Exceptional picture quality for a monitor?

PlanetJosh

Golden Member
May 6, 2013
1,814
143
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At least one poster commented on the Samsung 27" lcd monitor S27B970 that it may be the best.
PLS is also worth checking out - tech is very similar to IPS. I believe the S27B970 is the best monitor i've ever seen, it's unbelievable. Its also very expensive unfortunately. That isn't to say that there aren't good TN panels though. Quality varies.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=34429226&highlight=s27b970#post34429226
 
This monitor looks like it may outshine any monitor on the market for gaming. Unless there are some super high end 27" ones or whatever size for that matter costing several thousands of dollars. But even then they may not match this picture. Amazing colors and vividness in games. Crysis 3 is a wonder to look at. For you graphics enthusiasts Amazon and Newegg users are raving about this monitor. It's expensive but worth every penny and that's even though mine has backlight bleeding on the right side. But I'm not returning it because it's not very noticeable in lighter areas of a game.

The negative about this PLS variant of an IPS screen is the backlight bleeding yeah. Like IPS screens it's an issue in many cases. But I can live with it considering the astounding colors right out of the box. It has a glass surface which is annoying to folks with some lighting in the room and all the reflections but I have my room very dark.

But the 2560 x 1440 res gives more detail in the picture due to more pixels on the screen compared to a 24" monitor at 1920 x 1080. But it's more than that, it's the quality of the colors, the brighness and vividness of it. I have it on Dynamic Contrast which can only be selected if the High Bright setting is chosen. That may be too bright for some ppl but not an issue for me.

You can always return it in hopes of getting a replacement with very little or next to none bleeding. And some reviewers have done just that and are now happy with their choice. And you can read this small print even better.

Wondering if anyone on the forums has seen this gorgeous monitor besides maybe the one I quoted above.

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-S27B97...pr_product_top

No I didn't pay the $1,100+ the link shows at the time of this post. I did get it on Amazon but when it was $980 last month. Not to be confused with the lesser quality S27A970 predecessor (the A model).

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i7 Quad 3820 3.6ghz || Radeon 7950 3gb || Win 7 Pro
Asus P9 X79 || DDR3 8gb || WD HD 1tb || Onboard Sound
Cooler Master 650W || 27" Samsung Lcd || Thermaltake Case
 

Franzi

Member
Nov 18, 2012
45
0
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I bought the S27B970D 2 days ago, still waiting for it to arrive today or Monday. It will replace my S27A850D which suffered off backlight bleeding and recently started annoying image retention (going to RMA and then sell it).

I'll report back here how I like it vs. the predecessor A850.
 

Puffnstuff

Lifer
Mar 9, 2005
16,157
4,853
136
Samsung makes great stuff but until other manufacturers market comparable products the price will stay high.
 

BrightCandle

Diamond Member
Mar 15, 2007
4,762
0
76
Its far from an exceptional monitor. Colour fidelity is actually on the low end for an IPS/PLS, its slightly better than TN rather being like an IPS. Further to that its good bad latency, has overdrive that in some settings over does it quite badly producing artefacts, a high black point, back light bleed, pretty average contrast (800), PLS glow and its a glossy screen so a lot of reflection issues.

Not only would I not buy this monitor, I wouldn't buy it in comparison to most of its competitors. The TFTcentral review lays it all out, this is about the worst monitor in its class. Seriously read the review, this monitor is kind of rubbish.
 

biostud

Lifer
Feb 27, 2003
18,701
5,432
136
For gaming I don't think there's a lot of difference between the 2560x1440p monitors, they're all superior to TN screens in color and resolution. They might differ in input lag and AG coating. And then theres some which are overclockable...
 

PlanetJosh

Golden Member
May 6, 2013
1,814
143
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About the TFT report. I read it before I bought because that's one site you have to go to ahead of time. And I was somewhat discouraged by the sRBG numbers. But at the bottom of the report in the pro section of pros and cons it has "Excellent all round performance from PLS panel." That with other reviews that said Samsung has done something right to give such great gaming graphics I figured the positive comment from TFT was probably referring at least to gaming in a non sRGB mode which I don't use for games. And many other gamers don't. So I bought it. I realize for any work I do in Creative Suite Photoshop and programs like that I won't get as true colors as I should. But I'm going for the impressive gaming picture.

I also bought the 27" Apple Cinema Display last month too. That way if the Samsung monitor of my OP had too much backlight bleed for darker games then I could play those games on the Apple screen which is IPS but has less backlight bleed.

Yes the Apple monitor was also about $1k usd and now I can't afford to get a top Dell, Eizo or Overlord 27" model. The goal here for someone in the forums is to somehow acquire all four or five monitors. Or the best 4 or 5 gaming monitors if they would be so kind to include the OP Samsung even if they don't think it's in the top five. Just so we could see. That way a first hand account of them can be given as far as games.(not 3D gaming).

The TFT site has probably done all five. About the TFT report on my OP Samsung, it doesn't have much on gaming graphics appearance like it does for video applications like movies. It says the Samsung is not geared for gamers. But it looks like it's referring to responsiveness and not the quality of the gaming picture.

A search on the word "game" shows it appears 9 times in the TFT article and none of them were in the main color and main picture quality sections. That search produced the words games, gaming and gamers in addition to game, just to be clear. When games are discussed in the article it's aboout input lag, screen ratio controls, and blur but not really about the color in games. The blur and ghosting section of the report is not the main part of gaming screen appearance. Yes it affects the look of games to a degree and yes a fast response helps the overall gaming picture. But the report said the OP Samsung did well enough in the blur/ghosting tests. Which is somewhat of a relief. For reference here's the article as was posted earlier.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/samsung_s27b970d.htm

Could it be that TFT wants to avoid the subjective nature of evaluating the overall gaming picture quality such as detail and color? I'm not criticizing them for that.
 
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hawtdawg

Golden Member
Jun 4, 2005
1,223
7
81
All LCD monitors suck. Most can't even do 1000:1 contrast ratio. Blacks on every LCD I've ever seen make me cringe.