MSI Launches Three New Monitors: 2x 1080p 144 Hz Panels, Availability of 240 Hz 1080p IPS MAG251RX

[Raevenlord]

MSI today launched three new monitors on their Optix lineup, catering to budget-conscious gamers that want fast, responsive gameplay. MSI's new Optix G241 and Optix G271 differ solely in diagonal (one is 24", the other 27"), and both offer a 1080p, IPS panel with support for refresh rates up to 144 Hz and up to 1 ms response times. Both these monitors feature support for AMD FreeSync, max 250 nits brightness, and connectivity is taken care of by 1x DisplayPort 1.2a and 2x HDMI 1.4b. The MSI Optix G241 will be available for $189.99, whilst the 27" MSI Optix G271 will go for $239.99.

More interesting for gamers that want crazy refresh rates, however, is the MSI Optix MAG251RX. This monitor keeps the 1080p resolution and IPS panel, but brings refresh rates up to a crazy 240 Hz with up to 1 ms response time. MSI has also "upgraded" the Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) technology up to NVIDIA's G-Sync. There's HDR 400 support (don't read that much into that though; it's the bare minimum for entry and far from a quality HDR experience). It also sports USB-C connectivity and RGB customization on the back of the monitor via MSI's Mystic Light software. The MSI Optix MAG251RX will be available for a still conscious $359.99, provided you didn't stop reading at the mention of a 1080p panel.



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[Divide Overflow]

1080p? Remind me to be excited ten years ago.

 

[Fatalfury]

i really think a lot of people are waiting for good 24" 1080p 144hz-240hz IPS panels..
i know there are a few of those released few months ago by other brands..
OVer the years there were only 27 inch models with 1080p 144hz..


but i m sure the majority of the general playerbase will fall into this category.(24" 1080p 144HZ IPS)
So yea, this is exicting..

 

[Toothless]

1080p? Remind me to be excited ten years ago.

There is a big market for high refresh monitors that are 1080p. A lot of the big competitive people don't need looks, just performance.

 

[akumu]

I fail to understand why tech websites continually bash 1080p every time a new monitor comes out.

Its literally the most popular resolution. Its also the best resolution for competitive gamers, the demographic for high refresh rate monitors. Competitive games are also massively poplar, and pretty much no one with a brain is gaming at 4k with these games. Its almost like these tech journalists dont understand this.

 

[Animalpak]

If you are a single player gamer with a powerful graphics card 1080p is so old and boring … Once you see 1440p or 4k you dont want to go back.

Im ok with multiplayer gamers, but keep in mind the more people stay at 1080p the less powerful graphics card they need so they are slowing the whole market, making the top tier cards pointless.

Less pixels on your monitor = less game you see…

 

[Toothless]

If you are a single player gamer with a powerful graphics card 1080p is so old and boring … Once you see 1440p or 4k you dont want to go back.

Im ok with multiplayer gamers, but keep in mind the more people stay at 1080p the less powerful graphics card they need so they are slowing the whole market, making the top tier cards pointless.

Less pixels on your monitor = less game you see…

You're missing the point of these monitors. It's not how it looks as per resolution, it's how smooth and fluid the game looks. A stronger gpu helps with pushing more frames so it's either looks or refresh in that department.

There also is nothing wrong at all with a strong gpu and 1080/60. Just means they don't need to upgrade for a longer time compared to 1440p+ users.

 

[Sybaris_Caesar]

24 inch/27 inch and 1080p144hz? Looks to me like the venerable Panda panel that's been gaining traction since last year.

Acer VG240YP, AOC 24G2(U), Asus VG249Q, Viewsonic XG2405 are some of the monitors that use this panel. While not revolutionary fast like LG's nano-IPS, this panel has very good contrast ratio. One could argue the best contrast ratio by IPS. 1500:1 iirc tested by pcmonitors.info on 24G2(U). For comparison LG's nano-IPS has TN level 700:1 contrast ratio.

