I did it and bought the 4k 240hz monitor soon as they dropped, because after you have seen better, it is hard to go back (at least for me it was). Recently upgraded to the 39 inch LG UW because I wanted 4k like resolution in UW format.
Okay so mine is a WQHD LG 39GS95QE. So this isn’t really too big of an issue. I like it so far, much better than my older LG 32”. But I mostly game and switch from PS5 to PC would getting this 5k2k really matter?
I love it, at 5k2k in a beautiful single player game like CP2077 or RDR2 there is no better monitor this is the current peak of gaming.
However 165hz is not enough for fast paced PvP FPS gaming, it is not competitive in real world it has tearing and skipped frames and is not good for fast paced online play at 165hz.
The 330hz mode is fantastic and I do not mind the 1080p as the game (BF6) was so playable, so competitive, no tearing or skipped frames at all at 300+fps it felt like I had an advantage over my old 240hz 32" 4k OLED.
The field of view is perfect, far better to have the vertical space than giving up vertical area to have screen outside peripheral vision to the sides. I didn't notice the reduced resolution at 330hz, the games I play using that mode dont allow stopping and looking at the flowers anyway, its skip to the next target or be the target.
Still I would like to see the 5k mode have a higher refresh rate, at least 240hz so the monitor will allow competing at higher resolution. No monitor currently offers that, but they will some day so to stay ahead LG needs to up the refresh rate for 5k2k.
What GPU you even have?
You're not really going to get 165FPS at 5k2k in any sort of recent title without massive FrameGen or disabling Ray Reconstruction.
For example I have 5080 and LG's 39 5k2k, and it's a struggle if I want to keep up the quality. The only game that I actually cap is BG3, and mostly because it has no RT and because I tried it in locations that are easy to begin with.
Honestly, in my opinion, unless you rock 5090, 5k2k is a bit too much to handle for now.
Well, before getting this monitor I had 1440p ultrawide and I was really used to just slapping full balls to the wall quality, RT, PT, Reconstruction and then DLSS-Q or Balanced and having good performance.
After the upgrade - it's a VERY mixed bag. Some games still do fine with DLSS 4.5 Performance and ultra quality, but others need Frame Gen to get over 60FPS at that level of quality.
For example Crimson Desert - if you slap on Ray Reconstruction and all the eyecandy on - it's 40-50 FPS at 5k2k *with* DLSS Performance. So you have to either use FrameGen x2 or disable Reconstruction.
Then you have titles like CP77, that are outright unplayable with PT/RR at that resolution with 5080. I benchmarked it and turned up 22FPS and I did not bother.
Of course, if you turn off PT/RR things get much smoother, but that kind of stings given you did not need to do that before.
And then, on the flipside you have games like BG3 which have no RT, and it's EASY 140FPS+, or some gacha crap with phone graphics that obviously flies.
So basically, it depends on you - if you're a quality buff, you will need to start doing some tradeoffs, because 5080 simply not strong enough to give you *everything* at 5k2k in the visually heavier titles. If you're fine with that - then okay.
Well, you're a bit different, moving from non-OLED to OLED by itself is a big jump. 1440p UW to my LG, more monitor real estate (39 vs 34), and the biggest difference is that I can see 4k content natively, that is the nice part.
Games, mixed bag, I am sure once I'll have some 6090 or shit like that they'd be amazing, but now it's tradeoffs.
Exactly the same issues Monitor Unboxed showed in his reviews: base modes are off on color, except for Personalized Picture, which is the only one actually accurate at cost of DAS mode being disabled.
I have that LG, and holy shit it was driving me mad for a week - the default mode it ships with is desaturated and overbrightened, and alternative modes are mostly oversaturated AF.
Thankfully, I stumbled on his original review where he advised to put monitor into "Personalized Picture" mode and at last it feels like it hits the color saturation right. It still seems to be brighter than should be, but I moved Black Stabilizer from 50 to 45 and I hope this works out to mitigate some of that.\\
For SDR - set Brightness Mode to "Low", because high literally sears your eyeballs off in a dark room.
I got the 39" and its fantastic. Colour out of the box sucks but thats an easy fix. Alienware KVM would've been nice but I've been looking to upgrade for almost 2 years so YOLO
Coming from a mini-LED monitor to an OLED, in itself I would say is an upgrade. That's my experience from mini-LED TV to OLED TV. For as monitor, I would think that same and moving up to a 39" is nice!
I moved from a LCD 32" to an Alienware 34" OLED @ 165hz. I liked that upgraded, but missed that little extra height that I had from the 32".
Last year, I upgraded from the Alienware to the LG 39" OLED (39GS95QE-B) model and loved it. I got the some extra height back that I was missing and now @ 240hz.
Two days ago on Thursday, I seen the 45" LG OLED (45GS95QE-B), the 1449 @ 240hz version, on display at Best Buy and checked it out. I was interested in the size. The next day, I go get the 5k @ 165hz version. I was hesitant due to losing the 240hz at 1440p. I was aware of the dual mode, 1080p @ 330hz, but I've was not interested in having to swap to 1080p to get higher frame rates. That was a concern due to playing COD and Halo.
