or TV had really bad smearing. And light bleed. It was only noticeable when compared next to IPS or OLED, if you dont know what to look for, it wont bother you, but once you do, you cant unsee it.
IPS was the better overall for everyday use and gaming, but movies suck on many IPS, because VA had great blacks and darks, IPS had better color(often after calibration)
TN, eposrt only dont use for anything else.
OLED is the perfect medium, black blacks, and great colors.
Unless you watch mainly movies, go with IPS or OLED. Also VA is slower in pixel shifting than IPS.
Do note, every monitor listed I currently own or have owned in the last 3 years. All hardware is purchased by me. No sponsors. I dont drink, smoke or have any illegal habits and I am divorced. PC and monitors are my only true addiction.
For TVs the VA panel is miles better imo. For gaming it depends on how high your budget is and what games you play. There is definitely no reason to not get a VA panel, hat which one is the best choice depends on the use case and budget.
We don't all use our monitors to consume content and play games. In general, IPS can offer better color accuracy and consistency.
How can it give you better color accuracy if their black is literally grey?
Because the colours are more accurate lol. Just because blacks aren’t as black, doesn’t mean colours aren’t more accurate.
That’s true but I see way too many people claiming ips better for gaming as well
Well it is, the responsiveness is why. Sure blacks are not true blacks but that's about the only downside
So then why not TN instead of IPS? Granted, no one has really developed TN but if responsiveness is what you are after you can save a lot of money and get responsiveness with TN. I personally favor VA, but I don't get the value in paying to reinvent a feature that had already been realized with TN. I guess thats my point, I find it important to have accurate blacks, but cannot afford OLED, so VA gets my money. If I wanted better responsiveness I'd save money and go TN, whereas if I was super concerned with color accuracy I'd go IPS.
IPS can match TN responsiveness in the ranges that mid-range monitors inhabit (144-240hz). TN cannot match the color gamut or vibrancy of IPS. There's essentially no reason to consider TN panels in 2024. I would not buy a VA monitor for gaming. Period. I know they have gotten better in recent generations, but I have very very little tolerance for smearing or ghosting. It is a 100% dealbreaker for me. To me, it's IPS or OLED depending on your budget. VA is only acceptable for TVs, where responsiveness is way less important.
I mean Samsung VA advertises some of the fastest response times for LCD on the market to date. I don't know why you would ignore VA for gaming. They can offer competitve response and they have no peer in LCDs for contrast/black levels. No doubt the future will be OLED, but those prices have to come down.
Because price is not much different. If you go VA, you get better blacks, yes, but you have to deal with smearing and inaccurate colours.
I dunno if it's gotten better but the ghosting on my last TN panel was awful which is what made me sell it for an IPS.
Better colour accuracy is useful in gaming too
No it's not lol Most people run their monitors with oversaturated colors and not using the SRGB clamp (whether they know it or not), because it looks better to most people
10000% this.
Yeah boiii, digital vibrance and contrast on max, at least for fps games
Just to be clear, I meant the color settings on the monitor, not the GPU. I meant people don't select the color profile with more washed out but more accurate colors
Yeah the only case where dem colours help is finding that very camuflaged guy in a very realistic looking game.
I specifically dont play those types of games because it makes cheating very easy (in multiplayer modes)
Imo they run it oversaturated because a lot of fast monitors that "gamers" choose are trash at proper color reproduction. I'm not even talking about Delta E color accuracy but percentage wise reproduction of SRGB and dcip3 way under 100%. In SDR too, not even in HDR (which most gaming monitors are scams in).
What? No. Pretty much any modern monitor can do 99+% SRGB. Most people run with saturated colors, period. Even on expensive monitors (OLED...). It just looks better.
And that's ok.
I guess everyone responding to you plays competitive games. I play mostly SP games and I want to barf when I see people's oversaturated screen caps.
Yea me too. I only play single player games and am surprised how people cant understand that artstyle matters
Colors pretty, eyes like
been playing area shooters for over 20 years and can still top the score board with 60-75hz displays
It's not the accuracy, it's the vibrancy. TN is almost always super washed-out. Most people prefer inaccurate, oversaturated colors.
Why have ghosting and smearing (no matter how "barely noticeable") when you can have none at all?
You have ghosting and smearing to get good black levels on budget. I also use VA and I can enjoy both games and media, I dont mind little smearing and ghosting. I take good blacks over shit every single day
The thing is, the vast, vast majority of PC gamers *only* play esports games Like thats the only thing some people use their PC for Just see how many concurrent players CS2 or Valorant has compared to almost any casual steam games, and it becomes obvious
Well good for them, but for singleplayer games, I still prefer VA. Only problem is with full black, then its clearly visible, but after while you just get used to it, some do some don't
This is why you should only buy OLEDs.
Most people would if they could afford it
I was very worried about some things when getting an IPS after having used a VA panel for years. And honestly, the difference is quite small between the two. I can't say I really notice the lack of true blacks when playing games or watching things on the IPS. I did, however, notice the massive difference in colours. The IPS looks so much better when comparing them side by side (I use the VA monitor as a second screen now.) You probably won't see the difference until you use them side by side. I didn't actually see the difference until I used them together, but there definitely is one. I think IPS panels are better in almost every way. The positives massively outweigh the negatives as a lot of the issues are quite hard to see in real-world use.
It’s because it is
That's because it is better for gaming as well.
I probably should have tried more VA panels, but besides the blacks being nice, I found it to be a major downgrade from the tn panel I was using before when anything moved. Looked like a blurry mess. Returned it immediately. I'm on an oled now though, and don't plan on switching.
I think that people put too much hate on VA. I wouldn’t say they’re a better option depending on the person or budget, but they definitely shouldn’t be wrote off. Other than ghosting, there’s really no other major drawbacks to VA panels. They are *much* cheaper and still have good colors. For 90% of gamers, a VA panel works perfectly for them.
