Suggestion for a TV for connecting to desktop PC ONLY

[oneday1]

Hello, I would like to get some opinions on what Brand TV I should buy for gaming/watching movies. I have tried doing some research but I am constantly confused and the worst thing is where I live (Turkey), options are very limited, in addition to the sales guys being absolutely clueless about everything, sometimes even more than me.

So what I'm looking for:

- A TV for connecting to my desktop PC. I have been using a Samsung LE40A553 for 7 years or so in my living room connected to my PC, and I have always been pleased with it. As it now has hundreds of dead pixels, it's time to buy a new, more advanced one.

- price range 500-1000 dollars

- size: 40'' - 50'' (preferably closer to 40'')

- I want it to be a proper 4K TV as well, as it seems like getting a 1080p TV at this point does not sound like a very smart idea. I know there aren't many 4K content still, but things might change in a couple years when I will still be using this TV - additionally my PC is powerful enough to run some games decently at 4K. I do not know if that's a deal breaker for the price range I have specified

- I do not care about it being curved, having some OS, USB/wireless/player availability, 3D, smart TV etc. I CARE FOR NONE OF THOSE. It will ALWAYS be connected to my PC where I play games, watch 1080p Tv shows/movies etc. I do not care about the "thickness" of the TV, I do not care aobut the sound quality (I have a 5.1 system). Just NO GIMMICKS. I just want the best possible picture quality with minimal input lag for PC gaming.

- My room is generally dark with lights off if that matters. Also I do not care about the quality of the "side view". I will be sitting directly in front of it.


A relatively well respected shop has these options in my price range : http/www.vatanbilgisayar.com/televizyon/?opf=p1125471,p2837

As you can see, the models are pretty limited. The sales guy tried real hard to convince me to get the LG 49UF6807, saying they had a single one left and that it was exactly what I needed (great for gaming etc.) and that the price was amazingly low. As soon as I got home I found this http/www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/lg/uf6800 and learned it was not half as good as the guy made it sound like.

Is there anything I should be searching for? From the Rtings site I saw the Samsung JU7100, Sony X810C, Vizio M Series 2015 had good scores ( http/www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-price/under-1000/best ). I will try to find them here... Also, should I wait until January when the new series come out? (perhaps something new with a great price/performance ratio will come out, or the prices wof older models will drop further). Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks ?n advance.

 

[ssddx]

for starters i personally run a tv and home theater system on my main system . photos can be seen in my build link in my signature in case you wanted any ideas or for reference to what i'm talking about.

general:
you do not need smart-tv, internet capability or other such garbage you are correct. also you really do not need anything more than 60hz refresh rate or the strobing backlight effect like motionflow. see the quote below for other names motionflow goes by.

For Samsung, it's Motion Rate, for Sony it's MotionFlow, LG's is TruMotion or Motion Clarity Index, Vizio is Effective Refresh Rate, and Panasonic is Backlight Scan.

why do you generally not need greater than 60hz? because most televisions do not accept greater than 60hz input and fake in the frames which results in a slight lag. some claim it makes movies look smoother (120 over 60hz) however the post processing lag is noticible when you use direct input to a pc. personally i think both motionflow and greater than 60hz for movies make them look fake (read up on "soap opera effect") although some people might like them (mostly people like it for sports). you can generally disable both of these effects (most tvs have a 60hz mode and motionflow can be turned off - we do this with our main tv.

brands:
generally the big 3: sony, samsung and lg are recommended since they typically have adequate quality and have repair parts available. vizio does not have repair parts available and is of lesser quality however does offer quite a bit for a low price (if you like disposable tvs). what route you go depends on preferences (personally i love sonys although we have a samsung in the other room and a sony in this one for the pc)

about 4k:
while it certainly might seem like an easy decision to go with 4k and "future proof" it should be noted that if you plan on gaming on the system 4k is going to take some rather hefty hardware to give you good frame rates. otherwise you would be running on lower settings with lesser framerates or running at a lower resolution than 4k which may or may not look worse than just running a 1080p tv. 1080p content will also look better on a native 1080p tv than it would on a 4k tv unless upscaled. another thing to keep in mind especially if you plan on running a smaller 4k tv around 40" or so is that unless you have fairly good vision things might be a little hard to read unless you are fairly close. on a 40" 1080p everything is nice and large (perhaps a bit too much) although on 4k they might be a bit too small (again, unless you sit reasonably close).

about gaming:
response time and input lag are the most important things to keep in mind here. you want to keep these numbers as low as possible to avoid ghosting or other such issues. keep in mind that tvs are generally much slower than monitors so certain concessions must be made here. you can see the quote below for what i would consider absolute minimums on the verge of being noticeable. you want to stay well under these values (under half those values would be ideal if possible)

Response Time:

In terms of your monitor this is the time it takes for a pixel to go from the deepest black to the whitest white and then return back to black. Manufacturers tend to post a GTG or gray to gray response time in order to post a faster time.

A slow response time can introduce blur and ghosting. I find this to be especially prevalent in monitors with a response time above 8ms. The lower the response time the cleaner fast action movement or scenes will be rendered.

Input Lag:

This is the delay from when an input is entered in your keyboard, mouse, controller, or other device, and when it is displayed on your monitor.

This statistic is especially important when it comes to twitch sensitive fighting, RTS, or FPS games. Under 1 frame of input lag or 16ms or less is considered good in terms of gaming.

backlighting:
ledtv refers to a tv with led backlighting and is not a tv made from leds. dont fall for the marketing terminology. led is generally better than ccfl backlighting as it is energy efficient. grid-array backlighting for led will give better black values over edge-lit (which the majority are). this is because entire zones can be turned off. otherwise dark zones may appear dark dark grey since the backlight requires a minimum value to show bright scenes (such as a torch in a black scene). this will look more natural with grid array than edge lit. the more closely packed the zones, the better. what to look for when looking at backlights in person are uniformity: you do not want a "blotchy" looking backlight (on dark scenes you can see this most easily - it looks like dark and lighter areas instead of one shade).

color:
just a brief mention here.. i think you know what to look for in terms of color, contrast and sharpness but you may want to check what levels the settings are when viewing tvs in person. often they are jacked way up so you may need to keep this in mind when selecting a tv.

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i know that doesnt give you a specific model, although it should help with telling you what to look for. as always if at all possible, look at the displays in person before you buy as this is the best way to know if the displays are sharp, vibrant and have good image quality.

 

[oneday1]

Thank you for providing such detailed information ssddx, it will help me in my quest for finding the TV I am looking for!