I used to rock an old 60hz LG monitor and decided it was time to upgrade to at least 144hz. The blur was killing me at 60hz. So I purchased this 165hz VG248QG monitor for about 200 dollars. I had no idea what I was in for, so I definitely crossed my fingers.
I've now had this monitor for 1 week and I'm happy to report that I am very happy with it!
Though everything is working well so far, there are some things to take note of.
I use a GTX1080 TI GPU and Ryzen 3600 CPU with 16gb 3200mhz (on a B450-F Gaming motherboard).
At boot, the first thing I noticed, was the factory default color setting was very bright and washed out.
The monitor's panel menu does have presets which I felt were all "meh". Either too blurry or too sharp or too much contrast, etc etc. So I used the "User" mode instead, to which I spent about 10-15 minutes fiddling with my color settings. I was a bit disappointed however, because despite getting the colors to my liking, I couldn't get the blacks to go deeper. I messed with the Nvidia control panel settings too and I finally got it to how I like it. However, upon booting up my pc the next day, the colors were washed out again. Couldn't figure it out.
I updated my drivers after DDU'ing (display driver uninstaller), etc etc.
I finally figured it out. On cold boot, this TN panel monitor actually takes about 5 for the blacks to deepen on it's own. Not sure if this is just the way TN panels work. Everything looked very nice right after. (a warm up time?)
The colors definitely look much better and more accurate than my old 60hz monitor, but I'm not going to say it's the best out there, since I don't have anything else to compare it to. But considering I am also a seasoned graphic designer, I do pick up on color details and this monitor does just fine after you mess with your settings and allow for the brightness and contrast to fully set after a cold boot.
You can also save multiple user settings, if you want specific color settings per game or any other media, which is great.
I did immediately set my monitor refresh rate to 165hz manually (remember to do this as it will be at a system default of 60hz) and man.... it is buttery smooth! I could not wait to try Apex on it. The game was night and day. I can now track and beam enemies down so much easier now as they don't blur out at 60hz anymore. :D
Everything just looks better now. More fluidity and less eye straining. However, I will say, it took some time for me to get used to the smoothness. I had a slight headache at first (much like when you get a new pair of glasses).
Some important things to know here... I have a bunch of games I wanted to test out and I was sad to learn that there were games I couldn't get to look smooth because the games themselves were designed with a 60fps cap. Basically what this means is, your game may look a bit stuttery/motion blurry ( in some cases, worst than they did on a 60hz monitor).
There are tweaks out there you can try to get some of these games to run smoother.
You won't run into these issues with newer games though, as they're all being designed to perform at higher frame rates. Some old games like Alien vs Predator (2010) do work beautifully though. It's a hit or miss.
I plan to update my review over time, especially if things go wrong. Hopefully not, but time will tell. For the moment, I really like it. It was affordable and performs leaps better than my old 60hz panel. Apex Legends looks great at 165hz and so does Doom Eternal, Monster Hunter World, Bioshock 2 and Mass Effect Andromeda. :)
BTW, I purchased a display port cable so I could get the 165hz to work (it wont work with standard hdmi apparently), but when I opened the box, I saw that it already came with a display port cable. So now I have 2. Oh well, no biggie. Doesn't hurt to have a back up. :)
BUY IT!!!
Bryce Huebet
A.G
J.C.