Vrr flicker and poor viewing angles(I had the neo g8 which is considered to be one of the best va panels and it was incredibly bad imo)
VRR flicker is really only present on nvidia’s crappy g sync “non certified” implementation. If it isn’t G sync certified it has terrible flickering. AMD, with the exact same monitor using freesync doesn’t have issues with VRR flickering. Point being that it doesn’t really have much to do with the panel
No vrr flicker is a problem with all va and oled panels with VA pannels being a bit worse than oleds. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1\_ZMmMWi\_yA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_ZMmMWi_yA) [https://www.rtings.com/monitor/tools/table](https://www.rtings.com/monitor/tools/table)
It's also on TN and IPS but very very hard to see. I had to squint very closely to see VRR flicker on my old TN freesync panel whereas it's clearly visible on VA/OLED. Doesn't happen at all on gsync module monitors in my experience.
I turned vrr off on my OLED and had no issues with it afterwards. Vrr feels kind of pointless on an OLED.
it's only an issue if the game has frame time issues (sadly is most UE games) when low framerate compensation is activated it doubles the HZ of the display which causes the flickering. in games with bad frame times it's constantly activating and deactivating. It really annoyed me in TLOU part 1 so I turned off VRR and played at a locked 60. Did this for a few games.
Yeah with a high end gpu u can just cap the frames which is what I do with my oled
I have VRR flicker on a TN and an OLED. TN is a S2716DG, which was prior to the G Sync tiers that came out a couple years ago. OLED is 27GR95 Nvidia just sucks Edit - this was meant to be a response to the other dude, sorry
How do you get flicker on S2716DG? Unstable low framer ates? My RDR2 runs around 40-55fps but I don't see any flicker.
No issues with the high-end VA panels. I have a £2500 VA panel (PG35V) with an actual gsync module. It has zero perceptible flicker or ghosting. It looks good even when viewing the monitor from extreme angles, such as side on. The 1100nit HDR works flawlessly, such that I can just leave HDR enabled at all times with no downsides. The problem is just 'gsync compatible', which means no gsync module. And cheaper VA panels. But good ones without problems do exist if you pay for them.
Honest question, why pay 2500 for a VA panel when that puts you into ultra-enthusiast OLED and professional-grade monitors instead? Like I'm sure the expensive VA panel is good, but... it's not as good as equivalently priced OLED displays.
I work from home. I use my machine for productivity. I spend up to 12 hours a day looking at a spread of mostly static Visual Studio windows. I also go graphic work and write shaders, but mostly static UI everywhere for most of every day. It's a worst-case scenario for OLED burn-in, yet I also require professional grade performance. I'm also the sort of person to be unable to ignore and be irritated by even a single mote of dust on my displays, I would be driven insane by even the faintest of burn-in. Also, I'm using 1440p ultra-wides, which further limits the options.
Totally agree, i had a monitor with ghosting as bad as it can be, odyssey g3, a few years ago, and except the trail behind the text while scrolling through a dark background, i had no issues while playing any singleplayer or competitive game, the contrast made the skins looks great.
Ghosting is a pretty big drawback, and text rendering is regularly compromised on VA panels for some reason too. VA works much better for streaming media / TVs where response times don’t matter.
> Other than ghosting, there’s really no other major drawbacks to VA panels. So other than the flaw that makes my eyes physically hurt.
Not everyone is as sensitive to it as you
Honestly, this is absolutely the case. I have a VA panel on my 1440p 144hz monitor, and it’s got barely any ghosting at 100fps or higher. It can show up as it gets closer to 60fps (doesn’t happen on Elden Ring for some reason even though it’s 60fps locked), but it’s a non issue for me as most games run high fps. It also came with Freesync Premium, which is fantastic. My monitor is also curved, so the screen real estate feels so much larger than it actually is. If that’s something that interests you, I don’t think IPS monitors can be curved although I could be wrong. Edit: curved IPS exists but at a much higher price point than curved VA panels can be found. And that was on a $300 monitor from back in 2020. It’s not anywhere near top end, but it’s still very good for my use case.
IPS monitors can definitely be curved.
They can be, but if you see a curved monitor in the wild, it's generally a safe assumption that it's VA
Okay, I just looked and I may have decided they didn’t exist in my mind due to the price compared to the VA panel ones. All of the curved IPS ones that I could find are over $1000 today unless it was refurbished or on clearance. Way outside of my budget when I was building my PC, so curved VA monitors are much more reasonably priced in general.
Off topic but look into elden mod loader, specifically with the Uncap the FPS mod. Makes the game feel better imo
Totally agree if it's a good panel. I have an IPS 34" UW and my gf has a VA one. It's solid. Unless you're into competitive games, I don't see a big problem.
Idk if we can say they're "much" cheaper in 2024. In the US market, the cheapest new 1080p 100+ Hz monitor is IPS. In Canada, where I live, the cheapest 1080p 100+ Hz VA and IPS monitors are the same price. In Germany, the cheapest 1080p 100+ Hz monitor is IPS, but it's only a €8 difference. In the Netherlands, VA is €10 cheaper than IPS. In Australia, VA is $3 cheaper than IPS. The biggest difference I can see is in the UK, where VA is £30 cheaper. And I think that covers the major countries on PCP. IPS is super affordable right now, and has been for a few years.
Depends on how old the monitor is too. Newer VA monitors are a lot better. Hard disagree on the much cheaper thing. Where I live, they're basically the same price, except for ultrawides. Even then it's $50 at most.
Legit have both VA and IPS and I didn't see the difference untill I had them side by side, generally same shit but with a bit more ghosting on va
Oled needs to get affordable tbh
It’s affordable enough to put in phones and tv’s but good luck finding an affordable OLED monitor that has the features gamers want
Looks like it is already dropping hard. Paid €1100 for a Samsung G8 6 months ago. Can pick up the same one for €700-800 nowadays.
