1440p monitor

Seems a little high. I bought my QNix (same as XStar) for US $289.99 with free shipping.

 

A bit cheaper:

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Matte-FREE-E..._Monitors&hash=item4d0d1e678e#ht_18792wt_1362

 

I was going to mention the new monitor will only be $800, but in Canada it probably will actually be $1000 :/ I expect the cost to drop by $200-300 very soon though. ASUS didnt seem prepared for Lenovo and Dell to launch their new 4K monitors at such a "cheap" cost. In comparison, the new ASUS is WAY overpriced.

AH-IPS is not really new, it is very good monitor panel technology though. It has incredibly good viewing angles with little to no color shift, and has outstanding color accuracy. AH-IPS is made by LG.
PLS is Samsung's competitor to IPS (and is actually newer tech by release date). Overall they are both very similar (I own both an AH-IPS and PLS panel monitor). I wouldn't care too much about which panel you go with specifically since unless you compare both side by side you will never know of any difference. And even when you do compare them side by side the differences are hard to see.

Frequency is 60Hz on all monitors you are looking at. The QNix and XStar are overclock-able though (or at least the QNix is, X-Star may have changed something so it is not anymore). The IPS panel displays are NOT overclockable and wont go above 60Hz. It is important to note that only the single DVI input models can be overclocked. This isnt a problem for PC use because it will connect just fine. The monitors just cant be attached to other devices like a game console or TV receiver. In my opinion, the QNix QX2710 is the best monitor to get.

 

I have not personally owned a Crossover, but they were a big deal when that brand was the only alternative to the rising price of the Yamakasi's. I do remember hearing that build quality was about the same or slightly worse than yamakasi though which leads me to believe all of the brands will be right about the same in build quality. The most common problem is noticeable backlight bleed, which can happen with any monitor brand really but the "ultra premium" brands like Dell do their best to make sure QC catches monitors with those issues. My QNix has moderate BLB at the bottom center where some screws attach and it was warping the bezel. With a slight adjustment to the screw tightness most of the problem went away and I dont consider it a big deal at all for me. It is only noticeable on images that are very dark. The second biggest problem is a couple dead pixels on most monitors, also not a problem unless it is stuck pixels that are stuck as red, green, or blue. I have not had this problem on either of my monitors and most people do not, however both my monitors have a single dead (black) pixel. I found it when testing for dead pixels but honestly because the pixel density is so high I have never once noticed the pixel in my entire 2 years owning the monitors. I have to be within a few inches of the screen and specifically looking for the pixel to see it at all. My Yamakasi has it's dead pixel right underneath the "X" button in browsers or explorer. My QNix has it's dead pixel down in the bottom left somewhere a bit above the start button.


The difference between 60Hz and higher can be quite a lot as it leads to much better motion smoothness. Personally I run my QNix at 96Hz because I can do so on any graphics card with no driver hacking. My Yamakasi I run at 120Hz because I had done the driver unlock when I first got it. I dont really notice a difference between 96 and 120Hz but I might if I had both monitors side by side. In order to get the lowest latency and best motion you need to be able to maintain 120 frames per second in games though, but you still will notice good advantages if you can lock yourself to a solid 60 fps and run the monitor at 120Hz, or lock yourself to 48fps and the monitor at 96Hz. Nvidia can do this easily by using something called "Adaptive half-rate" vsync in the control panel.

 

yes you are correct, and yes I own the Yamakasi Catleap 2B. I bought it a LONG time ago before it was a big deal to the whole world and when the price was cheap(ish). Now days they are near impossible to find and when you can find one they will cost $750+. Like I said earlier, only the single DVI input PLS monitors can overclock. There are only 1 or 2 models of the AH-IPS monitors that can overclock the refresh rate higher. Overlord monitors can since they use a reverse engineered Catleap 2B driver board, and then the Catleap 2B's can as well. Theoretically older Apple Cinema displays can overclock successfully too since the driver boards and AH-IPS panels are old LG stock of the Apple Cinema monitors. The Crossover models that support over 60Hz refresh rate overclocking will frame skip and you wont actually see anything over 60Hz. Same with the multi input Catleap models. Pretty much just the QNix and X-Star can overclock reliably these days.

Overclocking the monitor refresh rate has no adverse effects on the monitor as far as anyone is aware and that any testing has shown. A monitor is either capable of working at a specific refresh rate or it isnt. Clocking up the refresh rate only raises the temperature of the chips inside by 1-2 degrees and does not require extra voltage or anything, you cant do that with monitors. It is just called an overclock because that is a term people know and understand, and since the refresh rate is higher than the official spec that is what the procedure is called.

 

The QNix QX2710 is PLS (good color and viewing angles), 1440p, and can do 120Hz though. For $350

 

Since you have nvidia, just go into your control panel and select to create a custom resolution. Leave everything as is and just set the refresh rate to 96Hz and click OK. Simple as that. If you want higher than 100Hz then you need to run a driver unlock utility to unlock the pixel clock limit in the driver. Then you can get up to around 130Hz refresh rate as long as the monitor can go that high. Nvidia moved to create their own proprietary "monitor overclocking" which they introduced with the Titan cards. All it is is the same thing you are doing here, but Nvidia waqnted to capitalize on the sudden popularity of this so last year they artificially capped the max refresh rate you can do in the drivers unless you own specific hardware. The unlock utility removes this artificial limit imposed by Nvidia. With the limit in place the highest you can go is about 100Hz.

 

Did you get the monitor yet Haibane?


Also when you do, be sure and go into your Nvidia control panel to the page that looks kinda like this and set the image scaling to be done by the GPU. You can select either to stretch to fullscreen or maintain aspect ratio. The important part is that GPU scaling override be selected though