 

[Kohl Baas]

There is a big market for high refresh monitors that are 1080p. A lot of the big competitive people don't need looks, just performance.

Some people can't se further than their own needs/agendas. The worse is when they generalize that agenda and handling other opinions like sub-standard.

I'm in the 1440p/4K category, but have lots of friends who plays LoL, HotS, CS:GO and such in 5+ years old PCs. And they ooay a lot of it. Mean 1000h all of them. Not to mention the majority of gamers using Smartphones to play.

 

[Upgrayedd]

Wallet>Refresh Rate>Resolution

 

[Lorec]

i really think a lot of people are waiting for good 24" 1080p 144hz-240hz IPS panels..
i know there are a few of those released few months ago by other brands..
OVer the years there were only 27 inch models with 1080p 144hz..


but i m sure the majority of the general playerbase will fall into this category.(24" 1080p 144HZ IPS)
So yea, this is exicting..

This IS exciting infact!
I love how ppl justify their bad choices, seriously. I did that too!

I exchanged 1080p60hz 24" monitor for a 4k60hz 27" monitor.
Both IPS so colors and angles are nice.
Except for watching "ORBIT - A Journey Around Earth in Real Time [ 4K Remastered ]" nothing really changed for me.
I just knew I need to bite the bullet...

NOW, buying recently a TN 1080p165hz 24" Asus VG258QR, gave me a WORLD of difference and something I enjoy a lot from CSGO to Diablo III (yes, high response helps there too)

so lets not bash affordable high refresh IPS (colors and viewing angles!) just yet, mkay?

 

[akumu]

If you are a single player gamer with a powerful graphics card 1080p is so old and boring … Once you see 1440p or 4k you dont want to go back.

Im ok with multiplayer gamers, but keep in mind the more people stay at 1080p the less powerful graphics card they need so they are slowing the whole market, making the top tier cards pointless.

Less pixels on your monitor = less game you see…

This is absolutely false. A 2080ti can barely run most Battle Royale games at 240 FPS if at all. If you cant run the game at 240+ FPS a 240hz monitor is pointless.

There is no way you're going to run most games at 240 FPS at 1440p and literally 0 chance of running most games at even 144 fps at 4k with any existing GPU.

 

[ARF]

This is absolutely false. A 2080ti can barely run most Battle Royale games at 240 FPS if at all. If you cant run the game at 240+ FPS a 240hz monitor is pointless.

There is no way you're going to run most games at 240 FPS at 1440p and literally 0 chance of running most games at even 144 fps at 4k with any existing GPU.

144 FPS at 4K is possible with SLi configurations / lowered settings.

The aforementioned "competitive" people never game at ultra settings, to begin with. They decrease the resolution / make it 4:3 in order to be more competitive.

And you will see a difference in actual experience between 60 FPS and 240 FPS on a 60 and 75 Hz monitor.

It's a myth that you need an overclocked monitor.

4K is all the way forward.

 

[Toothless]

144 FPS at 4K is possible with SLi configurations / lowered settings.

The aforementioned "competitive" people never game at ultra settings, to begin with. They decrease the resolution / make it 4:3 in order to be more competitive.

And you will see a difference in actual experience between 60 FPS and 240 FPS on a 60 and 75 Hz monitor.

It's a myth that you need an overclocked monitor.

4K is all the way forward.

You do know SLI is basically dead, right?

I'm sure my card can hit 300+ fps in Fate or Solitaire on 4k. I bet I can even do that in Battlefield 1942! Point being it all depends on what the player is trying to run on high refresh monitors.

Also I doubt any competitive person will use SLI or xfire with those frame times. Support is just so far gone.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

You're missing the point of these monitors. It's not how it looks as per resolution, it's how smooth and fluid the game looks. A stronger gpu helps with pushing more frames so it's either looks or refresh in that department.

There also is nothing wrong at all with a strong gpu and 1080/60. Just means they don't need to upgrade for a longer time compared to 1440p+ users.