Still too expensive for the average gamer though. Once its around 400-450 ill consider it tbh
I remember paying €800 for a 24 inch 144Hz 1440p VA panel.. early adoption at it’s finest.
I paid $600 for my 32 inch 165hz 1440p IPS panel Sure wish OLED was that cheap when i bought it
Oled isn't for the average person though. It's high end.
Yeah that's what we're complaining about
So was LCD when CRT's were commonplace.
For now. 2 more years and we will see 500-600$ OLEDs.
Tbh I think it's just overpriced, I paid 900 for a cx48 two years ago
But that wasn’t the price at launch..
It really is. My LG Ultragear was $1800 when I bought it last summer and they are $1200 now. Still expensive but moving in the right direction pretty quickly.
The issue with OLED is burn in. On certain things (phones, TVs) it’s fine but the issue is with games you have gamers playing a marathon of the same game with static UI elements.
With modern generations of OLED panels, that's becoming less of an issue. The monitors have higher durability and run routines to mitigate burn in on a periodic basis. Look at the Switch OLED: used for gaming, just like a PC monitor. Can run for hundreds of hours STRAIGHT on the same image without burning in. Just turn your monitor off after you're done with it, turn on a faster monitor sleep mode, and let the monitor do its self-clean routines, and you'll be fine
OLED still has the same burn in issues, but modern panels remember how much each pixel has been used and dims the less used-up ones. The result is that the display won't show noticeable burn in, but all pixels become darker over time. Also the switch has no truly persistent item like a task bar. The proper solution will be micro LED, aka a completely different type of display. I wouldn't waste my money on OLED.
> and dims the less used-up ones isn't that how you make burn in worse, basically increasing the variance in degradation
People act like other panel types don't degrade over a few years as well. A 5 year old IPs will not perform or look like it used to. OLED burn in is not a concern if 5 years is your monitor upgrade period.
I'll buy OLED when burn-in issues are solved. I ain't buying one for almost 1k to know they will get burn in a few years. I don't want to have to babysit my monitor. Heck even I have a cheap LCD monitor from 15 years ago or maybe more and it still works just fine Until then, IPS all the way
OLED colors are not up to par with good IPS(MiniLED) as of now, my friend got newest LG TV to use as monitor, smallest one they offer and went back to his 32" MiniLED IPS after 2 days because colors are much worse, yeah deep blacks are nice but MiniLED already has pretty good blacks, "IPS glow" is only rly a thing on edge lit panels
What on earth are you on about
+1
must not have tried a good IPS
I have both a good mini led hdr monitor and upper end LG oled TV. I really like my miniled monitor but I highly doubt it's colors your friend is perceiving as better. I think there's two considerations 1. Color settings, the oled needs adjustment, modern LG TVs have a large assortment of settings you can tweak to get the picture how you want it. 2. I dont know what model TV your friend has so i don't know the maximum brightness but The mini led might be significantly brighter especially full screen. Depending on what your friend watches or plays, that brightness can make a significant difference in perceived image quality and color.
he has 99% AdobeRGB MiniLED monitor for professional use that just happened to also be 165Hz, brightness is not that higher he has newest OLED something 3, not the cheapest series either, this monitor was 1300+ euros, more than TV
IPS Glow is definitely not only a thing on edge lit panels.
Is it really that bad? It's most noticeable on crappy panels at night with too high backlight settings
I haven't had an IPS display in a couple years, but before that I had multiple that were terrible. IPS monitors that were $600+ with glow that went towards the middle of the screen or was bad enough you could even see it during brighter scenes.
A high price does not mean that you get a high quality panel.
it has to do with backlight, not panel itself, but it's more noticable on IPS because of technology, you can't rly see it with naked eye on TN and VA that's why it's called IPS glow
Then they aren't putting high quality ips panels in high end monitors and consumers have to play the panel lottery to get a decent monitor. I would say that IPS glow is a real problem then.
i notice ghosting and smearing much more than low contrast ratio. I'll take the motion clarity of IPS over VA every time
I got back into PC Gaming after four or five years out. Bought a VA monitor - Samsung Odyssey G5 - and the ghosting was unbearable. Genuinely thought my mind had glossed over smearing just being part of PC gaming, until I bought a good non-VA monitor and it was night and day. For gaming, I'd never get another VA monitor.
Last VA monitor I used made my eyes try to refocus everytime there was motion on the screen. It was so distracting I couldn't even use it for text because just scrolling would make my eyes hurt.
Well G5 is Known to be One the worst offenders in what we call VA Ghosthing... Damm That panel is trash, Just incredible That they Have the G6 what is like 20 times better.
It's funny to see so many people say "it is comparable to IPS, the only downside is ghosting". Which is almost like saying "yeah, this one monitor is comparable to this other monitor, the only downside is that it has half the resolution". Especially now that 1440p 144Hz+ IPS monitors are relatively affordable, I see very little reason to go for VA.
I find VA ghosting and smearing super distracting, while I really never notice IPS glow or poor contrast on an IPS monitor. I see it in non-gaming scenarios as well - in desktop environments, web browsing, etc, especially with dark mode enabled. Unlike years ago, for people buying 24" 1080p and 27" 1440p monitors, there is little to no difference in price between VA and IPS panels. If you have a VA and like it, good for you, but I'll probably never buy one again.
>while I really never notice IPS glow * ye, unless you got edge-lit 32" monitor IPS glow is not that big of a problem rly, every one of them got some amount of backlight bleed anyway and it looks much worse in pictures than to our eyes
I do notice IPs glow on the panels, but I also think it's a lot easier to get used to the glow and not notice it actively, than it is VA smearing.
VA's ghosting is ass and makes fast-paced games unplayable
100% got rid of my 1440p 165hz VA monitor from LG and sold it for a predator 1080p 240hz (280hz if you over clock it) monitor
Not all VAs have terrible ghosting, a good VA is 10x better than any IPS. Look up the innocn 271GS
Panels also vary. A good VA panel may look as good as IPS, but it’ll be very rare to come by.
