**Viewing Angles: A Crucial Aspect to Consider When Choosing a Monitor**

When it comes to choosing a monitor, one aspect that is often overlooked but crucial for optimal viewing experience is the viewing angles. The off-viewing angles on modern monitors can be quite limited, and as you move away from the center of the screen, the image quality starts to degrade. This means that if you're going to use your monitor in a setting where multiple people will be viewing it from different angles, such as a office or a communal space, it's essential to consider the viewing angles.

The manufacturers have taken steps to address this issue by orienting their panels in a way that gives you the best viewing angles left to right. However, if you try to view the monitor vertically, even by just a few inches up or down, the horizontal axis of the image starts to shift, which can make it even worse for vertical viewing. This is because modern monitors are designed to be viewed from a certain angle, and deviating from that angle can lead to a suboptimal viewing experience.

**Freesync and G-Sync: Understanding the Difference**

Another crucial aspect to consider when choosing a monitor is its support for sync technologies such as Freesync and G-Sync. Freesync is an open-source technology developed by AMD, which allows monitors to work seamlessly with NVIDIA graphics cards without requiring any additional hardware modules. On the other hand, G-Sync is a proprietary technology developed by NVIDIA that requires specific hardware components to be installed in the monitor.

In recent years, NVIDIA has started validating certain Freesync panels for use with their G-Sync technology, which means that these monitors can now work with NVIDIA graphics cards without requiring any additional hardware. However, it's essential to note that not all Freesync panels are compatible with NVIDIA graphics cards, so make sure to check the specifications of the monitor before making a purchase.

**V-Sync and Adaptive Sync: What's the Difference?**

When it comes to sync technologies, there's another aspect to consider - V-Sync. V-Sync is an outdated technology that was widely used in the past to prevent screen tearing, but it can also cause other issues such as stuttering and frame rate drops. On the other hand, Adaptive Sync is a more advanced technology that uses machine learning algorithms to detect frame rates and adjust the sync settings accordingly.

Adaptive Sync is designed to provide smoother gameplay experiences by adjusting the sync settings on the fly, which means you're less likely to notice stutters or jolty pauses. This technology is particularly useful for fast-paced games where screen tearing can be a major issue. However, it's essential to note that Adaptive Sync requires more powerful hardware than V-Sync, so make sure your graphics card and system are capable of handling this technology.

**Monitor Features: More Than Just Panel Tech**

While panel tech is the most critical aspect of a monitor, other features can also be important depending on your needs. For example, some monitors come with adjustable height bases that allow you to customize the viewing angle to suit your preferences. Others may have fold-out headphone jacks or USB hubs built-in, which can be useful for connectivity.

However, in my opinion, panel tech is far more critical than these features. A high-quality panel with good refresh rates and response times can make a significant difference in the overall gaming experience. Additionally, monitors with IPS technology often provide better color accuracy and viewing angles than other types of panels.

**Recommendations: Top Monitors for Different Budgets**

If you're looking to purchase a new monitor, I've got some recommendations based on different budgets and preferences. From ultrawide monitors with high refresh rates to compact gaming monitors with fast response times, there's something on this list for everyone.

For those who want the best of both worlds - a high-quality panel with impressive features - consider the LG UltraGear series or the ASUS ProArt series. These monitors offer excellent color accuracy, high refresh rates, and adjustable height bases that make them ideal for professional use.

On the other hand, if you're on a tighter budget, consider the Acer Predator series or the BenQ Zowie series. These monitors offer impressive performance at affordable prices, making them perfect for casual gaming and general use.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, when choosing a monitor, it's essential to consider the viewing angles, sync technologies, and panel tech. While other features like adjustable height bases and USB hubs can be useful, they're secondary to the quality of the display itself. By considering these factors and doing your research, you can find the perfect monitor for your needs and preferences.

