VA Panel vs QD-OLED Panel - Which Technology is Right For You?

in this video I'm going to talk about the differences between a VA panel and a QD OLED panel and for this comparison I'll be using two very similar yet very different ultrawide gaming monitors from MSI the 342c with a QD OLED panel and the 343 CQR with a VA panel these two monitors have very similar specs on paper uh they're both 34in Ultra wide Quad HD monitors one has 175 htz refresh rate the other one 165 Herz which isn't really a difference and both have a much better contrast than the typical IPS panel so both are very clearly aimed at gaming and other types of content consumption but since they do have very different panels in terms of overall experience they're actually Worlds Apart so let's compare the two and let's figure out which one might be the best fit for you let's begin the MSI 342c uses the same cuti OLED panel from Samsung that's in a lot of QD OLED monitors already like the Alienware aw 3423 DW for example that I reviewed a while ago the MSI comes with a very different exterior and includes some extras like a reactive RGB bar at the front but that's just on the outside the brands have very limited influence on how the actual cue OLED panel behaves pretty much like most monitors that have an LG OLED panel will behave more or less the same same and unless a brand does something specifically strange it is very hard to mess up an OLED monitor VA monitors on the other hand vary a lot more in terms of performance and you have really good VA monitors and you have absolutely terrible ones so you do need to be a bit more careful when picking a VA panel now luckily the 343 CQR that I was testing for this video is a pretty good example of a good VA monitor that you actually want to consider and it was only fair to pick a pretty good VA to compete with an OLED panel but let's put these two monitors side by side and see how well they perform brightness is one area where OLED is traditionally a bit weaker and then especially so if you have a bright scene that is filling most of the screen in SDR mode so this would be any sort of regular PCU uh the Cutie OLED only hit 242 nits while the VA panel hit a nicer three 356 knits generally speaking getting at least 300 knits is nice if you have a very bright room but because the cue OLED has much better black values than a VA panel it doesn't feel as dim as 250 nits would look like on an LCD panel so unless your room is extremely bright with lots of direct sunlight I don't think you should worry about the lower brightness of an OLED or of an cuti OLED panel in HDR mode however the Cutie OLED wins easily it has a much higher Peak brightness of just over 1,000 knits and in typical HDR content like movies or games you can usually expect somewhere between 600 and 800 nits depending on the scene meanwhile the VA panel barely goes over 400 nits with about 380 to 400 nits in a typical HDR content now both VA and OLED are supposed to offer very good contrast but if you have them side by side it isn't even close so va's typical contrast is about 3,000 to1 which is a lot more than the 1,00 to1 on a typical IPS panel but all its ability to turn individual pixels off to display those true blacks makes the black pixels on a very good VA panel look more like a shade of gray and when you combine that contrast with much higher HDR brightness the difference in overall HDR performance between the two monitors is just just night and day the range of colors the monitor can display is important if you do some creative work uh but a wide range of colors also helps games and HDR content to look better as well the QD OLED panel covers the entire srgb and P3 gamut and almost the entire Adobe RGB gamut which is actually a great result for a monitor and then this VA panel just falls short in comparison now some VA panels are a bit better in this regard but I still haven't seen one one that can match an OLED or a CD OLED panel when it comes to color range now whether the monitor displays those accurate colors right out of the box completely depends on the manufacturer so that's not something that you can blame either technology for but I do want to say that I've tested now several cuti oleds so far and dozens of OLED panels and almost all of them included at least reasonably accurate color profiles out of the box and so did this 342c so it is almost perfectly calibrated but that is really not the case for VA panels and the 343 CQR is not an exception it lacks the color range to do P3 or adobe RGB properly but it is not really accurate for srgb either now uniformity will also vary per monitor model but uh due to OLED not having a backlight it is generally better at uniformity uh the 343 CQR does well for a VA panel but it doesn't come close to the CTI OLED uh the lack of backlight also means that a cue OLED cannot get backlight bleeds so you don't have to worry about that at all but for VA panels it's all down to the manufacturer yet again and the 343 CQ is looking pretty well with almost no backlight bleed but almost all LCD panels have at least some while the oleds have none so cutie OLED wins here as well View viewing angles are another clear win for the QD OLED uh with no real brightness or color shifts As you move around the Monitor and the 343 CQR does well for a VA panel but even the best vas offer acceptable viewing angles at best but where OLED completely humiliates VA technology is speed so oleds and QD oleds have basically perfect sub 1 millisecond response times with no significant overshoot mean while uh this VA panel either has around 6 milliseconds without overdrive on average with some transitions being much slower than that or you can get it down to 3 and 1 12 milliseconds on average at the highest overdrive mode but then you get a lot of overshoot in some Transitions and this is a pretty good VA panel because most other vas are much slower uh as you can see here the VA takes much longer to transition and clearly overshoot significantly for a while before hitting