144 Mhz gaming monitors worth it?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So at some point I’m going to be wanting to upgrade from a 24" 1080P to a 27" 1440P Monitor. I was looking at the Asus PB27Q8V, because it’s

  1. IPS, none of that TN garbage
  2. True 8 bit, none of that 6 bit with dithering garbage
  3. Has both HDMI and DVI inputs,

However it seems it’s only 75 hz, and now 144 hz is a thing, and now there’s a thing called “G-Sync”, where your video card can control the frame rate of your monitor to prevent tearing or stuttering.

My questions are

  1. Given that TVs are 30 frames a second and the best Youtube videos are 60 frames a second, how important is it that a monitor go above 75.
  2. How important is G-Sync? I realize there’s no fix for stuttering if the PC drops below 75 frames a second but can’t tearing be fixed by simply capping the frame rate at 75 on the PC side?
  3. Is there a 144 hz monitor with my three specifications that doesn’t cost a bazillion dollars?
2

Given the 144 MHz typo, I was hoping this was going to be about some new amature radio thing I wasn’t aware of.

3

Dunno the answer, but that’s not a valid comparison. This would be better:

Given that 75 is so much better than 60 for FPS games, how important is it to go to 120?

4

And, dunno, but IPS means low frame rate, so that’s why the one you’re looking at is only 75Hz. If there is such a thing, screens with not-yet-mainstream specifications might be cheaper on direct import from China.

5

144 Hz is fantastic. TVs are not 30 Hz by the way; they are 60 Hz; even older TVs were 60 fields/sec, which gave motion smoothness similar to a true 60 Hz (actually 59.94 Hz, but never mind that).

G-Sync (and Adaptive Sync) does help stuttering when below the target frame rate. Normally, if the refresh rate is 75, then the next step down is 37.5 Hz (if you want to avoid tearing*). So if your graphics card can only hit 72 Hz at those settings, it’ll run at 37.5. With G-Sync it’ll run at a perfect 72 Hz without tearing.

As for IPS–sure, aside from DVI. DVI is dead; it’s all DisplayPort and HDMI. You can use a DVI-to-HDMI converter but you’ll lose the highest refresh rates.

I have a Nixeus 34" 144 Hz screen, but it’s VA and 34x14 res. I’ve been pretty happy with it. They have a model close to your requirements for $423.

Overall, I highly recommend 144 Hz. It’s fantastic even on the desktop. Scrolling and moving windows around is very smooth. You’ll want a beefy graphics card if you expect to run modern games at full res/refresh, though.

* There are some additional complications which I can go into if you want, but this is approximately true.

6

I have the Asus PG348Q, it’s an IPS 34" ultrawide (3440x1440) that defaults to 60Hz but is overclockable through the onscreen menu to 100Hz, with GSync.

For me, the prevention of tearing was more important than > 60Hz, but when I am running through games at 80 to 100 FPS, it’s a smooth, beautiful ride. Hasn’t helped my reflexes or shooting much but that’s because I am old AF.

7

Keep in mind that G-Sync is primarily Nvidia cards and FreeSync is primarily AMD. There’s some crossover these days with “certified” monitors able to work across GPU platforms but it’s something to consider.

There’s also two types of G-Sync: originally G-Sync monitors had a hardware module in them that controlled the framerate which is part of what made them so much pricer than a comparable FreeSync monitor (FreeSync is all done via software). These days you also have monitors certified for G-Sync but which do it via software. The hardware option is “better” but not necessarily better for the upcharge.