I hope this article has helped you understand some of the key aspects of monitor technology and what to look for when choosing a new panel. Remember to check out my links in the description below for more information on my favorite monitors and recommendations based on different budgets and preferences.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up guys js2 cents here and if there's one thing i've kind of noticed with our rating your setups video is that i think a lot of you are underestimating the importance of monitors so today we're going to talk about some of the monitor tech i know we've done this video in the past we're going to talk about things like refresh rate response time screen size like format like the display format the width height all that stuff because some of you i think might need to actually upgrade your monitors before you concern yourself with a new gpu nzxt's build is a quick and easy way to get a new gaming computer and right now they are proud to announce expansion and availability to australia the netherlands france and italy build a gaming pc on your budget using the built-in configurator and see exactly how your favorite games will perform and all builds are backed by the bld peace of mind warranty to get started building your next gaming pc visit the bld link in the description below alright so the aim of today's video is going to be to educate you guys on some of the different settings within monitors so that when you're going out there shopping uh trying to upgrade your setups specifically your monitor then you'll kind of know what you're looking for that way you don't accidentally maybe get something you didn't understand and then it's not going to be exactly what you wanted to deal with like boxing it up or returning to amazon or whatever else so also too i will put in each one of these categories down below in the description a link to a monitor that i recommend that's both cost effective and obviously effective at getting the results for that particular monitor type because there's a lot of different monitors out there whether it be 16 by 9 16 by 10 21 by nine 21 by i think there's an even wider one i forgot this like 40 by one now or something crazy like the samsung units so let's go ahead and get right into it all right so the first thing we'll get out of the way is how panels are measured you're always going to see 24 inch 27 inch 32 34 38 or whatever the measurement is always taken diagonally from corner to corner so this corner down to that corner and what that's basically telling you is that dimension now a lot of people think that 27 inch means that's the actual horizontal width of the monitor and that's not true those measurements are always going to be a little bit different the reason why i mentioned this is make sure when you're looking at a monitor you look at the overall dimensions if you're worried about whether or not it's going to fit or clear a shelf or the width that you have it or something like that some brands also measure the viewable which is the panel itself corner to corner some will measure the actual outer side of the bezel from corner to the corner making your screen real estate actually slightly smaller than advertised now in the measurements when you look at the specs of the monitor it will usually say viewable so you want to make sure that that says viewable if you want to know exactly what size you're getting obviously if it's a big thick bezel monitor and it says 27 inch you know overall dimension then you know that the viewable is going to be much smaller than that but one common myth out there is that somehow the size of the panel itself determines the pixels well the only thing it determines with the pixel is the size of the pixel because let's say for instance you have a 27 inch panel like we have here with this view sonic if you're curious this is a view sonic elite it's a 1440p so it's the wqhd or qhd wqhd is the ultra wide but so it's a qhd 165 hertz refresh rate g-sync ips all those things we'll tell you what all that means in a second so that you can know what all of those are when you're shopping but this 27-inch panel and a 24-inch panel if they're 1440p or 1080p have the exact amount of pixels they're just exactly the same because the size of the panel does not denote the resolution the resolution rating does so what you might notice is if you have a 27 inch 1080p panel and a 24 inch 1080p panel the 24 inch might actually look nicer to you because you're going to notice what's called a screen door effect with the larger the panel gets because the pixels themselves get bigger the bigger the pixels which are squares by the way are going to be more noticeable so that's why when you size up above in my opinion 24 inch panel you should look at 1440p or qhd or potentially even 4k depending on what your use for the panel is so don't get that mixed up don't think the size of the panel has anything to do with the resolution because it doesn't now speaking of resolution let's go ahead and kind of decode that for you let's start with 1920x1080 that is a resolution by resolution number so what that means is 1920 is the amount of pixels going horizontal across the panel 1080 or 1080 pixels is the height now those are usually determined in a pixel ratio or a screen ratio like for instance 16x9 1920 by 1080 is a 16x9 which means if this is 16 that is 9. simple way of putting it it's basically a ratio if you want to know how many pixels are in that panel you can just take the two numbers and times them by each other because it's horizontal versus vertical now what you'll notice is that sometimes you'll see an odd number there you'll see like a 1920x1200 what that basically means is it's still the width of a 1920 panel but it's not 1080p it's 1200p which means it's 1200 pixels high so you have a little bit of extra pixel real estate in the height that's referred to as a 16 by 10 panel because it's slightly taller than a standard 16 by nine it's a 16 by 10. now the same could be said for something like an ultra wide or 21 by nine that just means that the ratio is 21 wide