it's reviews day Tuesday in our YouTube
sponsored entry to awesome stuff Week 2015 and man this keeps freaking
happening to me I am always declaring some new monitor to be the best thing
ever compared to other 3D monitors that I've seen this is hands down the one to
get it might just be the best I've ever seen only the lack of g-sync prevents
this from winning my coveted editor's Choice Award the only choice for someone
who wants all of that stuff 4K is off my wish list and large format 21 by9 is on
it my Top Choice for a productivity minded workstation display and the
xr3501 is my new Top Dog gaming Monitor
and then someone be Su CG Acer BenQ whoever keeps standing up and being like
um excuse me H ours has a high refresh rate or like ours is IPS or ours is
bigger or ours is curved fool well today
it's finally over because the x34
Predator is here from Acer bringing
perhaps an end to my quest for the perfect monitor let's find out if it
succeeds shall
we the master case 5 by Cooler Master gives you the freedom to truly make your
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out the link in the video description to learn more physically it seems like
whether it's through careful market research or pure trial and error Acer
has has improved a lot in terms of their performanc looking industrial design
because the x34 Predator manages in my mind to look gamery without crossing the
line to tacky starting at the back I do
wish that the entire industry would lose the infatuation with glossy surfaces but
there's an optional Vasa mount adapter and the Tilt and height adjustable stand
has these kind of sharp angles and lines
to it and with only a tiny orange Accent on the cable management pack pass
through to reveal that it's a gaming monitor the bezels are as Slim as they
can be while keeping that required chin bar to house electronics and even the
front logo issues a brightly colored Affair in favor of a monochrome one with
a subtle orange backing material but enough about how it looks on a shelf
let's talk specs and see if the x34 Predator ticks all the right boxes 34-in
curved display okay not as curved and therefore immersive feeling as the Ben
qxr 3501 but better than flat IMO check
AHS panel technology for Superior Color performance and viewing angles big check
3440 X 1440 resolution much more
difficult to drive than 2560 x 1080 more on that later but a much finer image and
way better for regular desktop use check again so that sounds great so far lus
but hold on a second none of this is anything we haven't seen before in fact
what the hell is the difference between this and the XR 341 CK that you reviewed
literally 2 months ago great question and here's the answer the things that
set the x34 Predator apart from anything
else that I've ever seen is that in addition to all of that it features
gsync technology which you can learn more about here but basically it
eliminates stutter and Screen tearing during game rendering on supported
GeForce graphics cards and it can be overclocked from its stock 60 HZ refresh
rate to a whopping one 100 Herz for a
very noticeable Improvement in how frequently updated frames can be
delivered to the gamers eyes so that's
it Acer has officially delivered everything that I've been asking for
since first laying eyes on an ultrawide one and a half years ago everything else
at this point is just gravy which isn't to say that gravy is bad revisiting the
rear of the monitor we've got a bit of an unusual IO layout there is a four
port USB 3 Hub power input for the external brick an audio pass through
that maybe someday a monitor manufacturer will put somewhere usable
and what's this ah perhaps some gravy
Acer has implemented not only the standard DisplayPort 1.2 that's been
required for g-sync operation since the technology was first introduced but also
an HDMI input that along with the 100
Herz refresh rate capability of the display suggests that the Predator is
running something more than just the original g-sync module the secondary
input is limited to 5050 HZ by default indicating that to my disappointment it
is an HDMI 1.4 rather than HDMI 2.0 Port
but it's redeemed somewhat by my successful overclock to 60 HZ on a
gtx980ti and it's still a heck of a lot better than nothing if you have a
secondary PC or a console that you want to plug into your main monitor
periodically and speaking of display overclocking how does that 100 HZ
overclock work well actually the process was too straightforward for me and I got
confused I should probably explain that people who are familiar with display
overclocking know that it's done through the graphics card control panel not the
monitor's onscreen menu well not on this
bad boy to achieve the advertised up to 100 HZ overclock you just navigate to it
in the menu confirm a reboot of the Monitor and configure your shiny new
refresh rate in Windows the same way that you normally would which of course