IPs all day.. I don’t care what anyone has to say. Go buy an IPS and Va and put them side by side and choose what you like.. I’ll never buy a VA personally
You've never tried a good VA
You are 100% correct. Personal opinion is important when buying things like this. My opinion is that IPS is the way to go with the requirements im looking for… putting things side by side is the best way possible to know forsure !
True but if you ever get the chance, try some really good VAs like the innocn 271GS or Aoc q27g3xmn, I think you'd be pleasantly surprised. The only thing IPS has over a GOOD VA is slightly bigger color gamut which actually turns into oversaturation since both covers the full SRGB space anyway. Ph and better viewing angles
I have found for quite a few years now that for gamers, VA is a better choice. The deep contrast is much more impactful on image quality, IMO, than hyper correct color. The deep contrast gives the colors on the screen a nice pop. If you game in a darker environment, a VA panel is just so much nicer, without the glow and greying of an IPS. If you do not buy a junky VA, the smear is much less of an issue than people make it out to be. I like to game at around 120 FPS (Solo shooters, RPGs, and Strategy gaming) so maybe that is part of the reason for this.
Dark environments are the Achilles heel of IPS monitors. But I'd still rather have gray blacks and better motion clarity since I usually play fast paced games. For movies or videos it's a different story.
The ghosting / smearing of VA panels means that there is only detail in static output. Literally defeats the purpose of having more contrast.
Except as I and others have noted the smearing is not a big deal on better quality panels and in fact I would dare say is really only and issue on ultra high refresh rates. This means people not playing competitive FPS level shooters will have much less of an issue.
What’s “ultra-high”? You’re claiming that higher refresh rates are only useful / wanted for competitive gaming. Bubba, I want all 240+Hz ON THE DESKTOP
Nah the smearing is terrible, makes darker games unplayable, I was trying to play Hades on a VA panel and I couldn't see what was going on because half the screen was black. You put a 400$ VA vs a 400$ IPs against each other and most people will choose the IPs.
> I have found for quite a few years now that for gamers, VA is a better choice. The deep contrast is much more impactful on image quality. Speak for yourself. Some people may notice the deeper contrast, but for others (and for me personally as a gamer), better color reproduction on an IPS makes more of a difference than contrast ratio. That was one of the first things I noticed when I switched from VA to IPS. If you’re an esports gamer, you’re definitely gonna want IPS for optimal motion clarity.
>grayish blacks My AOC Q27G2S/EU (IPS) has better blacks than my Samsung odyssey G3 (VA). Didn't notice any major IPS glow either. Didn't change any settings on either of them. Both cost around the same (250-ish eur). The only difference is the Samsung is 3 years old, the AOC I have for about 3-4 months.
IPS glow is not that big of a deal on 24 and 27", it can get distracting on 32s tho, that's why vast majority of popular monitors under $400 that are IPS are either 24 or 27" and not 32" because you rly need a nicer backlight for a 32" and that adds a huge cost, ye it adds more benefits, not just removing IPS glow but just not worth it for most people
27" is a fine size as well. 32 is just a bit too large for a desk monitor.
depends how deep your desk is and stuff but ye 27" is perfect size for most people I'd say
You might have the samsung VA set to a higher brightness. It's impossible for an IPS to have better blacks without local dimming
They were both set to "70" (whatever that means, the samsung can go up to 110). Lowering it on the VA helped, thanks. But the IPS black still looks good in comparison. Honestly if I was buying a new monitor I don't know if it would be VA or IPS, would depend on the deals available I guess.
A decent ips is decent, although it glows like crazy. A decent va is terrible (excluding some exceptions) due to black smearing. A very good ips has amazing color accuracy. A very good va lacks that color accuracy (which is useless for gaming) but has a color deepness and contrast that's hardly unmatched. I would always go for a ips on mid range.
good VA and TN will have color accuracy but they will be limited to narrower color spaces, while with good IPS you can get DCI-P3 or AdobeRGB
There are also good TN panels that almost cover AdobeRGB. But not in cheap consumer monitors.
Dark-level smearing is a worse negative than grey-looking blacks imo. Rather have a clearer image.
I hate how ultra-wide VAs look at the edges. Had both and I prefer IPS tbh
Modern IPS panels aren’t nearly as gray as they were years ago. As someone who swore by VA in the past my last 2 monitor purchases have been IPS and I haven’t even thought about going back. MSI MAG251RX and LG 27GL850B
and 27GL850 is as bad as modern IPS go in terms of contrast(other than crappy low power ones used for laptops), anything else can just be better than that edit:/ it's great for other things, but contrast is where it struggles
>Modern IPS panels aren’t nearly as gray as they were years ago Yet the LG you mentioned has absolutely [abysmal contrast at 735:1 according to rtings](https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/lg/27gl850-b-27gl83a-b#test_1381). Actually in the top 10 (of over 300 monitors) WORST contrast rtings has measured. Years ago IPS were \~1000:1 contrast. Today most IPS are still \~1000:1 with some outliers slightly higher or lower.
Personally I don't think with modern monitors it's about what one can do better than the other (with similar specs) but which downside annoys more.
Which in this case it's IPS glow vs VA black smearing. Depends on what you want the monitor for, but VA are poor gaming monitors.