it's 9 high that's referred to as an ultra wide and in those resolutions they'll usually be referred to as a w before the resolution so if we go ahead and move this guy out of here we bring my ultra wide in here we'll decode that so this is an ultra wide panel what you're going to find here is these are 21 by 9 resolution so we already explained what 16 by 9 is 16 by 10 is this is 21x9 and now you're getting even wider resolutions or wider formats than this because of the fact that now you're seeing companies basically take two of these and putting them side by side or two 16 by nine panels in a single layout so what you're going to notice is that the resolutions on this are going to seem a little bit odd this is a 3440 which means 3440 pixels across by 1440 pixels high so usually what you'll see is the second number referred to as the p because that's uh you the p basically meant progressive and uh it's not really relevant these days but they'll almost always make reference to the resolution in that vertical height because those ratios are something that you kind of see now what we're starting to see now just like i showed you with the 16 by 9 and 16 by 10 for the 1920 by 1200 you're starting to see panels that are like 3440 by 1600 which is a panel that i actually have personally at home that's starting to get really close to the amount of pixels that you'll find in a 4k panel it's more than three quarters of those pixels so as you add pixels to your monitor you're going to add more stress to your graphics card because it has to write data for every single one of those pixels and what to do so the higher the resolution the higher the stress is going to be on your graphics card now let's go and talk about the uh refresh rate that's the other number that people get really hyper fixated on but it's only half of the formula in terms of what makes a good panel the refresh rate means the electronics and the logic board in the monitor is able to take data from the graphics card at that many times per second referred to as a hertz rate by standard 60 hertz is something that for the longest time people really aspired for let's just get 60 hertz gaming or 60fps you'll refer to the frame rate from the graphics card as frames per second the monitor will always refer to it as a hertz rating it's just like electricity it's got a polling rate but they're usually referred to as a hurt rate that just means that the logic of the panel itself is capable of creating or refreshing the information that many times per second so this panel is capable of 144 hertz or 144 refreshes per second now you'll also hear panels talk about overclocking or referred to as overdriving referred to as overdriving with a monitor it's technically the same as overclocking where sometimes they can go higher than that 144 to 165 or maybe even 175 but you're going to find that sometimes what will happen when you start overdriving a panel is you'll start to see some sort of banding or color separation or maybe ghosting i personally never overclock or overdrive the panels i leave them at their native refresh rates to make sure i never have any weird wonkiness happening but the other half of the formula here that corresponds with refresh rate is response time if your panel can refresh itself the logic and size there is a logic board in every single panel that's taking the information from the graphics card and turning it into an image if that can refresh 144 times per second your pixels are the other half of that formula so that's referred to as a response time or the time it takes for a pixel to go from off to on to off again you'll often refer to that or hear that referred to as gray to gray there is also black to black which is actually admittedly slower than greater gray because when you have a backlight on or backlighting that's making the pixels light up remember the pixels are just gates that create color with either rg or b and then any ratio of those creating all the 18 point whatever million colors the pixel has to be able to respond fast enough so that by the time the monitor is drawing the next image you don't still have residual light from the previous image that's referred to as ghosting now as a demonstration we can put up on the screen right here there's actually a website you guys can go to we'll link it down below as well hopefully it'll crash the site where it will have a ufo test and it will have a ufo that goes across the screen it's gonna it's gonna basically know what your refresh rate is because your operating system reports what the refresh rate and current desktop settings are and you'll be able to see in real time what those ghost images look like that's basically where by the time the next image is drawn the previous one is still fading out the faster the pixel response the smoother and less ghosting there's going to be oftentimes what happens with overdriving as well and one of the reasons why i don't like overdriving or overclocking a monitor is it also gets a little bit predictive where it starts to draw the next frame early so that it can be ahead to be able to that's why it's called overdriving to be able to be ahead on that image but oftentimes what you start to get is a ghosting effect in front of the image and then it starts to look all kinds of wonky so that's one of the reasons why i don't really do overdriving even though many panels do allow for it so you can have a fast refresh rate the rate at which the panel can redraw the image but if you have slow pixel response time and you'll see oftentimes one millisecond respon response time there's a lot of debate on how accurate those numbers actually are oftentimes you'll find it's really more like three or four milliseconds anything five milliseconds or less is considered pretty much esports uh i'm not gonna get into the debate about whether or not those are false numbers but i'm gonna tell you right now if they're advertised at one millisecond they're going to be extremely smooth versus something that's like 20 milliseconds or 25 milliseconds a perfect example right now pause this video and move your