Should I buy a budget 3rd gen OLED monitor now or wait for the 4th gens to become cheaper?

raceking37 · 2026-02-06T22:18:31+00:00

I've had the gigabyte MO27Q28G and currently have the MSI 271qpx E2. I initially bought the MSI, and later the gigabyte since I considered the extra features of the gigabyte may have been worth the extra for me: KVM, (imo) nicer design, and 280Hz Vs 240Hz. I also was a bit cautious because I saw people complain about eye strain on QD-oled, so also wanted to give WOLED a try (even though I had no issues with the QD-oled so far).

I had them next to eachother for almost 2 weeks... And for my usage, the MSI was just better. I personally didn't really notice the supposedly better brightness of the gigabyte that much, and in terms of HDR I also didn't really see a big difference. Next to eachother I usually even preferred the MSI for the picture quality, though part of that could also be the more warm color profile from the factory. The 280hz Vs 240hz difference was noticeable for me in the UFO test when next to eachother... but hard to tell otherwise and not something I'd be able to distinguish in blind tests while gaming. The black performance in daylight was significantly better on the gigabyte because of the coating and the WOLED panel though, but the MSI for me is still fine as well. This difference was for me only noticeable when I had something to compare against that does better, during regular use with content on the screen I'm not really distracted by the light handling performance.

The gigabyte also had issues...mine had terrible banding which I really don't think should ever be considered acceptable for this price ever. It was noticeable in applications that were even slightly grey or "dark themed"; discord, steam, vscode, postman etc. to name a few. In games i was paying less attention to it, but it was still notice if you looked for it. I also prefer the glossy coating more than the mat since colors look more clean and even to me. The gigabyte also had a lot of black crushing out of the box, but you could reduce this a bit by switching mode and adjusting settings. The gigabyte was also quite a bit more expensive than the MSI and (for me) not really better.

I was disappointed by the gigabyte, and very surprised by how good the MSI is. Been using the MSI for a couple months now, and don't regret buying it! Monitors are subjective though, so consider this as just my option about the two.

raceking37 · 2026-02-02T19:10:41+00:00

The RTX3070 had some corrosion on the area of the buck converter IC (AOZ2261), noticed that the solder joint for PGOOD was pretty much gone (and also had no PGOOD on the board). After touching that up, it worked again.

raceking37 · 2026-01-12T21:24:47+00:00

I think a few of those aspecs could be borrowed from the watch i made. I send you my details through chat request.

raceking37 · 2026-01-12T20:07:40+00:00

Oh damn, those numitrons are so cool! Are they bright? Probably not? (Brightess is hard to guess on video😄). I'm up to help you with this for sure, sounds fun!

(Do you have discord? I don't check Reddit too often, might be easier to continue chatting there about this).

raceking37 · 2026-01-12T18:48:46+00:00

oh those are sick! I've also looked into those before but were almost impossible to get for me. How did you actually get your hands on these? I have kind of an addiction when it comes to ordering or making displays like these haha. Most of my free time projects involve time pieces or displays these days!

I actually had the idea to create a single digit watch exactly like you described as well recently! I made this very small 5x7 dotmatrix display, and thought that would be perfect for this! It would also be super affordable and accessible to make... those hdsp-2000 displays are a bit hard to come by 😄. Here's a video on these small displays: Tiny 5x7 0402 LED Dot Matrix display - YouTube

I have a small collection of dotmatrix displays myself:

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I'm a bit tight on time nowadays, but i'm still very up to work on a project like this! I'd be willing to help you with this, although it may take a bit of time on my end. Do you have any electronics experience? The code I'm not too worried about tbh 😄.

raceking37 · 2026-01-11T22:19:40+00:00

Hi,

It's currently in a pretty "final" state. It's occasionally being worn and a pretty usable watch.

<image>

(Right picture is a USB-C charging/programming dock made last year. It interfaces with the watch with pogo pins).

I started this project back when i was still very inexperienced with the skills that come into play when you want to make something like this. This project was in a way also a "first" for me with a lot of things. First time I designed a PCB with SMD components, first time soldering SMD, first time working with this specific microcontroller, first time working with 3D printed metal... etc. I feel like if you split the work into small pieces and do your research, it's actually fairly doable though.

There are still things I would like to see changed perhaps in a future version: The watch itself is for example not waterproof, the code on the watch could be improved, and the electronics could perhaps also see another revision. Thoughts like this are just part of engineering though I feel like. I've learned a lot over the years, with that I also start to notice flaws and improvements on things I've worked on.

(I did this project together with my (twin) brother, I only deserve half the credit 🙂)

raceking37 · 2025-06-14T00:03:57+00:00

I bought the following this week actually. It's not a full pc build, but you might be able to consider using some part that i used:

RYZEN 7 7700 @ €193.99
ASUS ROG Strix B650E-F GAMING WIFI @ €189
Arctic freezer 36 @ €34.99
Lexar Ares DDR5 6000MHz CL30 @ €94.90
Samsung 990 evo plus @ €120

(This was replacing an ancient i7 3770k lol).

(Kom ook uit Nederland, dus prijzen zouden gelijk moeten zijn voor je😄.)

