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Monitor Upgrade - OLED, IPS or nothing?

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tachi1247

Member
Joined
Oct 28, 2008
I just received the last of the parts for my new build (my first in the last ~10 years) and my brother pointed out that I should really consider upgrading at least one of my dual monitors as part of the upgrade. My last build was an i7-5820k with an old AMD R9 390 graphics card that I swapped out for a gifted 1660ti sometime during the pandemic. When I built that system in 2015 I purchased (2) ASUS QHD IPS panels as I was doing a bunch of photography editing and wanted something with higher resolution and good color accuracy/gamut. They've served me well and I have no complaints with them to this day but now that I'm dropping a 5070ti into the new computer it seems like a monitor capable of more than 60hz is warranted even for the limited gaming I do.

My dilemma here is that my desktop shares space with my work laptop and I'm using the dual monitor setup with the laptop on my 2 WFH days each week which probably represents 80% of the usage. Since the majority of the time is going to be for productivity, I was looking at IPS panels again (to avoid OLED burn in) but from what I've found there are very few options that I would actually consider an "upgrade". Based on the research I've done, it seems like the middle tier of IPS monitors is essentially gone now, you have the entry level models or you're looking at $450-550. The low end options essentially don't give me anything better than what I have other than the faster refresh rate and could potentially be worse on the color accuracy, etc. The high end of IPS will get me the higher refresh rate along with very marginal improvements to the color space and maybe 50-100 nits of improved brightness along with HDR certification that probably isn't worth the paper it's printed on considering these are all edge lit and only putting out 400 nits. Everything I've read says the same thing, that you just don't have enough contrast/brightness to make HDR actually pop. So the crux of my problem is that these upper tier monitors aren't too far off the price of the Samsung G6 QD-OLED panel (~$630 with my work discount) which is absolutely mind blowing. Everything about the OLED is a clear upgrade, colors, brightness, true HDR, etc except I'm obviously concerned about using it mostly for productivity.

Looking for recommendations on what others have done....
 
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If you can get the G6 for that price I'd give it a shot. Don't quote me on this but I believe modern OLED panels at least have the setting to do pixel shifting - slightly cycle a static image around so the pixel isn't displaying the exact same color for an extended period. Helps prevent burn in.

That being said I've had an OLED TV coming up on 4 years, and even though it's a cheaper brand (Vizio) no problems with burn in.
 
I just received the last of the parts for my new build (my first in the last ~10 years) and my brother pointed out that I should really consider upgrading at least one of my dual monitors as part of the upgrade. My last build was an i7-5820k with an old AMD R9 390 graphics card that I swapped out for a gifted 1660ti sometime during the pandemic. When I built that system in 2015 I purchased (2) ASUS QHD IPS panels as I was doing a bunch of photography editing and wanted something with higher resolution and good color accuracy/gamut. They've served me well and I have no complaints with them to this day but now that I'm dropping a 5070ti into the new computer it seems like a monitor capable of more than 60hz is warranted even for the limited gaming I do.

My dilemma here is that my desktop shares space with my work laptop and I'm using the dual monitor setup with the laptop on my 2 WFH days each week which probably represents 80% of the usage. Since the majority of the time is going to be for productivity, I was looking at IPS panels again (to avoid OLED burn in) but from what I've found there are very few options that I would actually consider an "upgrade". Based on the research I've done, it seems like the middle tier of IPS monitors is essentially gone now, you have the entry level models or you're looking at $450-550. The low end options essentially don't give me anything better than what I have other than the faster refresh rate and could potentially be worse on the color accuracy, etc. The high end of IPS will get me the higher refresh rate along with very marginal improvements to the color space and maybe 50-100 nits of improved brightness along with HDR certification that probably isn't worth the paper it's printed on considering these are all edge lit and only putting out 400 nits. Everything I've read says the same thing, that you just don't have enough contrast/brightness to make HDR actually pop. So the crux of my problem is that these upper tier monitors aren't too far off the price of the Samsung G6 QD-OLED panel (~$630 with my work discount) which is absolutely mind blowing. Everything about the OLED is a clear upgrade, colors, brightness, true HDR, etc except I'm obviously concerned about using it mostly for productivity.

Looking for recommendations on what others have done....

If you're worried about burn in, the best buy geek squad warranty offers up to 5 years and includes burn in. Most others do not.

I ended up buying it on my LG C1 OLED that I use as a monitor. It's probably 75% gaming and 25% browsers and productivity. I haven't had any signs of burn in on it.

In my opinion a nice high-refresh rate OLED is the new buying an SSD for your computer type of difference.
 
If you can get the G6 for that price I'd give it a shot. Don't quote me on this but I believe modern OLED panels at least have the setting to do pixel shifting - slightly cycle a static image around so the pixel isn't displaying the exact same color for an extended period. Helps prevent burn in.

That being said I've had an OLED TV coming up on 4 years, and even though it's a cheaper brand (Vizio) no problems with burn in.
It does have both of those features and I'll not opposed to changing my habits like hiding the taskbar etc.

I just got the S96C OLED TV about 6 months ago and no problems so far. It's the best looking TV I've ever seen. I'm really not worried about burn in on a TV because we watch such a variety of things that will never have that static image problem.
If you're worried about burn in, the best buy geek squad warranty offers up to 5 years and includes burn in. Most others do not.

I ended up buying it on my LG C1 OLED that I use as a monitor. It's probably 75% gaming and 25% browsers and productivity. I haven't had any signs of burn in on it.

In my opinion a nice high-refresh rate OLED is the new buying an SSD for your computer type of difference.
To get the price I have to buy it through Samsung. Samsung basic warranty is 3 years and also covers burn in but I'm probably looking to get 8 years out of this. I'm probably now willing to accept the risk rather than hedge by spending even more money on a warranty.

The bill collector also says my usage is probably going to be opposite of yours and 75% productivity and 25% fun stuff.

Probably no right answer here, each had pros and cons. When I lay it out it's basically ~$275 for a faster refresh rate or 2.5x the price for something that is noticeably better. Probably one of those things that is be content going without but if I pull the trigger I will never be able to go back to a regular monitor.
 
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