cursor around real quick you're gonna see more than one cursor as you're doing it that is specifically refresh rate and response time your cursor is moving faster than the response time and the refresh rate of your panel which is going to make you see more than one cursor now how fast your panel is is going to determine how close that trail is to the cursor itself so even with a really fast monitor you're still going to see a little bit of a what looks like a comet trail behind it but it's going to be more of them and they're going to be much closer to the cursor itself so when it comes to gaming the two things that reign supreme is refresh rate and response time in my opinion even over resolution because having 4k but having it be a smudgy ghosty mess is not a good gaming experience and anyone out there that's running a panel that maybe was inexpensive and cheap probably knows it's exactly what i'm talking about so it's going to talk about the other major technology you're going to find in panels and that is obviously the type of screen that it is so we're talking ips panels tn panels va panels which are the three major types it's becoming a little less relevant to talk about today versus where we were a few years ago but i'm even mentioning it because of the fact that obviously it's one of the other major um specs of a panel but i'm seeing a lot of when we do this setup videos i've seen a lot of people still running mismatched panels and really old tn panels tn was the first high refresh rate low response time or fast response time panels they were able to give you extremely fast motion but they're almost always foil backlit the type of panel that they are gives you terrible off-viewing angles which means if you're not looking straight on if you look off to the side there's major color shift and dulling across the screen tn panels unfortunately though have the worst color recreation of any panel type out there now that may not matter to a lot of people but as technologies have improved the cost of that comes down as well so now we're seeing and for the longest time there's actually a limitation where ips which is the most accurate color and has the best off viewing angles with up to 170 degrees viewing angle which means there won't be any color shift or dulling when it comes to ips at least to nearly 180 degree viewing angle makes them obviously the better choice because the costs are continuing to come down but they were they were limited to 60 fps or 60 hertz and for the longest time they were somewhere around 10 to 15 milliseconds response time which made them great panels for editing photo editing video editing or content consumption like netflix and stuff like that it's one of those things where it wasn't great for gaming for a long time and that's really changed because now you can get ips high refresh rate low response time gaming panels for in the 250 dollar range which in the past that panel that exact panel if we went back to say six or seven years ago would have cost a thousand dollars or more and you're seeing it in larger formats now not just 24 inch 27 inch um in fact that ultra wide we showed you which is a 34 inch is also an ips panel but what we have right here is the nyxias tn panel and the problem with tn like i already said is as you look at it from different off-viewing axis it's going to really start to have major color shift and a kind of a rainbowing effect because that's the way that the foil of the backside of the tn works in my opinion tn panels once you see no pun intended once you see the light ips or even va for that matter which is kind of a good middle ground tn just really starts to look nasty now tn usually would have the most vibrant oversaturated unrealistic colors which for many people they like that they want to turn on the computer and it's just a it looks like a circus it's a big bright blotchy mess and most of the time games didn't care but now that games with their newer engines like look a lot more realistic and developers and studios are putting a lot of time and effort into color grading the game and having a certain cinematic effect you're doing yourself a real disservice not to mention with the tn back back light and the way it works itself whether it be led or lcd which is still again usually edge lit or full backlit shining through a foil and then through the pixel gate it's going to make dark scenes even harder to see because ips does even better at low light recreation than tn so if you're dealing with like a spooky game or something in a cave or like you know rise of the tomb raider or something like that or shadow of the tomb raider a lot of dark scenes you're gonna see it better with something like an ips panel and because it's become so much more cost effective if you're shopping for a panel there's no reason not to consider one now let's talk about tn viewing angles for a second yes the off viewing angles really do suck and you notice they start to shift but one of the things they do with tn panels is they orient the the panel in a way to give you the best viewing angles left to right you might notice if you just go a few inches up or down it has a major shift on that horizontal axis which means if you're going to try and turn it vertical to make it some sort of like a forum reading monitor it's going to be even worse because you've just put it 90 degrees offset from the way it's intended to be viewed let's talk about freesync and g-sync freesync you're going to find in just about every panel nowadays that's not g-sync and the reason for that is it doesn't require a hardware module built in and it's open source it's open open where it's free that's why it's called freesync in the beginning freesync was absolutely positively not supported by nvidia period end of story but now that nvidia has gone and started validating freesync panels that work with their g-sync technology it's been a long time since i've had a freesync panel not have the g-sync option inside the nvidia control panel so one thing to mention regarding v-sync though because i know some of you are going to be like i'll