BenQ XR3501 Gaming Monitor - 144Hz AMVA Gaming Bliss
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,504 words · ~7 min read
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I think it's safe to say that I speak for the entire PC and gaming media
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industry when I say that we are sick of
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hearing marketing people running around saying this product is like optimized
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for gaming it's the best for gamers I mean you guys probably feel the same way
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hit that like button if you're tired of this crap I mean what does that even
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mean for headphones and headsets it's often the manufacturer's way of saying
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hey it's got rubbish sound but you don't care or even notice anyway because
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you're going to be too distracted by the vibrant colors and flashing lights in
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the case of motherboards it pretty much means hey this performs exactly the same
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in every possible way as a non-gaming model but it's a different color enjoy
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and traditionally for monitors it's meant TN panels they might have crummy
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color in viewing angles but hey the pixels switch a little faster and
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they're cheap so uh gaming but maybe this is different maybe
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the xr3501 is truly a gaming monitor not
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only because it's just not good enough for anything else but because even the
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compromises that have been made legitimately make it better for gamers
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could it be true I guess we'll find
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out the master case 5 by Cooler Master gives you the freedom to truly make your
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midtower PC case your own with a variety of modular parts and accessories click
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on the link in the video description to learn more so I'm going to split this
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video into two parts part one will be the speeds and feeds the specifications
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because for the most part a monitor can be broken down into raw numbers with
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better numbers equaling a better monitor that's more worthy of your hard-earned
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money so let's kick it off with the physical tour if the industrial design
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Trend towards slim panel assemblies and
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hyper thin bezels reminiscent of a typical high fashioned runway model are
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your thing then power to you but if you find more Beauty in the Ronda Rousey of
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the world than the xr3501 might be your type this baby is
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thick and imposing but not exceedingly
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bulky nor is it by any means unattractive the stand is an elegant
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looking dark chrome finish affair with a
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red accent Cable Management hole through the back and not really much else to say
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about it it does feature 20° of tilt but
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no swivel or height adjust so you'll need a beefy vase amount and a transfer
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kit if you want more flexibility in terms of I/O I give it a C+ in spite of
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its size BenQ couldn't put the power supply inside the
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xr3501 so they Supply an external power brick there is no built-in USB hub and
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while having both DisplayPort and mini DisplayPort is nice there's no DV or
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VGA if you're ever in a jam and the dual HDMI ports are version 1.4 rather than
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2.0 meaning that the maximum reported refresh rate of the panel when cooked up
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via HDMI is 60 HZ oh and I guess there's
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also a headphone jack pass through down there slightly to the right of the iio
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you will find the onscreen menu controls
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which are not very well labeled and it's kind of hard to line up which button
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corresponds to which dot I found it kind of frustrating to navigate but all the
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usual options are in there you can control pixel overdrive you can set up
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benq's black equalizer feature if you want to see a little bit more detail and
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dark areas of the scene so I guess that leads us pretty well around to the
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business end of any Monitor and let me
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tell you there is some business going down there this is a 21 by9 my favorite
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for those who have been out of the loop for a while aspect ratio monitor
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measuring 35 in diagonally so a touch
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larger but pretty similar to models that I've used in the past from l G and Acer
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featuring get this a 2560 by 1080 8bit
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amva panel running at 144 Hertz and
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boasting as good as 4 millisecond response times wow and there's more to
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it too unlike those monitors I mentioned
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BenQ has added free sync adaptive refresh rate support a huge Plus for the
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AMD Gamers out there and gone super aggro on the curvature of this display
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with the xr3501 featuring an industry-leading 2000r curve that would
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give a circle of these monitors just over half of the radius of a circle of
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34 UC 97s holy crap but is that even a
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good thing I mean obviously you could curve a display so much that you
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wouldn't even be able to use it anymore so who has struck the right balance here
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well I guess I'd say it depends on the use case for productivity and office use
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I like to feel like there's a world Beyond whatever project I'm working on
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at the moment a subtle curve is good in that case for gaming wrapping the
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display around me letting it hold me tight that is an experience worth having
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and that's the xr3501 in a nutshell
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whether you're into Shooters racing games flight Sims whatever it is one
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hell of an experience the pixel response times aren't anything to write home
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about if you're coming from a fast TN like the assus
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pg278q but the 144hz refresh rate and
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outstanding contrast coupled with practically non-existent backlight bleed
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and a lack of ips glow thanks to the amva panel more than makeup for it in my
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mind and on the subject of the amva panel let's change gears and get
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empirical for a minute this thing freaking rocks for color performance
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these cman 5 charts show just over srgb
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gamet cover and the best outof thee boox accuracy that I've seen since I got my
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hands on my i1 basic pro2 display calibrator I mean we're talking almost
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nothing with a Delta e of greater than two you could photo edit on this thing
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right out of the box awesome right hold
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on there is a big gotcha that I glossed
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over earlier and I have to come back to now that resolution I mean I get it this
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is a gaming Monitor and in that cont text this trade-off actually makes a lot
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of sense because at 3440 by 1440 there
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isn't a display interface today that can handle 144 Hertz not to mention that
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hardly a graphics card in existence would be able to drive that resolution
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at 144 frames per second but that many
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pixels at this kind of size is not a
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retina display and in fact as I mentioned in my video on the lg34c 67
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it's quite unpleasant for me to use outside of games because onscreen
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elements look unnaturally large like someone turned the scaling up too high
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and some graphics even seem to lose Fidelity when viewed like this with
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black lines ending up with weird colored glows around them but with all of that
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said this is truly a gaming monitor it
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is intended to be purchased and used by people who will game on it primarily
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with creating spreadsheets in Excel as a distant afterthought and as such I
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consider it a smashing success if you're
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more productivity focused I still love my high resolution LGS if you're
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somewhere in the middle Acer 75 HZ XR
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341 CK is a great middle ground but if
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you're a gamer to the core I agree with
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benq's product design team's choice to go all in with this lower resolution and
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super tight curve 144 htz panel and the
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xr3501 is my new Top Dog gaming monitor
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especially if you're running an AMD graphics card and you can take advantage
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of freesync adaptive refresh rates so thanks for watching guys if this video
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people over there now that you're done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to watch next so click
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that little button in the top right corner to check out taran's robot VEX IQ
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next time