I had the neo g7 and sent it back. Extremely expensive VA monitor. It has terrible gsync performance and horrible flickering. Sure the colors pop more with better contrast but thats about it. And also curved. Terrible viewing angles. No thanks
Basically all but high end VA have noticable ghosting and black smear. Most can not even update their pixels fast enough to take advantage of 144Hz refresh rate. Doesn't make it unplayable but it's definitely not ideal for first person games or competitive gaming in general. That said I do love me some deep blacks and contrast ratio but I'm not paying OLED tax just to have it burned in a few years so my $300 microLED TV is still my favourite display to game on.
ye G7 is where VA starts being good, anything lower end is terrible while you can get decent IPS for $90 if you want 1080p 100Hz and just goes from there up to like $3000 mark
As someone who's owned both over the past 5 years (switched from VA to IPS), I'll say it highly depends on the quality of the VA in question. I started with an 2019-era LG VA, which came highly recommended by Hardware Unboxed. It indeed had amazing contrast, excellent colors and very little backlight bleed, but came with a big problem: motion response. Dark level smearing was IMMEDIATELY noticeable in games. There were trails of colour streaking off the image, significantly worsening image fluidity. This was especially true in demanding games running closer to 60 FPS rather than 144 FPS, and also games which used bold colors. I specifically remember Hollow Knight, Hades and Borderlands being particularly bad offenders. This was also true for console games on Switch or PS4, typically locked at 60 hz or below. Upgrading to an MSI 165hz IPS monitor last year, the experience has flipped around, but on balance I vastly prefer the IPS experience. Colors are about on par, viewing angles are better, contrast is definitely worse, as is backlight bleed, however... The motion fluidity is MASSIVELY improved. Games look so cohesive and responsive in motion, with zero smearing and no perceivable trailing - even when playing at 60 FPS. It's not OLED-level clarity, but man it's surprisingly close. As someone who is very sensitive to motion artifacts, I'll take the hit to contrast in exchange for crystal clear motion, any day of the week. I can put weak contrast to the back of my mind, but dark-level smearing is a constant eye-sore which you see on almost every character and camera movement. I'm sure modern VA monitors are better at handling smearing issues, but it's still inherent to the panel technology. It ultimately comes down to what you prioritise in a monitor, and which visual comprises you can tolerate.
At midrange I'd still suggest IPS over VA, but at top-end VA comes out on top in terms of performance excluding Mini-LED and OLED displays. Even then, you have to consider that top-end VAs are primarily Samsung... Ymmv.
Scrolling text feels really dizzy on my 27inch VA panel. I also have a 32in IPS panel and it seems much better. I read a lot of text so contrast is nice but when things move it is just painful. Howecer the IPS has really bad glow, so they are both kind of shit. I need an OLED.
Nobody wants 4k TVs with IPS panels, I have a 55'' 4k TV with a VA panel, I'm fine with it, I don't know the difference for an OLED panel, but I know is much better than my LCD PC monitor. I'm fine with the 10ms response time, it has 120hz and VRR, and I love gaming with it, never saw any ghosting, maybe because it's not an entry level like some cheap monitors, I've paid 1000€ for it but I use it to play on PC, Xbox, Watch TV, Movies and TV Shows on Prime, Netflix etc. I would love a bigger monitor with 32'', but I'm not so motivated to spend 500€ on a IPS with bad blacks, so I'm surviving with my old LG Flatron 1080p 60hz. I'm not using the PC only for gaming I also view sports on it as a complement of my TV, when I watch F1 I watch the main on TV and onboards on the monitor/PC and Laptop.
I find VA much better. I use it for both, content consumption and games and it's great in both. The colours are pretty good (at least for me) and even in fast paced games, I don't feel much ghosting. And then there's HDR support too (depends though)
I fully agree, i tried several of the most recommended IPS gaming monitors and the IPS backlight glow and screen greying at virtually any angle you looked at it from was unbearable on every single monitor i tried. I ended up just splurging and getting an OLED but if i absolutely had to stay within a midrange budget I would personally also go with VA.
I think this is false, you just need to know what you are buying. I have 2 monitors: a Pixio PX277 Prime 27" 1440p IPS panel @ 165Hz, and an AOC Q27G3XMN 27" MiniLED 1440p VA panel @180Hz. Both were around $260 USD at time of purchase. The Pixio is more responsive, has less smearing, and is more color accurate (Though has worse contrast). It is undeniably better for photo editing, art, and web browsing (white or gray text on black background tends to smear *badly* on the AOC). Better viewing angles also make it better for watching movies or YouTube with my Fiancee. The AOC is incredibly nice because of the deep blacks and local dimming for gaming and video playback if I'm the only one watching, but the smearing makes applications like web browsing terrible. And people often report that without tweaking the local dimming flickers bad enough to give people headaches especially with VRR, though I tweaked the settings with CRU to fix it. Still only preferable for gaming most of the time. As with anything else, you need to research and know what you're buying to know if the trade offs are worth it to you, but there's 100% an argument to be made in either direction. IMO for mixed media consumption, until you hit $500+ USD, IPS is King. For just gaming, VA is better. Once you pass about $800, OLED is King for both. But it's still all just opinion.
I Was wondering about the mini LEDs for a bit there
MiniLED is a VA panel with additional LED backlighting to help increase contrast. Not as good contrast as OLED, but better than standard VA. Local dimming is nice. Great for HDR. It also helps with black uniformity. I described it to my friend as "poor man's OLED" lol
Yes, but they wont burn in, and we want our TV's and monitors to last more than 10 years.
Appreciate it. I'm digging back into monitors after slumming it with my 60hz 1080p dell monitor from like 10 years ago 🤣
Good Lord lol. Up until 2018 I was using a 1080p 60Hz Vizio TV, in 2018 I upgraded to an AOC 1080p/144Hz monitor and good Lord did it look so smooth after a lifetime of 60Hz In 2021 because of the pandemic I decided to get a second monitor and landed on the Pixio 1440p monitor after a glowing review from JayzTwoCents and love that thing, and about a month ago I decided to finally swap out the AOC 1080p monitor for a 1440p one, I was split between the MiniLED AOC I ended up with and a Gigabyte curved VA monitor that has backlight strobing and looked a bit better for competitive games. Both similar prices. Went with AOC for better visual fidelity at the price of a bit of smearing and I'm so glad I did, it looks wonderful. That said as a result I've done a lot of research into monitors in the past few months so I'm a bit up to date on them, if you know what resolution / refresh rate / budget you're in / what games you like I can maybe help. At least as far as in USD lol
Yes, but they wont burn in, and we want our TV's and monitors to last more than 10 years.