just turn on v-sync i don't need a sync technology built into the monitor the problem with that is if you have 144 hertz panel and you turn on vsync and your game can't draw a consistent 144hz or higher fps if you drop below 144 it's going to go automatically to a half rate which means it'll drop wait for that next frame which is actually going to be 72 hertz the same thing for a 60 fps panel if you've got an old system and you have it locked at 60hz vsync and it drops below 60 it's going to drop down to 30. and it will continue to half rate itself as long as it stays above that or if it can't stay at the v-sync number so you might want to consider enabling something like adaptive sync which is more uh adaptive if you will to keep the frame rates in sync and you won't notice nearly as many of those stutters or those jolty pauses if you will it's the changes that you're noticing when it's fast and slow and fast and slow if you can smooth that out you have a harder time determining that there's frame drops or frame rate dips so that's why a sync technology is nice now that you don't have to necessarily have an expensive nvidia g-sync you know certified panel with the g-sync module built into it because it's a hardware interface freesync is definitely something to consider in a way to go and most lg panels now that are not g-sync are also freesync and you're seeing that with asus panels uh it's nice to see that sync technology pretty much in all of them the other thing you might consider is you know nice to have is it an adjustable height base this one's got a little locking button you know does it uh and this one doesn't actually rotate but does it rotate into a vertical i see a lot of vertical mounts on our our series where we react to your setups because people might want to use them just for forms maybe you're a reddit junkie and you're constantly at reddit and you like having that vertical height to see the threads rather than having to scroll and having all the extra width for no reason whatsoever does it have fold out little headphone jacks or usb hub built in does it have a headphone holder does have rgb lighting all that sort of stuff are nice to haves but in my opinion i would take obviously the panel tech the ips high refresh rate fast response time over any of those features so like i said i hope that's helped you guys understand some of the panel tech and what it is that you guys are shopping for i'll put links to my favorite monitors down below that are kind of like different price points as well as different text whether it be resolutions or ips ultrawides or whatever so you guys can get an idea of what i would recommend if you guys are shopping for new panels i know i've done this video in the past but i still get lots of questions and i'm still seeing a lot of people running uh interesting setups on our on our setup react series so thanks for watching guys don't forget about our giveaway you can find a link to it down the description below if you don't know what i'm talking about you don't want to miss out on that one so thanks for watching what is your favorite panel what are you running and what do you love and or hate about it comment down below and we'll see you in the next onewhat's up guys js2 cents here and if there's one thing i've kind of noticed with our rating your setups video is that i think a lot of you are underestimating the importance of monitors so today we're going to talk about some of the monitor tech i know we've done this video in the past we're going to talk about things like refresh rate response time screen size like format like the display format the width height all that stuff because some of you i think might need to actually upgrade your monitors before you concern yourself with a new gpu nzxt's build is a quick and easy way to get a new gaming computer and right now they are proud to announce expansion and availability to australia the netherlands france and italy build a gaming pc on your budget using the built-in configurator and see exactly how your favorite games will perform and all builds are backed by the bld peace of mind warranty to get started building your next gaming pc visit the bld link in the description below alright so the aim of today's video is going to be to educate you guys on some of the different settings within monitors so that when you're going out there shopping uh trying to upgrade your setups specifically your monitor then you'll kind of know what you're looking for that way you don't accidentally maybe get something you didn't understand and then it's not going to be exactly what you wanted to deal with like boxing it up or returning to amazon or whatever else so also too i will put in each one of these categories down below in the description a link to a monitor that i recommend that's both cost effective and obviously effective at getting the results for that particular monitor type because there's a lot of different monitors out there whether it be 16 by 9 16 by 10 21 by nine 21 by i think there's an even wider one i forgot this like 40 by one now or something crazy like the samsung units so let's go ahead and get right into it all right so the first thing we'll get out of the way is how panels are measured you're always going to see 24 inch 27 inch 32 34 38 or whatever the measurement is always taken diagonally from corner to corner so this corner down to that corner and what that's basically telling you is that dimension now a lot of people think that 27 inch means that's the actual horizontal width of the monitor and that's not true those measurements are always going to be a little bit different the reason why i mentioned this is make sure when you're looking at a monitor you look at the overall dimensions if you're worried about whether or not it's going to fit or clear a shelf or the width that you have it or something like that some brands also measure the viewable which is the panel itself corner to corner some will measure the actual outer side of the bezel from corner to the corner making your screen real estate actually slightly smaller than advertised now