Advice and ideas sought

I wanted to examine the possibility of building a very fast, gaming, budget PC, and see what components I would use and the costs. This comes as I am giving up on the idea of the laptop with its continuous throttling makes my games unplayable, and I am online with another 15-25 players and I let them all down when my PC freezes and I drop to 10 FPS for 3-4 minutes.

First I do not care so much about the CPU, my i9-8950HK breezes through my spreadsheets and is very little used in games. So I had a look and it seems an AMD CPU + motherboard is cheaper than Intel CPU + motherboard. So I identified a "cheap" solution, AMD Ryzen 7 2700 4.1 GHz + ASUS/MSI/ASrock B450M motherboard, about £290 for both! For that money I cannot even buy the Intel motherboard, let alone a CPU.

Secondly we must have the best in graphics, so we wait for next Nvidia series, or we buy a RTX 2080 Ti ? That will be £1,050 for the 2080 Ti.

Finally the monitor : it cannot be too large, ideal desk size would be 24" max (23.8"). It has got to be 4K, 120Hz, IPS and 100% Adobe RGB or better. Looking around (panelook.com) there are a very few 24" 4K with 100% AdobeRGB, but at 60Hz and I found one, the LG LM238WR3-SSB1 : http://www.panelook.com/LM238WR3-SSB1_LG%20Display_23.8_LCM_overview_29420.html

This is used, at least, on an Eizo monitor that costs more than a small car. Also there is a little voice that screams when the LG panel sells for say £150 and the monitor is £1750. I have not found anything else at the 24" range and we then jump to the 27" size, which I think it is too large to place on a desk, like the Dell UltraSharp 27 4K HDR Monitor: UP2718Q ( £1,456 before DELL discounts). But also at 60Hz.

That is where I am at the moment, any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.​

 

Yes, it is sad the direction things are headed in the land of laptops. It's just not worth it any more. You pay way too much for too little and end up with crap that doesn't deliver on expectations. You can count the fairly decent options on one hand with several digits to spare, and they're just that... "fairly decent" overly expensive options... not great ones.

If you are going to be gaming at 4K, you won't build an inexpensive PC. You'll definitely want a 2080 Ti to try and manage a consistent 60 FPS with higher graphics settings at 4K. Unless there is a real pressing reason that you need a 4K display, like a business purpose of some sort, for gaming you would be better off with a 1440p 120Hz+ display and that shouldn't be too hard to find an a 24-inch size. If you want to stay really affordable, you could go with a nice 1080p 120Hz+ display with a 1080, 2080 or Radeon 7. Those GPUs would even do a pretty decent job with 1440p, but you will have to dial back the graphics quality a fair amount at 4K to keep a steady 60 FPS. If you haven't owned a 4K PC display before, you might want to think harder about it. It's definitely not for everyone and it would be a shame to spend a ton of money on a display that you end up hating. If you have already experienced 4K on PC and the challenges that gaming at 4K presents, and know for sure it's what you want based on experience, please take my thoughts on that with a grain of salt.

 

Yes, I have 4K at the moment and know that the 1080 struggles when there's explosions and flames or smoke on screen. You are cruising happily at >>100FPS and then there is an explosion or a fire on screen and you drop to 50FPS, just like that.

I have now identified two potential monitors, the Acer X27 and the more expensive ASUS PG27UQ - both 27", 4K, 144Hz, IPS, 99% Adobe RGB at £1,800 and £2,000 respectively. A lot of money!

 

There are only a couple of displays smaller than 27 inches, which support 1440p resolution. They also use TN panels, which are great for response times, not so much for color accuracy. They're not bad, but your options really open up if go with something in the 27-32-inch range.

I wouldn't consider either of those to be worth it. You're paying a very hefty tax to get HDR10 support. If you're dead set on a high-refresh 4K display, consider the Acer XV273K instead. It doesn't do HDR10 due to lack of FALD, nor does it have hardware G-Sync, but it is on NVIDIA's FreeSync compatible list. It's also passively cooled and half the price of the X27 and PG27UQ. Honestly, though, there are a ton of excellent 1440p VA and IPS monitors available that are far cheaper still and will deliver much better performance out of your hardware.

 

4K (or better) and 100% Adobe RGB (or better) are a must, and then 120Hz if at all possible.

