Acer Announces A 200Hz Ultrawide Display
by Brandon Chester on September 2, 2015 2:05 PM EST- Posted in
- Monitors
Today at IFA Acer has announced a number of new products relating to gaming. Among the product launches was a new display aimed firmly at gamers. It's a very large curved 35" panel with a native refresh rate of 144Hz. BenQ has actually already released a gaming monitor with these specs. What makes the Acer Predator Z35 stand out is Acer's claim that it can be overclocked to 200Hz. You can check out all of the Predator Z35's known specs in the chart below.
Acer Predator Z35 | ||||||
Resolution | 2560x1080 | |||||
Refresh Rate | 144Hz native, 200Hz overclock | |||||
Panel Size | 35" | |||||
Panel Type | AMVA | |||||
Response Time | 12ms, 4ms (G2G) | |||||
Viewing Angle (H/V) | 178° / 178° | |||||
Color Depth | 16.7 million colors (8bit) |
As 35" with a resolution of 2560x1080, the Predator Z35 isn't as sharp as the 34" 3440x1440 curved displays on the market. Its refresh rate makes it clear that it's first and foremost a monitor for gaming. Like I noted above, the native refresh rate of the panel is 144Hz, with Acer claiming it can be overclocked up to 200Hz. It's not clear whether Acer expects a large number of panels to reach this figure, or if the overclocking procedure voids your warranty, but like most other overclocking I would assume that it does. As a gaming display, the Predator Z35 comes with support for NVIDIA's G-SYNC adaptive refresh rate as well as NVIDIA's Ultra low Motion Blur backlight strobing feature.
Something else worth noting is that this is an AMVA panel from AU Optronics. While the viewing angle for AMVA panels is still advertised as 178 x 178 degrees like an IPS panel, they're still known to have a greater shift in contrast than modern IPS displays. For gamers this isn't likely to pose an issue, but it would for any sort of color critical work. On that note, Acer advertises the Predator Z35 as covering 100% of the sRGB gamut. While this is probably true, it's worth noting that covering sRGB doesn't guarantee any level of accuracy when rendering the colors inside the gamut. All that being said, the AMVA panel is still going to be miles ahead of the TN panels that used to be inside essentially every single display with a native refresh rate above 60Hz.
The Acer Predator Z35 gaming monitor will be coming to North America in December with a price of 1199.99 USD. It will be launching in the EMEA region at the same time with a price starting at €1,099.
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mdrejhon - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
Also, what the government tested under many different methods. For example how brief a frame can be seen, at constant amount of light -- e.g. how brief a glimpse occurs. This is different from the concept of refresh rate, as well as the concept of using over-bright pulses during strobe backlight (to compensate for the briefness of the frame), etc. Which they do not always test for.250 frames per second changes quite a bit when there's different luminances (e.g. brightness) and resolution is different (e.g. pixels), as well as viewing distances. When it comes to computer monitors, the testing method is different than a quick glimpse a fighter jet uses. LightBoost has the motion-blur equivalence of 700fps@700Hz (1.4ms persistence) or 400fps@400Hz (2.4ms persistence), and many people can see it.
Mathematically, 1 pixel of motion blur per 1ms of persistence, during 1000 pixels/second motion -- as seen in www.testufo.com/eyetracking and at www.testufo.com/photo#photo=toronto-map.png -- that motion test will require persistence to be less than 2ms at 1000 pixels/sec in order for that test to be readable. It is completely unreadable at 144Hz.
mdrejhon - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
....unreadable without a strobe backlight, that is. If you turn on LightBoost, it shortens the persistence via the strobes, and you can read it.But to shorten persistence without strobing....well, that's a tricky matter. (Response time is different from persistence -- pixel change time versus pixel static time).
DesktopMan - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
Of course it will be noticable. Try playing high motion games, e.g. StepMania, at 60Hz vs 144Hz, your brain will cry in delight at the higher framerate. It feels so much better.Xtreme649 - Monday, October 12, 2015 - link
100% Totally true and I think the same !!! Cant wait to see 200hz from my eyes :)nathanddrews - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
edzieba gave a perfect example as to why a high refresh is important.One of my family members is a pro cyclist and I can tell you right now that every ounce makes a difference. More weight means slower speed. The same goes for runners and lightweight sneakers. A small minority that have the right genes and training can probably overcome these things, but then those people would be even faster with less weight.
Now just because you don't/can't notice a difference doesn't make it silly or a placebo. Don't confuse real, practical use cases with marketing/snake oil like "600Hz subfield processing" or "speaker wire isolating stands" where there is no objective data to substantiate the claims.
Antronman - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
Just because you have the eyes and ears of a worm doesn't mean there aren't droves of people with eagle eyes and very sensitive ears.usernametaken76 - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
The minimum framerate is 1.DesktopMan - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
Framerate means a lot for smoothness of motion and motion blur reduction. 144Hz is nowhere near diminishing returns on those. Eye-wise Michael Abrash from Valve (now Oculus) has stated that we'll be good at around 1000Hz.DCide - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
This is the first time the curved screen has actually made sense to me.While I don't game much, I think it would provide a more immersive experience - like multiple monitors without the borders. Also, the moderate resolution should allow for high framerates with current video cards.
xthetenth - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
The curve makes a huge amount of success on ultrawides, it's a really big difference. I've got a flat one and a curved one and use both daily and the curve is much nicer because you aren't looking at an angle when you look at the edge of the screen.