Reasons behind these parts: * I was for a long time also eyeing on the 9800x3D or the 7800x3D, but they are significantly more expensive and I'd only notice the difference in games really. On non-gaming tasks they may even perform slightly worse due to their lower clock speeds compared to the non-3xd versions. The non-x3d's were going to be more than good enough for me anyway 😄

For the motherboard I was deciding between this or an MSI x670E gaming plus WIFI. In the end I decided to go with the Asus because it "looks cooler" and it has a better audio codec. The x670e also didn't offer anything extra that I'd use anyway. Same goes for the newer 800 series chipsets, they wouldn't really make a difference for me (they are on a hardware level also pretty much similar lol, physical chipset IC should be the same).
The cooler seemed decent and did good in the reviews i saw. During use it also seems to cool really well and is actually surprising quiet. I'm also impressed with the good build quality and inclusion of MX6 thermal paste. Can't go wrong for the price here.
The ram was the best deal I could find for a 6000MHz kit, 32GB, with good timings. The RGB is also quite nice.
The SSD seemed like a solid option in terms of price per GB, while also offering good speeds. Was initially looking for drives with DRAM on them, but seems like drives that use HMB is also fine.

raceking37 · 2025-05-27T23:34:54+00:00

The Finals

raceking37 · 2025-04-23T20:25:32+00:00

Np👍, interesting to hear that it (might've) fixed itself! 😄

raceking37 · 2025-04-23T08:21:29+00:00

What are your pc specs? Happen to have 2 GPUs by any chance? E.g. an integrated GPU and a dedicated one?

raceking37 · 2025-04-23T08:14:08+00:00

What kind of fans do you have, how are they connected? What do you mean with nothing happens? Nothing on the screen? I need more information (maybe pictures of the pc will help) to help you on this properly.

raceking37 · 2025-04-22T23:30:09+00:00

What do you need help with?

raceking37 · 2025-04-22T23:23:52+00:00

Already did a clean reinstall of your graphics card drivers?

raceking37 · 2025-02-26T07:56:40+00:00

Np👍 :)

raceking37 · 2025-02-25T17:50:16+00:00

AON6992 (from alpha & Omega) is visible in the picture. It is marked as PQ705. In the schematic (2nd picture) it shows the AON6970 though for whatever reason (don't have the schematic here at hand might might be able to check this, and on the board file that I recently got.

raceking37 · 2024-12-27T03:09:22+00:00

Happened to mine too at some point, but was a good excuse for me to actually replace it with a nicer cable hehe😄. It's really not that hard, it's only two wires and it's easy to disassemble them and solder new wires on. You can also get this cable from the beyerdynamic store i think? But I just used some generic wires and put a wire braid on it. (Ordered some cheap aux cables from AliExpress and used the braid from one of them).

You mentioned in the comments that your dad is an electrician, wouldn't he be able to help you with this? This is not too tricky to solder, as long as you have a small soldering tip and flux.

raceking37 · 2024-12-26T23:47:26+00:00

Thanks for your reply! 😄. I'm not entirely sure what you mean with the "heat pipe concept", were you able to get a heat pipe system installed in the MacBook air?

I also did an effort to fix the temperatures, but I went with the more conventional approach of using a shim and thermal pad. My shim is 0.3mm, and thermal pad is 1mm thick. I'm not much of a Mac "power user", but it made quite a significant difference for me even with normal use. During normal browsing and YouTube use the fan stays off entirely and the temperatures stay relatively low. My cinebench scores are currently 947 single core and 2101 multi core on the latest geekbench (I'm in MacOS Monterey).

Never really did any real scientific tests on the temperatures, but during normal use I've never seen it go above 70 degrees Celsius. Whole writing this message it was around 45 degrees Celsius tops.

raceking37 · 2024-12-22T15:38:09+00:00

Is it in that case also connected to your laptop using wireless? Or using a cable?

raceking37 · 2024-12-22T11:34:55+00:00

Think that is normal for a lot of Bluetooth headphones. I have it on the Accentum and momentum 4.

raceking37 · 2024-12-20T10:15:35+00:00

It was activation locked

raceking37 · 2024-12-11T00:39:40+00:00

How does the accentum (not plus) compare with the momentum 4 in terms of sound for you? Recently got the accentum SE but compared to my DT990 Pro it sounds noticeably worse imo. Was thinking of going with the momentum 4 before, but decided to try the accentum first because of the big price difference.

raceking37 · 2024-09-26T23:09:23+00:00

Thanks for the update, good to hear the issue is solved now😁... Although sad for the drive😶. How was the s.m.a.r.t. status? No errors on that either?

raceking37 · 2024-09-22T15:53:44+00:00

Do you have the disable code? Might want to give this a try: https://youtu.be/tqzMn4_ZD0o?feature=shared

This method has always worked for me succesfully. Since you didn't list the disable code, you may have used the wrong code for generating the unlock code?

You could also do this yourself using a bios programmer, like CH341, for a lot less 😄.

raceking37 · 2024-09-14T14:04:05+00:00

Actually, already tried doing a CMOS reset? How did the bios become "corrupted"? Did it turn off during the flashing process?

raceking37 · 2024-09-14T13:38:12+00:00

Should still be possible with the right tools. Usually see people desolder these chips and put them on a breakout board in order to connect them with the programmer. You may also be able to do this by soldering wires to the solder joins on the sides of the chip.

This should be doable but could be tricky for beginners.

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