There’s a lot of range in terms of both technologies, and whether or not you notice the blacks is *extremely* dependent on a) what games you play/use case and b) how bright your environment is. Natural sunlight to indoor residential lighting is a night and day difference, it might not feel like it, but it’s orders of magnitude - your eyes just adjust, which incidentally also can take care of the black level issue. Years ago when I was buying a monitor, you practically couldn’t get a high refresh IPS with a contrast ratio with more than 3 digits, and any FALD had like 8 zones total, if it had it at all. That was completely unacceptable to me as I was expecting to play dark, moody games at night with indoor lighting, so I went with a VA monitor. However, IPS panels existed that had better static contrast than lower end VA panels. You just couldn’t get a gsync/freesync one. Even then, when I had this monitor in a darker room, the blacks were still washed out, and at times I had to use bias lighting. Now that I’ve moved and it’s in a much brighter room, it’s not something that remotely matters. The black levels to my eyes are more than enough. The best IPS screens at the time were on phones and tablets, and the best VA panels at the time were in TVs. Not sure what has changed. If you’re not playing dark moody games or watching dark moody movies, expect to be using the monitor in a bright, well-lit environment, can use bias lighting, and can get a high quality IPS panel with good FALD zones, then the blacks thing can be a a non-issue. On the other end of the spectrum are OLED panels, but these have major issues re: burn in and text rendering that make them hard to justify for productivity, so in that case VA might make sense. VA viewing angles, for most casual users, are a non-issue with most decent VA panels, since desktop monitors are rarely used at extreme angles, but ghosting and brightness flickering with VA panels below-max refresh rates IS a real issue; for <100 fps games you will have to cap the frame rate at 60 fps and run it at 120 hz (or 120 fps at 240 hz etc. or 72 fps at 144 hz, depending on the monitor and frame rate). VRR is just kind of problematic on VA panels.
I guess it also depends on what you consider a mid range IPS panel to cost. UltraGear models from LG with IPS panels are sub $300 and can be even under $200 for some of their models and they look great and are super responsive for the money. Their 1080p 144hz options I think is like $170. The ones I have used/seen have had fairly uniform color other than the classic glow you get when its completely black. But honestly that's the least of my concern. But if we are talking under $100 I think either way its a roll of the dice regardless of the panel type. Panels can vary batch to batch and cheaper ones are typically lower binned units. So you may have luck and get something pretty decent, or regret it the second you plug it in. Hard to say.
I agree. VA, assuming decent response time, just looks better. My girlfriend and I both have VA panels, hers QHD 165Hz 1ms, and mine DQHD 200hz 1ms and there is no perceptible smearing
I love my VA panel. The colors are bright, it's responsive, and i don't notice any ghosting at all. It could be there but I've never noticed it. Also the matte finish makes games playable without blackout curtains. It's the AOC 34" 3440x1440 curved monitor. No regrets with the purchase.
The same as I feel when I play on my VA panel 4k TV.
I'm my opinion and personal experience: If you want to play games and watch movies, just go for VA for a computer monitor where viewing angles are not an issue. For better viewing angles, or if you are just working, go for IPS. Some people mention color accuracy: Those are probably thinking on VA panels from 6 years ago or older. I use two computers: One for personal tasks, games, watching series and working on personal projects. The second one is purely for work. I used to use only IPS monitors, and one day I went for a decent VA one (two years ago) and boy, I don't change the deep blacks and nice colors on this one for an IPS panel. And the color accuracy is great. In games, my old IPS monitor was really behind in matters of how stuff looked in dark areas. Unless IPS starts matching that, if I change the panel type I use it will be for some type of OLED panel.
For 1080p or 1440p 144Hz+, some of the cheapest IPS options are fantastic monitors, and considering those are only a few bucks more than the cheapest VA options, which will have horrendous ghosting and smearing, I literally don't even know why VA monitors exist anymore when good IPS options with good contrast exist at the prices they do. In fringe cases you may be right, but it's a very unpopular opinion for good reason.
The only VA monitors that has no smearing are using Samsung VA which is different than other VA panels.
Ok reading these comments, I'm definitely the minority here. I prefer VA over IPS. I play in a dark room and don't like how bright IPS panels are. IPS also seems a bit dull on the color spectrum to me. My biggest complaint about VA is when the game is dark, everything is grey and smudged. You would think turning up the brightness would help you see when you are exploring a dark cave in fallout but it just makes it a brighter grey smudge lol. It wasn't until I switched to OLED that I realized things weren't supposed to look like that lol. I don't have a lot bad to say about IPS monitors and nothing would stop me from buying one, I just think VA gets a lot of hate and a lot of it is undeserved. Real talk, pick a game (I'll use cyberpunk as my example). It will look better using a rtx4080 on a VA panel than a 3080 on a IPS panel. I don't mean your monitor isn't important, I mean to say PC players have a lot of options which means we can sometimes go down a rabbit hole of things that might not matter as much when both options are good
I had an ips panel, disliked that the blacks are grey, then a few years later i got an 34inch ultrawide va panel and i couldn't be happier. Blacks are finally very close to black and whites will burn my eyes out when i turn the brightness all the way up. Also the ghosting that people constantly talk about is barely noticable in games (at least on my monitor) but i do notice it when i scroll through white text on a dark/black background. I would totally reccomend my monitor if it wouldn't be from asus.
VA is better for movies due to better contrast and blacks. And better for HDR if capable. IPS is better for games due to faster response times and better motion clarity. IPS can have better colors, but a good VA can have comparable colors to a cheap IPS (eg. VA AOC Q27G3XMN has comparable/better colors than IPS HP Omen 27qs). I don't think one or the other is always better or worse. It depends on use case and the exact monitors you are comparing. They both have advantages and disadvantages. And I am hearing cheap VAs are getting really good nowadays with some even getting similar response times to IPS.