Unless one has seen and experienced 4K but also 100% Adobe, I would imagine it very hard to go back to sRGB monitors.

 

I think personal preference comes into play, as well as visual sensitivity. I have experienced 4K many times (both computer displays and TVs) and do not personally care for it. It's much better or a large screen, and truly horrible to me on a small screen. (I will only use 100% scaling regardless of resolution and screen size.) And, my eyes are not that sensitive to colors and subtle differences in visual quality. I am also not sensitive to things like screen tearing and it has to be really significant before I notice or it becomes bothersome to me. I have had a couple of screen with 100% Adobe specs and I really couldn't see much difference. Maybe because I am partially color blind.

This is the monitor I have now. https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Predator-XB271HU-bmiprz-2560x1440/dp/B06ZXZ3QBD It is an excellent product. The best monitor that I have ever owned, in fact. But, I probably would not purchase it again because it is too expensive. As much as I like it, I still wish I hadn't spent so much on it. (This is an example of personal preference. It's less important to me, personally, than it would be for other users.) The dual ASUS 1080p monitors I use for work cost me about $100 each brand new, and other than the fact they are only 60Hz, they are good enough for my purposes. If they were 120Hz they would be totally great for me. I very much like having more screen real estate with 1440p @ 100% scaling, which (along with the 165Hz refresh rate) is the main reason I purchased the Predator. The 1440p resolution is better for benching screen shots. Much easier to fit everything on screen that is needed for validation.

 

All I was saying is that I care more for 4K and 100% Adobe than for 120Hz, as I spend a lot of time watching static displays where the 120Hz is meaningless. And in games I am not sure I would be able to tell the difference between 60Hz and 120Hz, but apparently some very keen (and young) FPS players can, and do.

Not "subtle". Imagine this : I am looking at the new screen with 400nits and 100% Adobe, without knowing anything about nits or Adobe. There are some colours present on usual web pages and in my games that I did not know existed. I think, "how can the monitor display colours that do not exist, don't be stupid". So imagine, this is me experiencing the same content, same web pages and same games I have been playing for years, only now the difference is so startling I think I must have downloaded a game patch or something because these colours did not exist all these years before. Then I stand up and look outside my window and notice something I had not noticed before: my neighbour has grown those garden geraniums as bright red as the reds on my new monitor! "There", I say to myself, "these are the same reds, they are almost blinding as the sun plays on them, they do exist". It is just I got used to the crappy FHD TN panels, that through the new monitor I thought somehow I had downloaded a new game!

And I also experienced something very similar with my 4K LG OLED TV, it has to be seen to be believed, and I cannot imagine anyone saying "I cannot see any difference".

So yeah, I would not knowingly and voluntarily buy anything less than 100% Adobe now, and not anything less than 4K even at 15", heck even 5-6" smartphones are almost 4K and 500-600 ppis these days and AMOLED too! The colours are amazing. And you look at them all day. Very important to me now that I know and understand.

 

Cool example with the red flowers. I can understand how that could be very important and dramatically impact your perspective. Nothing wrong with being passionate about it either. Being willing to pay very high prices for that is conceptually no different than being passionate about something else (computer relate or otherwise) and being willing to pay a lot extra for it. If it is within your financial means to acquire it, no reason not to if it's something you really appreciate.

 

Personally, I would look into VR headsets.
VR tech has improved and is quite impressive now.
I myself am planning to buy a Valve Index headset (for gaming and for recording/watching 2D/3D movies).
The Pimax 5k+ is another good headset, but the Valve Index seems to be overall better.

Watch what you can do with a VR headset.
youtube.com/watch?v=gzaVY8esYKg

3D Gaming.
youtu.be/YiQqzPU_1iA?t=365

Review of the Valve Index (from a VR developer).
youtu.be/zpWCOT4XnRY?t=108

Good youtube channel for VR reviews.
youtube.com/channel/UCQ33TPQYw_-c6itr0ReIu-Q/videos

https://www.reddit.com/r/ValveIndex/

 

@doofus99 : edit: you and I are asking similar questions ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/need-advice-on-budget-build-to-play-1440p-ultra.829724/).... but why do you need such a high-performing Adobe display for gaming...?

Cheers!
Tecton3d