Well said! I don't understand why there's this notion that 1440p/4k is superior to 1080p, that a strong GPU is wasted if paired with a 1080p display, etc. Like, maybe a person doesn't NEED 1440p/4k to have an enjoyable gaming experience? Maybe they want to pair a strong GPU with 1080p because they intend to keep the GPU for longer than 2 years?

 

[InVasMani]

You do know SLI is basically dead, right?

I'm sure my card can hit 300+ fps in Fate or Solitaire on 4k. I bet I can even do that in Battlefield 1942! Point being it all depends on what the player is trying to run on high refresh monitors.

Also I doubt any competitive person will use SLI or xfire with those frame times. Support is just so far gone.

That won't matter in a GPU generation or two down the road now will it. We will start seeing multi-chip-gpu's eventually I mean Apple pretty much already got AMD to make a few Radeon's like that and we've had a few in the past, but it's going to become more like Ryzen quickly in the next decade so get ready. On top of that tech like DLSS is going to change things a lot it will get better both in terms of performance and in terms of image quality. Compression will improve card bandwidth will improve stacked memory for more capacity. The need for increased refresh rate decreases in a non linear unfavorable manner relative to resolution. I wouldn't' get a display that's not 1440p or better resolution right now though if I were considering 4K I'd hold off til 120Hz panels are widely available and not price gouged by panel makers which they will be. I think SLI/Crossfire will be replaced with more hardware accelerated post processing capability much like DLSS essentially is hopefully it gets to the point where you can re-purpose a GPU for DLSS for example and Nvidia's new sharpener and other post process techniques that they can bake into hardware and quickly process while a primary GPU renders the next scene. Variable rate shading is big as well. I'm surprised Nvidia hasn't done variable rate DLSS maybe they will only use it on the peripheral junk for example that will likely be coming.

 

[Toothless]

That won't matter in a GPU generation or two down the road now will it. We will start seeing multi-chip-gpu's eventually I mean Apple pretty much already got AMD to make a few Radeon's like that and we've had a few in the past, but it's going to become more like Ryzen quickly in the next decade so get ready. On top of that tech like DLSS is going to change things a lot it will get better both in terms of performance and in terms of image quality. Compression will improve card bandwidth will improve stacked memory for more capacity. The need for increased refresh rate decreases in a non linear unfavorable manner relative to resolution. I wouldn't' get a display that's not 1440p or better resolution right now though if I were considering 4K I'd hold off til 120Hz panels are widely available and not price gouged by panel makers which they will be. I think SLI/Crossfire will be replaced with more hardware accelerated post processing capability much like DLSS essentially is hopefully it gets to the point where you can re-purpose a GPU for DLSS for example and Nvidia's new sharpener and other post process techniques that they can bake into hardware and quickly process while a primary GPU renders the next scene. Variable rate shading is big as well. I'm surprised Nvidia hasn't done variable rate DLSS maybe they will only use it on the peripheral junk for example that will likely be coming.

That won't be SLI. That'll be something like AMD TR or Epyc chips where all the chips can actually work together. It won't be a driver mess where some workloads do things and others don't, or massive system issues.

And no, not like a GTX690 either. It'll actually be something useful for the long run.

 

[InVasMani]

That won't be SLI. That'll be something like AMD TR or Epyc chips where all the chips can actually work together. It won't be a driver mess where some workloads do things and others don't, or massive system issues.

And no, not like a GTX690 either. It'll actually be something useful for the long run.

