I see! I’m asking because I have 440 dollars in points with Dell, but they expire next month. I’ve been trying to decide what I should spend those points on. I do want more SSD space, but my motherboard doesn’t have the M.2 slot, as stated. And Dell’s selection is a bit limited. No fun parts, like new motherboard and CPU. They do have SSDs though. Could also just get another monitor. Hmmmm…
440 dollars in Dellaroonies gets you a very nice monitor
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Yea, the one I have from them already is a bit more expensive and is what I would theoretically like to get another of (as opposed to having different models), but I can swallow the extra 100 or so I think, seems worth it.
Are you getting the kind with like built-in 100w USB-C KVM and PinP? I just have the need for speed
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https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-27-4k-usb-c-monitor-p2721q/apd/210-axlt/monitors-monitor-accessories
This is what we’ve been buying for all our employees, including me.
Not even 100 over now that I look actually. Would only have to pay 50 bucks out of pocket, it seems.
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I’m perfectly happy with one of these $40 USB-C hubs connected to my 2015-era 4K monitor so unless cable minimization is important there’s no specific need to require that from a monitor from my POV. I’d rather prioritize contrast ratio and latency.
I guess looking at the specs on the monitor Mokushka linked, there’s a reasonable contrast ratio and latency baseline even in cheaper monitors today though. Around 2012 I made the mistake of buying a $1200 30" TN Dell monitor primarily maximizing video port compatibility, and discovered the subjective experience was just awful. I’ve been wary since then but perhaps that trap no longer exists today
I wouldn’t want to spend on a 60hz only panel nowadays but that’s just me (and obviously I don’t really mind my projector or my laptop only being 60hz, but it’s pretty easy to get 120hz+ in a standalone display nowadays if you’re already in that product category).
unrelatedly, I’m really bored by current motherboards – I’m pretty sure I’m going to be looking to finally buy 5nm ryzen next year as my CPU celebrates its 10th birthday, which will mean USB4, DDR5, PCIe4/5, etc., but it seems like the “good current ITX board” entry point has gone from about $100 to about $300 in the last decade and the most added value I can expect from all of that is maybe 2 NVMe slots? I guess there’s not really anything else to stick on there at this point…
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I almost wish some boutique vendor would really go for it and make a modern socket that has onboard firewire/SCSI/parallel connections, just rip out the onboard sound to make room and be like “if you’re buying this you’re going to want an external DAC anyway, come on”
I could use that product
That Dell P2721Q has FreeSync support though which from my POV is the important part and going higher than 60fps is pretty inessential in comparison. Only the beefiest GPUs won’t run into a resolution/framerate tradeoff at that point anyway, and I don’t imagine in 2021 a beefy GPU is on the shopping list
I used to think that but after having 120Hz and G-Sync for a few years I’d put the “above this it’s mostly noise and the important thing is to handle the noise well” point at more like 90 than 60.
(having said that, not a purist, will play unstable 30fps console games without complaint, it’s just that, again, if I’m actually committing to a decently expensive product…)
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My main experience with >60fps is on mobile devices. And I eventually turned off >60fps support on my Samsung phone because it was bothering me somehow, although I’m not sure whether that’s because of habit or if there’s something wrong with Samsung’s implementation
oh, yeah, all my portable hardware is apple which means I don’t get any fun edge case features until they can get good enough margins on them and they work across the entire platform, but going to 120hz on a desktop display for the first time honestly blew me away more than HDR or anything else in recent memory
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re: beefy gpus now i have one i’m getting into a new gimmick
like those people who can’t tell the difference between 30 and 60+fps, but with ray tracing
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they care about power delivery and high speed memory support now because people are building absurdly high end SFF systems with overclocking in mind
odds are good if you still want an ITX board on :modern platform X: you can get one in the 130-180 range easily
It’s for overclocking? I noticed it too and was flabbergasted
I mean, I feel like it’s basically not possible to rationalize any of this as added value, simply because the overclocking overhead on the $500 CPU I am going to buy to go with a $250 motherboard in 18 months is almost certainly going to be less than that of the $150 CPU I bought to go with a $100 motherboard in late 2012. that said, I’m sure the timings are very sensitive and the VRMs are very high quality and so on.
oh yes, yes, very good timings, yes, we do appreciate that last tenth of a percentage point of performance, yes
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I know some extreme overclockers will use ITX/DTX boards because they’re overbuilt on the VRM and cutting two memory slots worth of traces helps keeps things stable
also realistically there’s no reason to support DDR4 speeds over 4000 if you aren’t letting dumb shit happen
the enthusiast crowd bought into ITX and the board makers followed, much like how the first generation of Ryzen boards were of questionable quality taken as a whole stack and then after people bought in, suddenly you were seeing 300-1000 dollar boards in later gens
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By my understanding, overclocking as a whole is really underwhelming, even in the most ideal of circumstances. The way hardware is designed to suit current-gen software needs, and visa versa, means that those little percentage increases in performance aren’t really going to matter much when the hardware first comes out, and by the time you’ve had it long enough that it might actually help in some very close edge cases, you may as well just go and buy the newer parts. I’d say that perhaps you could argue for the cost efficiency at that stage, but let’s be real, with the amount of extra money you have to put in to get hardware that can be overclocked, nevermind safely, you’re obviously not in it for the cost efficiency.
It’s basically just a hobby at that point, the equivalent to souping up your city sedan with expensive after-market parts. Go for it if it’s what gets you your kicks, but it shouldn’t be seen as utilitarian practice.
this is, unfortunately, only true as of fairly recently – I don’t think I’ve ever gotten less than a 25%+ overclock from stock clocks on any CPU I’ve bought in the past 25 years (all of them <$200 when at most a year old), on stock cooling, which has real utility and is trivially easy! it’s only with the super tight overhead we’re getting now that Intel is permanently eating shit that it’s not really worth it. but like… anything can be overclocked “safely” for free, come on.