Desktop Computers

Samsung U28D590D 28-inch Ultra HD LED Monitor


$599 4K monitor, 1ms response time, 60hz. I like where the prices on these are going. It's too bad that it would take more than $600 worth of video cards to play games at 4K

(and before anyone jumps up my ass about 3840 x 2160 not being 4K, we're only talking about a slight difference of aspect ratios here. 3840x2160 is the traditional 16:9, while 4096x2160 is a new, slightly wider format. the 3840/"Ultra HD" format is actually an easier to use format when you may also be viewing media that is still 1080p, as it is an exact, even ratio for downsampling. Downsampling 4096 to 1080p is much more work, the ratios aren't even)

That monitor got horrible reviews on Hardforum, just fyi.

Gaige_sl said:

That monitor got horrible reviews on Hardforum, just fyi.

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That's not the conclusion that I came away with after reading through the 6 pages of their forum post about the monitor. Most reviews were positive, with the only major negative being that its a TN panel, and a lot of people on that forum prefer IPS, but what do you expect for such a cheap price? Yeah, its colors don't compare to a $2000 IPS 4K display, that doesn't surprise me at all.

Here's a typical review from that site:

It's definitely one of the best TN monitors I've tried, but don't get your hopes up it's still not as good as some of the worse IPS, but close (with it's contrast being the worse aspect). I'm still on Windows 7 so support is practically zero for this kind of resolution, but it's still usable. Blacklight bleed isn't a problem at all and I don't notice any dead or stuck pixels, but I don't really hunt for them.

With that out of the way the resolution is why we are here and it's absolutely incredible. Text looks amazing even at a 150%. Games are freaking awesome and I appreciate that TN panel when I whip quickly around in game with minimal motion blur in-comparison to my IPS

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Just like any TN vs IPS comparison, you are sacrificing color quality for response time when going with a TN. IPS monitors pretty much never get below 8ms input lag, while decent TNs are 1 or 2ms, like this one.

So basically, it's a poor choice for graphic design where color quality is at a premium, but a great monitor for gaming where display lag is at a premium.

So, my Dell p2414h came yesterday, and I'm experiencing a huge amount of buyer's remorse. I'm not a monitor expert, so take this with a grain of salt.

The response time is quite good and the input lag is minimal, but I can definitely detect it. This is my first IPS panel and I must say... I'm totally disappointed by the supposed 'superior color quality' over TNs. Ya it's better, but not by much. I can barely detect it, and quite frankly, the screen feels a bit "hazy" to me. This is something I didn't experience with my TN.

If you play FPS/racing/twitchy games at all fucking DON'T buy an IPS panel. It's just not worth having to give up 120hz. This monitor can be overclocked to 80hz so I'm gonna try that and see if it makes things better... but ya... I'm not happy so far.

Quaid_sl said:

So, my Dell p2414h came yesterday, and I'm experiencing a huge amount of buyer's remorse. I'm not a monitor expert, so take this with a grain of salt.

The response time is quite good and the input lag is minimal, but I can definitely detect it. This is my first IPS panel and I must say... I'm totally disappointed by the supposed 'superior color quality' over TNs. Ya it's better, but not by much. I can barely detect it, and quite frankly, the screen feels a bit "hazy" to me. This is something I didn't experience with my TN.

If you play FPS/racing/twitchy games at all fucking DON'T buy an IPS panel. It's just not worth having to give up 120hz. This monitor can be overclocked to 80hz so I'm gonna try that and see if it makes things better... but ya... I'm not happy so far.

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That and you need to actually have it calibrated to have accurate colors and really see the difference. But yeah, ios panels are inferior for twitch games for the input lag alone.

Quaid_sl said:

I can barely detect it, and quite frankly, the screen feels a bit "hazy" to me. This is something I didn't experience with my TN.

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As far as the color goes, what you are probably disappointed with is the anti-glare coating that Dell puts on a lot of their monitors. If you are coming from a glossy monitor everything would look a bit muted / grainy.

Flipmode_sl said:

That and you need to actually have it calibrated to have accurate colors and really see the difference. But yeah, ios panels are inferior for twitch games for the input lag alone.

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I calibrated it when I got it, still a pretty unimpressive difference sadly.

Don't get me wrong, the images ARE better. It's just not nearly enough to justify sacrificing the gaming benefits a TN provides IMO.

Quaid_sl said:

So, my Dell p2414h came yesterday, and I'm experiencing a huge amount of buyer's remorse. I'm not a monitor expert, so take this with a grain of salt.

The response time is quite good and the input lag is minimal, but I can definitely detect it. This is my first IPS panel and I must say... I'm totally disappointed by the supposed 'superior color quality' over TNs. Ya it's better, but not by much. I can barely detect it, and quite frankly, the screen feels a bit "hazy" to me. This is something I didn't experience with my TN.

If you play FPS/racing/twitchy games at all fucking DON'T buy an IPS panel. It's just not worth having to give up 120hz. This monitor can be overclocked to 80hz so I'm gonna try that and see if it makes things better... but ya... I'm not happy so far.

Click to expand...

I think it might be that specific monitor, my IPS is really nice.<--- not a monitor expert either.

Quaid_sl said:

Pulled the trigger onDell P2414h

I don't play any games that require twitch motion blur reduction, so decided to stay away from 120hz TNs, and 1440p just didn't feel worth it. I'll upgrade again in 2-3 years in a couple GPU cycles when 4k really takes hold.

Will report back with results when it gets here.

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I use 3 of these in my office. They work very well, however, they do have an issue with a small LED glow in the bottom left corner. This seems to be across nearly every one of them sold. Once you calibrate the display (either manually or use canned calibrations you can find online), the issue is hardly noticeable. Also, they can easily overclock to 75-80Hz.