I don't care what it'll be called. I'm sure plenty of stuff from SLI/Crossfire will carry over and be applied. You're right it won't be developer hell or rather reliant on them giving a f*ck over maximizing profits. Time's are different from when SLI/Crossfire came about performance and imagine quality are generally quite satisfactory by contrast like I love the NES, but it sure is ugly today. Same goes for Quake/Doom or whatever from the past things have dramatically gotten better over time. In any case this is about 1080p displays so let's focus more on that as a talking point. DLSS combined with DSR and similar post process will defiantly improve 1080p moving forward be it for performance or image quality or both. Same goes for variable rate shading if you reduce quality while it not really be perceptible yet offering performance improvements that readily are that's a win.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

I don't care what it'll be called. I'm sure plenty of stuff from SLI/Crossfire will carry over and be applied. You're right it won't be developer hell or rather reliant on them giving a f*ck over maximizing profits. Time's are different from when SLI/Crossfire came about performance and imagine quality are generally quite satisfactory by contrast like I love the NES, but it sure is ugly today. Same goes for Quake/Doom or whatever from the past things have dramatically gotten better over time. In any case this is about 1080p displays so let's focus more on that as a talking point. DLSS combined with DSR and similar post process will defiantly improve 1080p moving forward be it for performance or image quality or both. Same goes for variable rate shading if you reduce quality while it not really be perceptible yet offering performance improvements that readily are that's a win.

I might be crazy, but compared to most games today, I'll take 8/16 bit classics any day of the week. The graphics may be crappy, but troubleshooting was a helluva lot easier (either blow into the cartridge or jiggle it) and there was none of this DLC crap that's become far too common today.

I realize that probably wasn't what you were referring to but I started getting flashbacks of being 5 years old and sitting way too close to the TV while I played Super Mario Bros. 2 LOL

 

[InVasMani]

I might be crazy, but compared to most games today, I'll take 8/16 bit classics any day of the week. The graphics may be crappy, but troubleshooting was a helluva lot easier (either blow into the cartridge or jiggle it) and there was none of this DLC crap that's become far too common today.

I realize that probably wasn't what you were referring to but I started getting flashbacks of being 5 years old and sitting way too close to the TV while I played Super Mario Bros. 2 LOL

Most of us can relate to that well enough.

 

[Upgrayedd]

You do know SLI is basically dead, right?

I'm sure my card can hit 300+ fps in Fate or Solitaire on 4k. I bet I can even do that in Battlefield 1942! Point being it all depends on what the player is trying to run on high refresh monitors.

Also I doubt any competitive person will use SLI or xfire with those frame times. Support is just so far gone.

SLI isn't dead stop that nonsense. It's just not as popular. There were 17 games that had a SLI profile added/updated with the last driver. Some titles are Turing only.

I would like to see an article on HB SLI vs NVLink about perceptible stutter between the two interfaces, whether or not NVL is considerably smoother feeling in the titles that exhibit stutter with HB SLI.
RDR2 supports SLI through Vulkan.

 

[Toothless]

SLI isn't dead stop that nonsense. It's just not as popular. There were 17 games that had a SLI profile added/updated with the last driver. Some titles are Turing only.

I would like to see an article on HB SLI vs NVLink about perceptible stutter between the two interfaces, whether or not NVL is considerably smoother feeling in the titles that exhibit stutter with HB SLI.
RDR2 supports SLI through Vulkan.

Unless you play one of those games, there is no point besides benchmarks. I tried a pretty good amount of different games when I ran SLI and the amount of games where it "worked" wasn't worth the issues in all the other games. Sure it looks pretty in the case and sure they added those profiles but be honest; are those games actually scaling properly? Is that extra 250-750 bucks worth it?

 

[Upgrayedd]

Unless you play one of those games, there is no point besides benchmarks. I tried a pretty good amount of different games when I ran SLI and the amount of games where it "worked" wasn't worth the issues in all the other games. Sure it looks pretty in the case and sure they added those profiles but be honest; are those games actually scaling properly? Is that extra 250-750 bucks worth it?

Witcher 3 has excellent scaling and I play that quite a bit, fully expect CP2077 to support it as well. Besides the point of scaling though, still isn't dead. 17 profile updates isn't dead. Go check the past few drivers, SLI is still being added. While true a faster single card is the way to go doesn't mean it's dead, just dead to you.