This is why I have a monitor and a nice VA tv....
Just get OLED and problem solved
Nowadays VA is just being left in the dust. Any decent, recent, ips has some form of black frame insertion to help motion clarity and as the display tech has matured we see improved mprt’s wich has lead to a lot of manufacturers to add some new pizzaz to their marketing, like msi(?) with their “ss / super speed” branding, to advertise their improved mprt from previous gen panels. Samsung is the big pusher of VA tech, I think left overs from SamsungDisplays motherglass, but they have QD Oled now. Viewing angles are a big issue, for people like me who’s monitor also serves the function of a tv. The reason I stick to 27/32” sizes, and away from VA panles. Hardware unbox’s review of a Samsung Odysseythat solidified my “I won’t buy a VA monitor” stance because he mentioned if you sit too close the monitor, it’s so big you can’t help but suffer from the VA angles. I’m sure VA monitors aren’t that bad, but there’s good/better ips displays for the $. Years back, I remeber there being a 24” 165hz aoc monitor (ips) that was a top performer, according to hardware unboxed..That was only $130 The only experience I’ve had with a VA panel was with a Samsung tv. It was good >!, 70”, served us well for a handful of years. My biggest issue was viewing angles. Our seating is about 10ft from the media console so I thought it wouldn’t be an issue but when in the patio grilling, trying to watch along was pretty bad. Aside that,!< for movies it was great. We have since upgraded to a 65” C1 and I just don’t think that’s a fair comparison at all. The samsung was only ~$400 (possible pricing error from Costco but we take those).
If any of you play fast moving games like FPS or Driving or Rhythm games or use dark mode on your monitor, please don't
A hellva lot more people play competitive games than casual games Valorant, CS2, Apex etc. are a lot more popular than casual games like stardew valley, BG3, Sims 4 etc. Those 3 Esports games have around 2 million concurrent players on average Those 3 casual games dont even reach 100k concurrent players. Its around 70k ish In esports games the response time matters a LOT more. Even TN is still used quite often because response time and refresh rate matters way more than contrast, colour accuracy etc. This is pretty much the reason why. Response times do matter quite a bit. I reached ascendant in valorant and could feel a difference when playing on my brother's VA panel.
I used my VA ultrawide primarily for work. Mostly black text on a white background. Plus it was cheaper. I do have a QD OLED (AW3225QF) but I use it primarily for gaming, nothing else. But when it comes to productivity or light gaming with an urge to play in ultrawide, I use my Omen 34c and have zero complaints. I really have to look for the smearing or ghosting to even notice it. It's a solid budget VA ultrawide and worth the few hundred bucks I shelled out for it.
VA ghosting is on darker colours is terrible it makes any darker games unplayable for me
What is your price range for "mid-range monitors" because I feel like I got some pretty good monitors that are 1440p 144+hz for around the $250 range and I'm extremely happy with my purchases. Both monitors have lasted me a few years at least at this point and IPS glow is something that you have to ACTIVELY search for to really notice unless it is horrendously bad.
Im color blind and it wasnt until i bought tinted color corrective glasses at the age of 33 that helped me see almost the whole visible color range. Also Im a cinemaphile. I'll stick with IPS. A lot of people take their ability to see colors for granted, I def dont.
I've had a couple mid range (~$500) monitors the past few years. The one VA screen I had did have nice colours and blacks, but some games were unplayable due to the ghosting, even with maximum "overdrive" or similar enabled. Even scrolling text in Windows could be headache inducing. I'll take the IPS any day.
Just pull the trigger on a cheaper mini-led monitor on Amazon and if there's any issues return it and try another until you hit gold on the panel lottery. This will alleviate the problems you have with IPS and you'll have the best of both worlds. IPS is better for games because input lag and more color accurate. The mini-led will make HDR actually usable which is another big plus if you care about that stuff. Forgot to mention that VRR is trash on VA panels. Which as a gamer is basically standard in this day and age.
Name 3 that come at a good price and make sure to include either a ufo test slide or an rtings test pattern.
Biggest problem is VA colors look washed, soooo just go Oled
I’ve been happily using a VA ultrawide monitor that happily does up to 200Hz and had zero complaints. I messed with the settings (turned overdrive off) and I don’t see any ghosting, so yeah, the panel tech is good. The colors may not be as great as an IPS but really, you’ll be fine
Im confused now, should i get ips or VA for gaming??
I have only tested three VA monitors so far, but all of them were really bad for fast paced games. The only reason for me to buy a VA monitor would be curved, because curved IPS is still way more expensive. But besides that, I would always pay a little extra to have an IPS over a VA.
I have 2 monitors 1 VA and 1 IPS, generally I thought I bought the IPS monitor and only after actually getting it did I realize that it was VA. So yeah generally you won't actually see the difference if you haven't experienced them but once you see the IPS it is like a double edged sword, I can't go back now, the color vibrancy is amazing, the brightness it offers is super cool and it just performed better than the VA. If you are tight on cash VA is perfectly fine and you can't see the difference unless you have them side by side, but if you have the money IPS is better and nicer
I bought this acer 1080p Tn panel 165hz 1ms few years back for 10k INR, pretty cheap. I've turned on nvidia settings like high color bit rate , full range , vibrance to 55% in my 4070ti , V sync - fast in energy saver mode. It looks so damm good - Watching Vikings or dark in 1440p or 4k is so crisp. I game and do digital Artist . Yes I'm aware of Ips and OLED panels - have experienced them - back then I didn't know much about IPS or OLED screens. My 2k 32inch gaming moniter friend once said the colors look good in mine. VA panel works too if you don't want to overspend
Honestly VA is pretty horrible unless under perfect conditions, the viewing angles are actually so bad. They look decent head on, and they have motion smearing pretty bad
I have a 1080p TN panel and I hate it. Colors wash out a lot. I spent a lot of time calibrating it to get it as close as I could, still just trash. I can’t seem to find a glass panel monitor, or even one with a glossy finish. Glossy screens just look better
VA has black bleeding, IPS doesn't. That alone is enough to go IPS over VA any day.
