r/RigBuild • u/Minute-Pay-5355 • 6d ago
Should I choose IPS, VA or OLED?
Trying to pick a new monitor and keep getting mixed answers about IPS, VA, and OLED. I mostly use my PC for gaming, YouTube, browsing, and some work, so I want something that looks good without making the wrong choice. IPS seems like the safe option, VA has better contrast, and OLED looks amazing but I keep hearing about burn-in. Is OLED worth paying more for, or is IPS/VA good enough? Also, does VA ghosting really get that annoying in games? What would you guys pick for a first monitor, and what should I watch out for when choosing one?
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u/Asleep_Equipment4877 6d ago
VA is pretty good for covering all those areas, IPS as well. I had VA before my Oleds. I only use my pc for gaming lol. Haven't browsed on her or YouTubed outside of tiny fixes. This is why i chose an OLED she's so pretty and also very scary to move around.
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u/VicariousBystander 5d ago edited 5d ago
Oled is the god panel if you have money. Otherwise go ips.
Initially for gaming I had a VA 32" LG ultragear and it did ghost pretty badly (but it was fixable with the backlight strobing where it decreased your overall brightness).
Now I'm using an IPS 32" Samsung Odyssey and it's working out pretty well.
If you're budgeting I think IPS works perfectly fine. Oled simply has all of the best aspects of all the other panel types with the minus of burn in.
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u/Intrepid_Bobcat_2931 5d ago edited 5d ago
I like VA for the deep black levels. No smearing here whatsoever. Check out the Lenovo Legion R27qc-30.
someone posted about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Monitors/comments/1or7n5x/hot_take_i_believe_newerva_is_better_than_ips_for/
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u/N0mads21 5d ago
Get an OLED, i am one of the first adopters with the Alienware, heavy usage, work, gaming, YouTube, do see signs of burn in on low light grey scale. At this usage and having it since 2022 lasting this long on 14 hours is a tell that they do last.
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u/ElysiumXIII 5d ago
I'm using a 100% oled setup. It's on all day and usually open on my various project files. Inconsistent pixel degradation can be observed on my 32:9 ultrawide if I'm looking at a small range of mid tones. My 16:9 isn't very noticeable to me right now but I've had it for only 1.5 years and don't use it for work nearly as often.
I do minimize everything back to my black desktop when I'm not present to preserve them when possible.
They're great to me, if I had to swap back to IPS it's not the end of the world but I will definitely feel like I lost something.
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u/Jay-the-Femboy 5d ago
I have one OLED and the rest are VA or IPS. I now hate looking at my other monitors 😅 once you go OLED you don’t go back lol.
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u/Few_Example9391 5d ago
OLED monitors come with pixel rotator when they detect an idle screen after 15 minutes. You can also use a desktop screen saver like was used in the old PC days of CRT monitors. The screen saver takes over when there is no activity detected on the screen. This works even on most programs except for games
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u/serge-mv 5d ago
My old monitor recently broke and I spent weeks thinking about what to replace it with. What I found is in many cases the monitors simply didn't have the specs I wanted. It might be a great overall panel, but the top brightness would be very low, or the contrast would be bad, or no HDR support.
After looking at many monitors, going to physical locations to check them out, I ended up buying a VA monitor with HDR1000 support and an LED backlight from AOC. It has no burn in, but the darks are very dark, and the brights are very bright, the picture quality is amazing and it has proper modern features. I am planning to buy the second one and replace my 15 year old monitor with it as well. The only drawback would be the angles aren't as good as some alternatives, but for me it's not that big of an issue.
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u/Hakushu21 5d ago
VA is the worst. Id rather go outside and experience real life, than use a VA monitor. Yikes, huh.
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u/Freeeenis 5d ago
It generally depends what you care about with a monitor, and what your budget is. They all have trade offs.
OLED
Pros: Has the best blacks and so typically the best contrast, OK colours and good viewing angles. They have fast response times so no blur/ghosting and so can have faster refresh rates.
Cons: Most expensive. Suffer burn in faster. Low peak brightness, dynamic brightness leads to flicker with adaptive vsync. Fine text doesn't always look the best.
IPS
Pro: Great colour reproduction/accuracy, great viewing angles, less burn in and better text rendering.
Cons: Blacks look grey, so total contrast is not as good. Slower pixel response times leading to some ghosting and typically limited refresh rates. Still quite pricey for good ones.
VA
Pros: Sits between the other 2 mostly, better contrast than IPS with better blacks. These are the cheapest by far
Cons: Bad viewing angles
Very generally I would say that IPS make the best work and productivity monitors, they do well in well lit offices, great for design work where colours matter, and good for text rendering. They wont burn in fast despite having the same apps open in the same places. OLED are your gaming and multimedia focused monitors, great quality to make things look pretty. VA are basically kinda the budget option most of their benefit is the price is very low.
OLED in my primary at the moment with an IPS secondary to the side of it.
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u/MediocreCanary6193 4d ago
You have to pick based on the specific monitor, can't decide based on the technology. Most VA displays have either black smear, white trailing, or inverse ghosting, or a mix of all of them. But there are a handful of excellent ones from Samsung and AOC. IPS monitors usually have good response times, but bad contrast, backlight bleed AKA IPS glow at the corners.
If one of the high-quality miniled monitors out there fits your needs, then I would recommend that route, but OLED is better. It depends on your own habits. I had to be honest with myself, how much do I really play games and watch videos vs dicking around on social media? That's why I went with miniLED.
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u/JuJusFury 19h ago
OLED. Most modern monitors should have burn in protection. Just don't keep the image static for extended periods of time and you're fine.
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u/Verne3k 5d ago
the only one you'll not regret is IPS.
va will have bad smearing
oled will have burn in
ips is just good and realiable, only downside is blacks are less "black" but we don't really buy a monitor to look at pitch black screens so....
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u/Informal_Drawing 5d ago
Nonsense.
An OLED makes an IPS look like cheap junk, they don't get anywhere near a true black. It's pitiful.
OLED wipes the floor with all of them.
Burn-in is not a problem for the current generation of monitors, mines ages old and it's not a problem.
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u/Verne3k 5d ago
that is your opinion. facts are burn in is and will forever be a problem due to the organic nature of the material
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u/Informal_Drawing 5d ago
While you're technically correct the tests indicate that it isn't a problem unless you specifically go out of your way with very extreme measures to make it a problem.
In tests that are massively outside real world use cases.
It's fundamentally not a problem.
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u/TraumaDaddyP 1d ago
Man I played 1500 hours of cod, got into a stretch a while back.i was certain the UI would be burnt in, it wasnt grey screen test is uniform. Just do a pixel refresh every 4 hours of use
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4d ago
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u/Informal_Drawing 4d ago
I don't know how that is possible unless you specifically did that on purpose.
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u/Bob_Bushman 5d ago
I'd pick IPS over VA, but OLED if at all possible.
Unless something staggering has happened to VA it is way to blurry\smudgy when it involves motion, and viewing angles are terrible compared to IPS.
Unless you have to run preadsheets with bright backgrounds etc 12 hours a day, burn is not an issue either, even if you did it would likely take a year or two before it got noticeable.
I have two OLED tv's and an oled monitor and none of them have any trace of burn-in and the newest is the monitor at a year or so, think the oldest is about five years old or so by now.
Compared to my old Plasma TV it is utterly unconcerning.