No idea why you are having issues though. All the monitor reviewers rave about these for a inexpensive but very good option.

Yeah that LG widescreen monitor is in my future. I need it in my life! Of course that'll give me a reason for a new build computer! How convenient.

Can anyone recommend a half decent PC I could use for gaming that would run me 7-800 dollars? I don't need anything top of the line, and I know that this price range can only get me so much. It basically just has to better than the seven year old PC I'm using now with a GeForce 9800 I stuck in it years ago. Building my own unfortunately isn't an option since I have literally zero knowledge or experience doing that sort of thing.

Can you follow directions well enough to put together a desk or piece of furniture that comes unassembled in a box? If so, then you can put a PC together. I've put stuff together from Ikea that is more difficult than building a PC.

That being said, if you really want to go pre-built, something like this would be a good starting point:
CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme GXi620 Intel Core i5, 8GB Memory, 1TB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650, Windows 8.1 64-bit at TigerDirect.com

The main thing you want to make sure to get on a pre-built is a good processor and motherboard, anything else is easily upgradable down the road.

There are a few downsides to that pre-built. One is the video card, it's ok for right now, it'll play most new games on medium settings, but it'll be pretty lacking in another year or so, it'll need to be upgraded within a year for sure. The 8GB of RAM is plenty for gaming, but the system only has 2 slots, so if you ever need to go up to 16GB in a few years, you'll have to ditch the current 8GB (2x4GB, there's only 2 slots total). There's also only 1 full speed PCI-E slot for your video card, so SLI/Crossfire is out as an option down the road too.

If you built something yourself, you would probably end up with roughly the same build for the same money, but each individual part would be higher quality. The PSU could be a gold-rated Seasonic, you could get a better mobo with more expansion room(more video card slots, more ram slots), etc.

So while if you just look at the surface things like processor speed, video card, amount of RAM, etc, a pre-built might not be a ton cheaper, the real value is in all the little details like expansion room and higher quality parts that are less likely to fail at any point in the future.

Now this, on the other hand, would be a really nice system for similar money:
PCPartPicker part list/Price breakdown by merchant/Benchmarks

CPU:Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor($223.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard:ASRock Z87 Extreme4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard($124.99 @ Newegg)
Memory:G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory($69.99 @ Newegg)
Storage:Western Digital RE3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive($53.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card:Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card($149.99 @ NCIX US)
Case:Corsair 500R White ATX Mid Tower Case($59.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply:SeaSonic S12G 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply($74.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive:Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer($14.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System:Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit)($97.98 @ OutletPC)
Total:$870.89
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-05-21 10:59 EDT-0400)

Now, looking at the finished price, you'll probably notice that this is a good $100 more. There's a couple things about that which are a little misleading
1) MUCH better video card, you won't have to upgrade within a year, so that's saving you $100+ in the next year alone.
2) There are much cheaper sources to get Windows 8. If you search back through this thread you'll find several people that got legit copies of windows for $10-$15. That saves you a good $80 or more.
3) If you have a Microcenter store anywhere near you, you can get that processor and motherboard for at least $50 less together, maybe $100 less. Microcenter is BY FAR the best place to buy motherboards and processors. Their CPUs are cheaper than anywhere online, and then they knock another $40 off for buying any CPU and Mobo together. This is only good in-store though, you can't get that pricing on their website.

So in theory, you could get what I linked above for a good $100-$150 cheaper than that listed price, and it's much better parts and a drastically better video card that the prebuilt system.

I'm piecing something together that's incredibly similar in that price range and I'm quite satisfied to be honest. I'm not overclocking so I'm going for a non-K CPU, and I went with a gtx 750 because quite frankly, I don't really game like I used to and could care less outside of needing 2x DVI. I already have storage disks covered as well and really want a SSD. I have heard numerous times that since I'm not OCing that I shouldn't bother with a Z87 mobo, but this one seems to be the best bang for the buck when I need 7.1 surround inputs.

I'm rather curious to know where I could snag a legit copy of 8.1 for a fraction of the cost without an .edu address.

PCPartPicker part list/Price breakdown by merchant/Benchmarks

CPU:Intel Core i5-4690 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor($199.00 @ Amazon)
Motherboard:ASRock Z87 Pro3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard($92.99 @ Newegg)
Memory:G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory($69.99 @ Newegg)
Storage:Crucial M500 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk($72.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card:Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 1GB Video Card($119.99 @ Amazon)
Case:Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case($59.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply:Corsair CSM 450W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply($74.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive:Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer($19.98 @ OutletPC)
Operating System:Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit)($98.25 @ OutletPC)
Total:$807.18
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-05-21 14:43 EDT-0400)

I've seen people recommendTrade your software here!for cheap keys.

Thanks a bunch for the replies. I have always wanted to try building my own computer so the idea is as tempting as it ever has been. But I can't help but think building some Ikea furniture could be anything as difficult Installing the hardware is the only aspect of it that I would feel comfortable with. But installing windows and configuring BIOS (I honestly don't even know what BIOS is, just that it needs to be configured before you get everything working) and all the potential troubleshooting that is required if things don't go perfectly the first time you attempt to turn the thing on. Are there any really thorough guides out there that could help me cover all my bases if I were to attempt this? I googled some last night, but maybe there is something out there that serves as the definitive guide to PC builds? I have no idea! Like I said...I'm fucking clueless when it comes to all of this.

You won't need to touch the BIOS at all unless you start getting into overclocking and other tweaks. It's really very simple to put your own computer together these days.

Installing Windows is no more complicated than installing a game, it just takes a little longer. Installing windows is 95% of your time spent watching a progress bar fill up. You answer a couple questions like what timezone you are in and what language you want, and that's about it.