in the measurements when you look at the specs of the monitor it will usually say viewable so you want to make sure that that says viewable if you want to know exactly what size you're getting obviously if it's a big thick bezel monitor and it says 27 inch you know overall dimension then you know that the viewable is going to be much smaller than that but one common myth out there is that somehow the size of the panel itself determines the pixels well the only thing it determines with the pixel is the size of the pixel because let's say for instance you have a 27 inch panel like we have here with this view sonic if you're curious this is a view sonic elite it's a 1440p so it's the wqhd or qhd wqhd is the ultra wide but so it's a qhd 165 hertz refresh rate g-sync ips all those things we'll tell you what all that means in a second so that you can know what all of those are when you're shopping but this 27-inch panel and a 24-inch panel if they're 1440p or 1080p have the exact amount of pixels they're just exactly the same because the size of the panel does not denote the resolution the resolution rating does so what you might notice is if you have a 27 inch 1080p panel and a 24 inch 1080p panel the 24 inch might actually look nicer to you because you're going to notice what's called a screen door effect with the larger the panel gets because the pixels themselves get bigger the bigger the pixels which are squares by the way are going to be more noticeable so that's why when you size up above in my opinion 24 inch panel you should look at 1440p or qhd or potentially even 4k depending on what your use for the panel is so don't get that mixed up don't think the size of the panel has anything to do with the resolution because it doesn't now speaking of resolution let's go ahead and kind of decode that for you let's start with 1920x1080 that is a resolution by resolution number so what that means is 1920 is the amount of pixels going horizontal across the panel 1080 or 1080 pixels is the height now those are usually determined in a pixel ratio or a screen ratio like for instance 16x9 1920 by 1080 is a 16x9 which means if this is 16 that is 9. simple way of putting it it's basically a ratio if you want to know how many pixels are in that panel you can just take the two numbers and times them by each other because it's horizontal versus vertical now what you'll notice is that sometimes you'll see an odd number there you'll see like a 1920x1200 what that basically means is it's still the width of a 1920 panel but it's not 1080p it's 1200p which means it's 1200 pixels high so you have a little bit of extra pixel real estate in the height that's referred to as a 16 by 10 panel because it's slightly taller than a standard 16 by nine it's a 16 by 10. now the same could be said for something like an ultra wide or 21 by nine that just means that the ratio is 21 wide it's 9 high that's referred to as an ultra wide and in those resolutions they'll usually be referred to as a w before the resolution so if we go ahead and move this guy out of here we bring my ultra wide in here we'll decode that so this is an ultra wide panel what you're going to find here is these are 21 by 9 resolution so we already explained what 16 by 9 is 16 by 10 is this is 21x9 and now you're getting even wider resolutions or wider formats than this because of the fact that now you're seeing companies basically take two of these and putting them side by side or two 16 by nine panels in a single layout so what you're going to notice is that the resolutions on this are going to seem a little bit odd this is a 3440 which means 3440 pixels across by 1440 pixels high so usually what you'll see is the second number referred to as the p because that's uh you the p basically meant progressive and uh it's not really relevant these days but they'll almost always make reference to the resolution in that vertical height because those ratios are something that you kind of see now what we're starting to see now just like i showed you with the 16 by 9 and 16 by 10 for the 1920 by 1200 you're starting to see panels that are like 3440 by 1600 which is a panel that i actually have personally at home that's starting to get really close to the amount of pixels that you'll find in a 4k panel it's more than three quarters of those pixels so as you add pixels to your monitor you're going to add more stress to your graphics card because it has to write data for every single one of those pixels and what to do so the higher the resolution the higher the stress is going to be on your graphics card now let's go and talk about the uh refresh rate that's the other number that people get really hyper fixated on but it's only half of the formula in terms of what makes a good panel the refresh rate means the electronics and the logic board in the monitor is able to take data from the graphics card at that many times per second referred to as a hertz rate by standard 60 hertz is something that for the longest time people really aspired for let's just get 60 hertz gaming or 60fps you'll refer to the frame rate from the graphics card as frames per second the monitor will always refer to it as a hertz rating it's just like electricity it's got a polling rate but they're usually referred to as a hurt rate that just means that the logic of the panel itself is capable of creating or refreshing the information that many times per second so this panel is capable of 144 hertz or 144 refreshes per second now you'll also hear panels talk about overclocking or referred to as overdriving referred to as overdriving with a monitor it's technically the same as overclocking where sometimes they can go higher than that 144 to 165 or maybe even 175 but you're going to find that sometimes what will happen when you start overdriving a panel is you'll start to see some sort of banding or color separation or maybe ghosting i personally never overclock or overdrive the panels i leave them at their native refresh rates to make sure i never have any weird wonkiness happening but the other half of the formula here that corresponds with refresh rate