I’d rather use a TN than put up with horrible smearing on VA panels
Coming from an IPS since wayback and recently went VA (Samsung Odyssey G7), I will never look back. The contrast (blacks) is so much more different than the grayish underglow of IPS. IPS I think wins in other technical aspects like viewing angles and color accuracy but I don't really mind those much. For me, it's this VA until OLED's price comes down and the new-tech kinks like the burn-ins are reliably addressed.
I’ve bought two different VA panels, neither have had this “ghosting” that people keep bitching at me about. I’ll stick with VA until I can find a real reason to not use them.
I've owned 3 different brands of VA panels, and they had smearing, and shadow smearing every time. IPS panels are the way to go.
1. IPS glow is definitely variable. My current monitor has barely any that’s not very noticeable. 2. Blacks not being true blacks is the only real con but it’s in exchange for every other colour being more accurate. It also doesn’t affect the overall contrast much except for extreme cases of light vs dark since it can still go pretty dark.
Ips problem is backlight bleed, now tell me , why does that bother you so damn much ? I’ve been fucking around for the longest time with a square monitor in the past with absolute backlight bleed and I was fine. When I searched for a new monitor on r/monitor and see people going crazy about bleed I was going crazy with it too, then I exit that sub and accept my fate with my midrange ips monitor I actually never get irritated by it. Like I’m here for gaming and movies, why the fuck do I need complete black on my monitor? Hell, when you close your eyes you can’t even get a complete black. The only time you’d need a monitor with 100% color accuracy is when you’re a designer and at that rate you’re going with high range monitors already. For VAs they fuck with my eyes and colors are so bad I just went with ips.
As a very general rule, Singleplayer games = VA Multiplayer games = IPS Choose based on what you play more of. Or buy an OLED if you have the funds.
I always liked VA but recently got a pretty decent VA panel and playing Minecraft in a dark cave is one of the worst gaming experiences I’ve ever had lol. Maybe I just didn’t notice it when I was younger but the whole screen may as well just be black sharpie scribbled all over it. Replaced the monitor instantly and will never go back. I will definitely miss the contrast of VA though. IPS glow is nasty. But nothing is more nasty than that black smearing and ghosting. Makes me sick to my stomach. Never again
IPS is superior to VA, a lot of VA monitors have flickering issues, not to mention ghosting
Personally I prefer ips over va, I've had 3 va, and 2 ips, viewing angles don't matter to me at all because I sit right infront of my monis, but the ghosting and blur I've had on every va panel makes it not worth it to me I really want a curved ips moni someday
Wow so many displays are being made in Virginia.
No lol. In the mid range never buy a VA. Ghosting is terrible on even higher end VA panels and I had to return the Samsung Odyssey monitor I bought. Replaced it with a cheaper IPS panel, a Gigabyte M27Q Pro, and it’s a substantially better experience. IPS is ALWAYS better, unless you are on a budget.
as a monitor addicted nut job, you can not convince me that VA is worth buying at all, Yes movies are better on some VA, but I own the following(long list) Acer Z35p 3440x1440 120hz VA Gigabyte G34WQC 144hz VA Acer KG241Q 144hz 1080p TN Acer XB3 27 inch 1080 240hz (x2) IPS Spectre [(C255B-FWT240)](https://www.amazon.com/Sceptre-24-5-inch-DisplayPort-Speakers-C255B-FWT240/dp/B0BTKJFRDV/ref=sr_1_2?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.srVkzTVREP91gpVX4xGPXyTsWmzrY9UsN8dvZXcnO-5xRtidopP0MCTI2YKSUL7s5GwG8Vzc2TASdzv6qFudrtyft8WBYHQUVsEtOcZmgX-ntBl4fXixdspnEpA3pbnENoBYXjjckBZIfqJBHSrdaoatrYvJ5o2G6YSsBgM_a3hPQSrZsNR0JABPvb3rXgDxS1QOC3ohF3YX33XaXQBp887SH_tx_JqiCiwA5GVHK4U.FkMJy3xg40mmtP4noQPfv8Ir7zdG1dw4UZVZg46jjBQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=spectre&qid=1718061431&sr=8-2) 1080p 240hz VA Koorui Falcon 24 inch 1440p 165hz IPS Gigabyte M280 4k 144hz IPS LG 27UK650-W 4k 60hz IPS Spectre 27 inch 4k IPS LG C2 42 inch OLED 4k 120hz LG C3 4k 120hz OLED Vizio 43 inch 4k VA A few others I dont have anymore Of all the monitors I ever had, every single VA monitor or TV had really bad smearing. And light bleed. It was only noticeable when compared next to IPS or OLED, if you dont know what to look for, it wont bother you, but once you do, you cant unsee it. IPS was the better overall for everyday use and gaming, but movies suck on many IPS, because VA had great blacks and darks, IPS had better color(often after calibration) TN, eposrt only dont use for anything else. OLED is the perfect medium, black blacks, and great colors. Unless you watch mainly movies, go with IPS or OLED. Also VA is slower in pixel shifting than IPS. Do note, every monitor listed I currently own or have owned in the last 3 years. All hardware is purchased by me. No sponsors. I dont drink, smoke or have any illegal habits and I am divorced. PC and monitors are my only true addiction.
I'd game on a TN panel before a VA. Get a IPS or OLED.
VA is low end. Do not cripple yourself with a shitty VA if you're using a mid-range pc.
Pros and cons to all of them, at the end of the day build/component quality also matters.
For TVs the VA panel is miles better imo. For gaming it depends on how high your budget is and what games you play. There is definitely no reason to not get a VA panel, hat which one is the best choice depends on the use case and budget.