Late Friday night, I was loving the visuals of the monitor. Started off playing games like Hitman, Black Myth, and Assassins Creed: Shadows. Already those looked amazing on my 39" version, but I felt the colors popped more on the 45". When I played COD 7 beta the first match I did at 5k @ 165hz, it felt okay, but I felt a downgrade. I didn't think I would feel that much of a difference in FPS when I went from the Alienware that was 165hz (but played at 144hz mostly because I wanted to keep the 10-bit HDR. It would drop to 8-bit if set to 165hz) to the LG 39" at 240hz. I felt a huge difference then. now, dropping back down to 165hz from 240hz, I feel a huge difference again.
Using the the dual mode to switch to 1080p @ 330hz for the 1st time, I did not like it. The feel felt smoother and snapper though, but the image was a little too washed out looking for my taste. In that moment, I was considering on return the monitor and just setup my 39" back up and wait 'til LG can either do another model like this one but have it's dual mode do 3400 x 1440 @ 240hz instead or just have a 5k or 4k that does 240hz.
The next day, which is today, I played a couple of more games to enjoy the 5k. I then switch to COD 6, and tried the dual mode again. I went into setting to make a couple of changes because it was last played on the 39". Once I got into a game, I was satisfied. The imaged looked way better. I don't know what happened, but it did not look bad as it did the previous day. I swap games and tried COD 7 beta and MW3, and it looked good on both. I haven't tried Halo yet though.
So as of right now, I'm keeping the monitor and would say it is a good upgrade I did. Now, you can customize the resolution within the Nvidia Control Panel, but you can only do when dual mode is activated; the button is grayed out when dual mode is not activated. The only luck I had with customizing the resolution without doing more advanced tuning, it changing to 2560 x 1440 @ 240hz. But a couple of other somewhere on Reddit claimed to push up to 3400 x 1600 @ 330hz.
Now in dual mode, I been using at the full screen. There's an option to have screen/image shrink to mirror as if you're on a 37" screen, 39", 34", 24", or 27". My in-game setting was set to preset at Balanced, DLSS on and set to ultra performance. FrameGen set to off. I have tried with DLAA instead of DLSS and the image quality slightly dropped. Constantly averaging over 280fps. On the nuketown map, hit over 300fps for a nice lengthy period.
I'm running my system with a rtx 4090, 13900K, 64GB DDR5 6200mhz. On a game lie Hitman: World Assassin, everything on ultra and all RT settings on max, I struggled staying at 30fps with DLSS off. With all RT settings off, I was getting between 35 to 40fps depending on the amount of extra NPCs in an area. With everything on ultra and all RT settings on max and DLSS on, was easily between 60 - 72fps, but with all RT settings off, it would hit in the 80s. If you use FrameGen, it'll put you a little over 100fps.
I have a setup close to your #1option, but i have two stacked monitors and a vertical to the right. While working from home 5 days a week, I've used my Dell Alienware AW3423DWF as a main monitor for 2 years and have no issues. There's a feature to have pixel shift done while the monitor is on to help mitigate potential pixel burn-in. And also, since I was used 2nd monitor stacked on top, I would keep all desktop icons on that screen and I would have Outlook and web browser opened majority of the day in one spot on that 2nd screen too.
Excel and and other windows from another program I would have e opened on my OLED, but I would be closing and reopening windows like every 15 - 25 minutes. And the taskbar I would keep on autohide and my wallpaper is set to all black. All of this I do because I would be working on the monitor for up anywhere from 4 to 6 hours straight. Within that time I take a break no matter what, and I would power the OLED off and it'll start doing its pixel refresh (this is different from pixel shift). After 3 years, no issues at all and I'm still using the monitor, but now as my vertical screen. I hardly have anything on it amd just use it if I need documents opened in long form.
I got a LG 39"OLED last year and that is my main monitor and I did the same with that as I did with the Alienware. After a year so far, no issues. The only difference though, if I get up to leave for a long break, I don't power the monitor off manually, I just sure any application window on that screen is closed or minimized before walking away. The monitor itself will shutdown in a power save mode once the laptop goes to sleep state or if no screen activity detected in like 10 min. The pixel refresh starts when monitor shutdowns in power save mode. In OSD, you can set the pixel refresh to happen in 4hrs, 6hrs, or 8hrs - message will pop-up to warn you that a pixel refresh will happen soon when it gets down to 5 mins before it hit the hour mark of the selected. The timer for this starts from the time the monitor is powered on. A refresh is done typically ever time the monitor is powered off or go into power save mode. If after an hour passes, and you manually power the monitor or let it shutdown on its own, the pixel refresh will auto start. 6 or 8 minutes it takes for it to be done. You power it back on after that, the that timer will start over again. If you power the monitor off and then right back on, then the timer will start back where left off.
As long you utilize the pixel shifter and pixel refresher features, you'll be fine. On weekends or off days I do game on the monitor. I might average 4 - 5 hrs here and there. On my PC, it's not setup like my work laptop, meaning, I have a custom wallpaper and don't use the autohide on my taskbar. Lol.
Top Ultrawide Monitors on Reddit
1
LG
45GX950A-B
70% positive of 908 users
45-inch 800R OLED: immersive gaming, polarizing curve for work.
Ballfade