its Target but the CU OLED is just instant and as a result the moving image Clarity on an OLED panel is just way Superior so MSI and everyone else just might Market their vas as 1 millisecond panels but you don't really get a 1 millisecond experience even if technically they're not lying because a single transition here or there might hit that advertised number because it is overall much slower than that in terms of latency the cuti OLED wins again uh the total endtoend latency on a high-end system is about 2 and 1 half milliseconds faster than DVA but this will also depend on the exact panel that you're using so basically in every single test so far it just looks like the cuti OLED is way superior to the VA panel and numbers aside that is exactly how it subjectively feels when you game want a QD alled a good VA panel is fine I mean I've never been a big fan of the technology myself but it is objectively okay and I do understand why some people like it especially if you consume a lot of content or you game a lot and you really like contrast so IPS panels were not an option before but cutie oleds are just way better uh they're way faster you get much better motion Clarity uh colors look way better and the contrast is infinite and those are the things that people chose VA panels for uh before oleds became a thing but oleds and cutie oleds are also not perfect and they do have some issues that you need to consider and that you cannot see in any of these graphs and the first one is the subpixel array so regular PC monitors including vas generally use a typical RGB pixel layout but LG oleds for example add another white pixel to it and these cutie oleds use a triangle RGB layout and both have a tendency to make text on screen look a little bit off compared to regular monitors a cue OLED specifically introduce some color fringing on the high contrast edges that are usually green and magenta and that might be very annoying to look at if you work a lot on your monitor and if you need to read or write a lot of text so it is definitely present and it bothers some people and some people don't mind it uh I personally don't mind it as much when sitting at my desk and looking at the monitor from a normal distance uh but a lot of people are sensitive to it a bit more and it just disqualifies these cutie oleds for regular desktop work so you will have to make up your own mind on that particular issue uh either way it doesn't affect games or content it mostly affects text on white backgrounds and OLED panels also do have a bit of a flicker so there is a brightness dip on every refresh cycle uh which is something that most users will never ever see or have to worry about but there is still a small group of people that are very sensitive to this Flicker and might find OLED panels uncomfortable to look at so if you find OLED TVs very uncomfortable uh this cue OLED monitor will be the same but a much bigger concern would be burning which is inherent to OLED technology so it includes QD oleds a burning can happen when certain pixels display play the same thing for long periods of time which again won't affect games or other content but a typical desktop or a taskbar can cause a problem and there are things that you can do on a daily basis to avoid it like uh make sure that you don't leave it on a static image for a long period of time and most monitors including this one offer different options like a pixel shift and pixel refresh to avoid it from happening but it still can happen so I really do recommend that if you do decide to go for an OLED or a QD OLED monitor you make sure that you pick one that includes burn in in their warranty so if something does happen you will be covered for a while uh this MSI for example includes a three-year long warranty that includes burning which is quite reasonable but there is still the risk of something happening in four to 5 years so do keep that in mind so in the end I think it is pretty clear that the cuti OLED is the superior panel technology in pretty much every way but it also costs more so at the time I got both of these monitors last year the 342c was $1,100 and the 343 CQR was $600 so that was a big price difference but now QD alled monitors have come down in price a lot and the 342c is now $780 in the US but it is still more expensive than DVA alternative so if your budget is is very tight a VA panel is a good option but if you can stretch it a bit and if you can spend a little bit more it will get you a huge increase in speed and image quality now that is all I have for today but before I go let's check out the sponsor of this video this video was brought to you by cic and their vertex power supplies these fully modular power supplies are extremely efficient and very quiet due to their fan design and their hybrid fan mode that stops the fans completely under 40% load they come with a variety of connections for any kind of system you have in mind including the 12vt high power cable for the latest Nvidia graphics cards and to wrap it all up they now offer a nice and cozy 12 year long warranty check them out using the links in the description below so I hope you enjoyed this very different than usual video uh if you liked it do let me know I always try to read and answer most of the comments you guys leave and if you want to make sure that you don't miss any of my future uploads uh do consider clicking that subscribe button bye guys and I will see you in the next one bye [Music]

Channel: Techtesters

Views: 12,364

Keywords: QD-OLED vs VA, VA vs QD-OLED, OLED vs VA, VA vs OLED, QD-OLED or VA, Va or QD-OLED, OLED or VA, VA or OLED, MSI MEG 342C, MSI, 343CQR, Ultrawide, VA or OLED Ultrawide, OLED or VA Ultrawide, qd oled vs va, va vs qd oled, qd oled or va, va or qd oled, ultrawide monitor, monitor technology, best monitor technology, best monitor panel type, monitor panel type, best panel type of gaming, best ultrawide monitor, techtesters

Id: na94-tadO3A

Length: 13min 17sec (797 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 18 2024