instantly made me curious to see if it could be pushed even further using the
NVIDIA control panel and no not even one Herz Acer has
already put their balls to the wall so to speak 100 HZ is all you get so then
let's change gears and talk about what it's like gaming on my ultimate monitor
well to put it succinctly it's super awesome but that doesn't really get my
point across properly I mean I guess it's just hard for me to deliver that
amped up you know like yeah yeah likeing
rocks speech here because for me none of
this is a surprise I've experienced g-sync I've experienced High refresh
rate and I've experienced curved ultrawide I've just been patiently
somewhat patiently waiting for someone to put them all together so the
experience here is more akin to getting
home sitting down after a long day and taking that first bite of my wife's
amazing homemade pizza than it is to
ripping open a surprise present on Christmas morning this is a deeply
satisfying amazing gaming experience in everything from racing to Shooters to
third person to anything it's the bomb
which doesn't mean I'm not going to try and find problems with this monitor starting with input leg testing the x34
Predator managed a mere 13.7 milliseconds with my Leo Bodner input
leg tester so that won't be issue and picking up with panel color performance
well damn when did gaming monitors get
so good at this I mean no it's not perfect but at 98% coverage of srgb and
color accuracy falling in the Delta e of 2 to four range pretty much across the
board this monitor gaming aside is even
suitable for Pro suumer Photo and video editing in the Bog standard default user
mode without any calibration hot diggity
there's a touch of back light bleed on a black background but nothing out of the
ordinary and I feel like the anti-glare coating while not the most glare
reducing I've ever encountered strikes a good balance between the clarity of the
image and the reduction of Reflections
so then my only real complaints that I can find are in the onscreen menu the
monitor lacks any ultra low motion blur
settings for controlling backlight strobing something that I don't
personally use because it can't be used at the same time as g-sync right now
which I prefer but it's been a staple on
Modern g-sync monitors for quite some time so it's disappointing that it's not
there and my second complaint the onc screen menu is just generally really
clunky to navigate it's hard to tell what button you're pressing and it takes
forever to get anything done but I guess
that's about it oh no there's one more thing the price the x34 Predator may be
amazing but it comes in at a whopping 13
$100 US MSRP not to mention that because
it runs at such a high resolution that to even benefit from its 100 HZ refresh
rate you are going to need some serious graphics and CPU horsepower for modern
AAA games at high settings but if you're
a baller I can say with confidence this is the best gaming experience you can
put on your desk and here's a cool side note if you're a baller thanks to this
video's inclusion in awesome stuff Week 2015 there should actually be a new ad
unit on it that YouTube is testing that allows you to see where to buy it from
right within the video for most of us this is probably a non-factor but if
you've got a couple Grand burning a hole in your pocket then I guess it saves
your mouse and keyboard a little wear and tear and on that subject Mass drop you
guys might have heard of mass drop before or you might not have but if you
do want to check it out it's draw. p/ lus Tech tips and they've got all kinds
of great stuff whether you're looking for like a cool new knife or an audio
recorder a pair of headphones a keyboard they've got all kinds of great stuff and
the way it works is simple the community gets together and says hey we've got
this amazing thing that we want to buy but it's a little expensive Mass drop
takes those requests back to the manufacturers and Distributors and gets
authentic products that the more people commit to buy The more mass the lower
the price drops for when they all go ahead and pay at the end of the drop and
ship out to everyone very cool model and
it is definitely worth shopping if you got a couple bucks and you don't mind
finding something cool and spending it because I have certainly fallen into
that trap before like oh this is cool oh that's really cool no way that's the
drop price done so check them out at
draw UPS SL Linus techtips and that is linked in the video
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now that you're done doing all that you're probably wondering what to watch next so click that little button in the
top right corner to check out Luke's video where he determines what is the
optimal positioning of the next down
card when you're running a graphics card in your top slot for best performance
and Cooling