At CES we saw a bunch of 34″ ultrawide curved monitors. For example Dell had a setup of three in landscape for surround gaming that we really found awesome and immersive. Now all of the 34″ curved monitors we’ve seen have been 3440×1440 IPS panels with a 60Hz refresh rate. Displayport 1.2 bandwidth at that resolution however should max out at 138Hz (with CVT-R2 and 24BPP). No doubt there is some margin that means 144Hz is doable then and that Acer aren’t just making things up. Given all of this then this might be the highest resolution display hitting 144Hz for some time to come (at least until DP 1.3 arrives):
While multiple DP 1.2 connectors could be used to give 4k@120Hz the challenges and issues that arise are unlikely to make it a reality.
Now of course here are the downsides:
-Some games do not support 21:9 screen resolution in fullscreen mode, leaving you to game at 2560×1440 or run a windowed version that may not be supported by SLI/CFX which of course you’ll be needing to game at such a high resolution with high frame rates.
– While 144Hz is an improvement over 60Hz, all pixels are not equal. IPS is still slow to respond – even a fast IPS pixel takes 5ms to transition. At 144Hz that’s 72% of the time that will be taken up with transition giving a “blurrier” look than TN pixels at 144Hz that will only be transitioning ~14% of the time. Because of this hardcore gamers should still stick with TN displays for a clearer (though uglier) display.
– If 3440×1440 @ 144Hz is actually doable, then presumably 2560×1440 @ 193Hz is also doable (if you are not CPU throttled of course). For those who think this is silly – actual clarity of motion (e.g. pixerpan test) will still be improved above 144Hz and this will be useful for those who can’t handle the strobing effect or low light output of ULMB.
– 3440×1440 is not wide enough to show 4K content without downscaling. While we can’t have everything we want, we would have preferred to see 4096×1716 @ 100Hz in order to be able watch native resolution 4K movies when they eventually appear.
Having said all of that, we are really excited for this display if the rumors are all true. It will be the highest resolution 144Hz monitor yet announced. We hope that it’s real, and we’re happy to see that there will be a Gsync and non gsync version. We also suspect the non gsync monitor will also support free-sync. Expect pricing to be at least $1400.