is response time if your panel can refresh itself the logic and size there is a logic board in every single panel that's taking the information from the graphics card and turning it into an image if that can refresh 144 times per second your pixels are the other half of that formula so that's referred to as a response time or the time it takes for a pixel to go from off to on to off again you'll often refer to that or hear that referred to as gray to gray there is also black to black which is actually admittedly slower than greater gray because when you have a backlight on or backlighting that's making the pixels light up remember the pixels are just gates that create color with either rg or b and then any ratio of those creating all the 18 point whatever million colors the pixel has to be able to respond fast enough so that by the time the monitor is drawing the next image you don't still have residual light from the previous image that's referred to as ghosting now as a demonstration we can put up on the screen right here there's actually a website you guys can go to we'll link it down below as well hopefully it'll crash the site where it will have a ufo test and it will have a ufo that goes across the screen it's gonna it's gonna basically know what your refresh rate is because your operating system reports what the refresh rate and current desktop settings are and you'll be able to see in real time what those ghost images look like that's basically where by the time the next image is drawn the previous one is still fading out the faster the pixel response the smoother and less ghosting there's going to be oftentimes what happens with overdriving as well and one of the reasons why i don't like overdriving or overclocking a monitor is it also gets a little bit predictive where it starts to draw the next frame early so that it can be ahead to be able to that's why it's called overdriving to be able to be ahead on that image but oftentimes what you start to get is a ghosting effect in front of the image and then it starts to look all kinds of wonky so that's one of the reasons why i don't really do overdriving even though many panels do allow for it so you can have a fast refresh rate the rate at which the panel can redraw the image but if you have slow pixel response time and you'll see oftentimes one millisecond respon response time there's a lot of debate on how accurate those numbers actually are oftentimes you'll find it's really more like three or four milliseconds anything five milliseconds or less is considered pretty much esports uh i'm not gonna get into the debate about whether or not those are false numbers but i'm gonna tell you right now if they're advertised at one millisecond they're going to be extremely smooth versus something that's like 20 milliseconds or 25 milliseconds a perfect example right now pause this video and move your cursor around real quick you're gonna see more than one cursor as you're doing it that is specifically refresh rate and response time your cursor is moving faster than the response time and the refresh rate of your panel which is going to make you see more than one cursor now how fast your panel is is going to determine how close that trail is to the cursor itself so even with a really fast monitor you're still going to see a little bit of a what looks like a comet trail behind it but it's going to be more of them and they're going to be much closer to the cursor itself so when it comes to gaming the two things that reign supreme is refresh rate and response time in my opinion even over resolution because having 4k but having it be a smudgy ghosty mess is not a good gaming experience and anyone out there that's running a panel that maybe was inexpensive and cheap probably knows it's exactly what i'm talking about so it's going to talk about the other major technology you're going to find in panels and that is obviously the type of screen that it is so we're talking ips panels tn panels va panels which are the three major types it's becoming a little less relevant to talk about today versus where we were a few years ago but i'm even mentioning it because of the fact that obviously it's one of the other major um specs of a panel but i'm seeing a lot of when we do this setup videos i've seen a lot of people still running mismatched panels and really old tn panels tn was the first high refresh rate low response time or fast response time panels they were able to give you extremely fast motion but they're almost always foil backlit the type of panel that they are gives you terrible off-viewing angles which means if you're not looking straight on if you look off to the side there's major color shift and dulling across the screen tn panels unfortunately though have the worst color recreation of any panel type out there now that may not matter to a lot of people but as technologies have improved the cost of that comes down as well so now we're seeing and for the longest time there's actually a limitation where ips which is the most accurate color and has the best off viewing angles with up to 170 degrees viewing angle which means there won't be any color shift or dulling when it comes to ips at least to nearly 180 degree viewing angle makes them obviously the better choice because the costs are continuing to come down but they were they were limited to 60 fps or 60 hertz and for the longest time they were somewhere around 10 to 15 milliseconds response time which made them great panels for editing photo editing video editing or content consumption like netflix and stuff like that it's one of those things where it wasn't great for gaming for a long time and that's really changed because now you can get ips high refresh rate low response time gaming panels for in the 250 dollar range which in the past that panel that exact panel if we went back to say six or seven years ago would have cost a thousand dollars or more and you're seeing it in larger formats now not just 24 inch 27 inch um in fact that ultra wide we showed you which is a 34 inch is also an ips panel but what we have right here is the nyxias tn