Advice for purchasing a new PC monitor

I use DisplayFusion for the multi-monitor taskbars, screensavers and window snapping. So great.

What do you get out of the DisplayFusion multi-monitor taskbar that W10 doesn’t do natively? I ask because I tried out DF’s version but it just borks out completely with W10’s virtual desktops. Which apparently it also does with the alt-tab override feature and virtual desktops, as I just discovered. So that’s disabled now as well.

Think I am going to disable DF temporarily for now and try out MaxTo for a bit. If MaxTo or Divvy doesn’t work out I will definitely be buying DF though.

Do you run Windows 10? You can do multi-monitor task bars and window snapping natively there, though the dual display screensaver I’m not sure about. I don’t use screensavers, my displays are either in use or they are sleeping in low power states.

This makes a lot of sense for widescreen users, for sure. Very slick.

I do have 10, but the task bars are the same for all three monitors in Win10. DF has specific task bars per monitor.

Not that you need to since you have a third party solution, but Windows 10 can do some fun stuff with multi-tasking displays, including where your icons show up on taskbars.

You can do the same with W10 now, they have some pretty in depth task bar settings.

Doesn’t really matter for you I guess, I just prefer to use the built in W10 task bar since it works with virtual desktops and I can’t find any features on DisplayFusion that are not present on the W10 version.

Huh, I’ll have to try the Win10 settings then. Thank you!

Well poopiedooks, while you can split the task bars up so they show the application running on that monitor, sadly you can’t pin anything to the taskbars on the second or third monitors, nor can you see the notification area either. Ah well, DF still is better for me in a few areas.

Oh, pinning. Yep, that would be one feature the W10 secondary task bars don’t support.

Pretty much settled on DisplayFusion at this point I think. The others all have nice points, and most handle the splits better, but none work as consistently or reliably if you switch monitor setups. Plus DisplayFusion works as a full replacement for Ultramon so I can ditch that.

For productivity work the jury is still out on the 34" 1440p UltraWide. I think I am inclined to prefer it over separate monitors but that will take more time to get used to.

For gaming it’s just flat out awesome. Note I am going from a 1920x1200p old dell 2410U so that gets me Ultrawide, Gsync, higher PPI, and 120Hz all in one large upgrade. Not really taking advantage of 120hz yet, still running 2x970 SLI which just hits 30-40fps in most titles with high/ultra settings. But god damn is it a beautiful experience. This is what I wanted the disappointing triple head gaming/nvidia surround to be.

Shouldn’t have waited so long to upgrade. I kept telling myself to wait for HDR but it’s obvious that’s going to take at least 2 years to sort itself out on PC gaming.

Oh, and didn’t want to pay the Nvidia tax but fuck it, I am a consumer whore.

Welcome to the club!

Huh. I kind of finally semi-impulsively purchased a PC (because I thought it was a good price).

Now I just realized that given my last PC purchase was 6.5 years ago, I’m completely out of date on monitors and what is good for gaming these days.

I have a i9-9900k coming with an 2700 GPU. I’m thinking 27" monitor, but I don’t understand all of the 1440 versus 4k versus HDR etc. stuff.

What do I do (while not breaking the bank)?

27 inch? Get this one.

Is so, so gorgeous.

Would like to be closer to $400 than $6-700 (not being critical - I do appreciate the suggestion).

While I’ve spent a fair bit on things, I’m looking to keep everything all together closer to a $2,000 price point, so I’d like the monitor to be closer to $400 to accomplish that.

Unless there is a really, really compelling reason technology-wise.

Also, you really are a mensch Brian. Thanks for helping out. :)

Just trying to share joy my friend. :)

This monitor has been on sale for $350-400 a few times recently at Best Buy. 27", 1440p, Gsync. At 27" I wouldn’t go higher than 1440p, personally. HDR you can take a punt on for now; it’s not caught on for PC games yet.

I use the Dell gaming monitor and it’s great. It’s paired with a second non-gsync Dell monitor and the tiny bezels work wonders.

Should I be thinking about 32” or something? At some point, I can’t imagine being that close to a screen above a certain size (I sit a foot or two away from the monitor).

These days a lot those larger monitors are actually just wider. A 32" 21:9 monitor would be very nice. But I wouldn’t personally go bigger than, say, 30" on a standard 16:9 monitor, even at 4K, just because of how close I sit to it.

I have friends who use a 40" 4K monitor and love it, but it’s not for me.

You should do some measurements to see how it works with your space. I almost got a 32" until I realized it would be too tall for where I sit.