panel and the problem with tn like i already said is as you look at it from different off-viewing axis it's going to really start to have major color shift and a kind of a rainbowing effect because that's the way that the foil of the backside of the tn works in my opinion tn panels once you see no pun intended once you see the light ips or even va for that matter which is kind of a good middle ground tn just really starts to look nasty now tn usually would have the most vibrant oversaturated unrealistic colors which for many people they like that they want to turn on the computer and it's just a it looks like a circus it's a big bright blotchy mess and most of the time games didn't care but now that games with their newer engines like look a lot more realistic and developers and studios are putting a lot of time and effort into color grading the game and having a certain cinematic effect you're doing yourself a real disservice not to mention with the tn back back light and the way it works itself whether it be led or lcd which is still again usually edge lit or full backlit shining through a foil and then through the pixel gate it's going to make dark scenes even harder to see because ips does even better at low light recreation than tn so if you're dealing with like a spooky game or something in a cave or like you know rise of the tomb raider or something like that or shadow of the tomb raider a lot of dark scenes you're gonna see it better with something like an ips panel and because it's become so much more cost effective if you're shopping for a panel there's no reason not to consider one now let's talk about tn viewing angles for a second yes the off viewing angles really do suck and you notice they start to shift but one of the things they do with tn panels is they orient the the panel in a way to give you the best viewing angles left to right you might notice if you just go a few inches up or down it has a major shift on that horizontal axis which means if you're going to try and turn it vertical to make it some sort of like a forum reading monitor it's going to be even worse because you've just put it 90 degrees offset from the way it's intended to be viewed let's talk about freesync and g-sync freesync you're going to find in just about every panel nowadays that's not g-sync and the reason for that is it doesn't require a hardware module built in and it's open source it's open open where it's free that's why it's called freesync in the beginning freesync was absolutely positively not supported by nvidia period end of story but now that nvidia has gone and started validating freesync panels that work with their g-sync technology it's been a long time since i've had a freesync panel not have the g-sync option inside the nvidia control panel so one thing to mention regarding v-sync though because i know some of you are going to be like i'll just turn on v-sync i don't need a sync technology built into the monitor the problem with that is if you have 144 hertz panel and you turn on vsync and your game can't draw a consistent 144hz or higher fps if you drop below 144 it's going to go automatically to a half rate which means it'll drop wait for that next frame which is actually going to be 72 hertz the same thing for a 60 fps panel if you've got an old system and you have it locked at 60hz vsync and it drops below 60 it's going to drop down to 30. and it will continue to half rate itself as long as it stays above that or if it can't stay at the v-sync number so you might want to consider enabling something like adaptive sync which is more uh adaptive if you will to keep the frame rates in sync and you won't notice nearly as many of those stutters or those jolty pauses if you will it's the changes that you're noticing when it's fast and slow and fast and slow if you can smooth that out you have a harder time determining that there's frame drops or frame rate dips so that's why a sync technology is nice now that you don't have to necessarily have an expensive nvidia g-sync you know certified panel with the g-sync module built into it because it's a hardware interface freesync is definitely something to consider in a way to go and most lg panels now that are not g-sync are also freesync and you're seeing that with asus panels uh it's nice to see that sync technology pretty much in all of them the other thing you might consider is you know nice to have is it an adjustable height base this one's got a little locking button you know does it uh and this one doesn't actually rotate but does it rotate into a vertical i see a lot of vertical mounts on our our series where we react to your setups because people might want to use them just for forms maybe you're a reddit junkie and you're constantly at reddit and you like having that vertical height to see the threads rather than having to scroll and having all the extra width for no reason whatsoever does it have fold out little headphone jacks or usb hub built in does it have a headphone holder does have rgb lighting all that sort of stuff are nice to haves but in my opinion i would take obviously the panel tech the ips high refresh rate fast response time over any of those features so like i said i hope that's helped you guys understand some of the panel tech and what it is that you guys are shopping for i'll put links to my favorite monitors down below that are kind of like different price points as well as different text whether it be resolutions or ips ultrawides or whatever so you guys can get an idea of what i would recommend if you guys are shopping for new panels i know i've done this video in the past but i still get lots of questions and i'm still seeing a lot of people running uh interesting setups on our on our setup react series so thanks for watching guys don't forget about our giveaway you can find a link to it down the description below if you don't know what i'm talking about you don't want to miss out on that one so thanks for watching what is your favorite panel what are you running and what do you love and or hate about it comment down below and we'll see you in the next one\n"