Help me choose my next monitor, if any?

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Hello, brave ladies and beautiful gentlemen (and goblins). I've been thinking about a monitor upgrade, largely in connection with the fact that my RPG backlog has grown so large and so old that I can go much beyond the 1440p 75Hz that my monitor is capable of.

What I now have is AOC Q3279VWFD8, which is a 32'' 1440p 75Hz IPS monitor with 1:1300 contrast, uncertain sRGB gamut but good accuracy, good blacks for an IPS nice blue filters, nice menu, etc., and is probably a golden sample in terms of backlight quality. It's a gem really, and although my hardware can push more resolution and frames in older games, I worry that upgrading could lead to a downgrade in image quality and monitor quality.

The AOC also tends to make 4K DLDSR look better than normal 1440p, which is exactly what has made me think about 4K.

I am stupefied by the amount of value AOC managed to pack for the price (in 2018 at that), but my 9600KF @ 420mm + TUF 3070 OC can go way beyond the monitor's specs in older games, some 2–3 years' worth of isometric and occasionally 3D RPGs and strategies, so I'm worried about missing out on the best experience I could get from those games (unlike most people, I only play a game once, so the first run is all I get, with rare exceptions), just like I'm worried about potentially overpaying for a dubious upgrade.

My second monitor — used primarily for work, which is what it's better for than gaming — is Eizo EV2736, obviously 27'' 1440p, 60Hz, decent but not spectacular contrast.

The Eizo is not really great for gaming or at least not as good as the AOC, but using it for a month has made me realize that I really like the high PPI (108-ish vs the AOC's 92-ish), but that I also prefer 32'' to 27''. So perhaps 32'' 4K might be the answer.

Like everybody else, I also have previous gaming experience with <27'' sizes, and for me subjectively 32'' is simply more immersive than anything less, unless perhaps for RTS games and certain other genres. I'm not sure about 28'', which is frequent for 4K (the point is that all 28'' panels are made by Innolux, which is not the absolute best, but you get to skip the cheaper vendors), but it probably can't beat 32'' anyway in terms of my subjective experience.

I have some experience with VA, namely iiyama ProLite XB2483HSU, which is a 1080p 75Hz 4ms VA monitor. I loved it for gaming, due to the film-like image in RPGs, but between the angles and the lighting single-colour backgrounds looked like gradients, and it was impossible even to design a website without looking directly at colour codes. I didn't appreciate other VA problems such as smearing, ghosting, silvery-glimmering blacks, etc. Hence, I'm highly apprehensive about getting a VA monitor due to the typical weaknesses of this panel type, and yet I miss its strengths, beginning and ending with the high contrast.

I don't have previous 4K experience (other than really liking 'fake 4K' via DSR), and I don't have previous 144Hz or 1ms experience. Thus, choosing between the two — when I can't have both — is very difficult to me. A lot of people, perhaps the majority of gamers, claim that 144/1 is more noticeable than a resolution upgrade. I have no way of knowing, alas. No one to borrow a fast monitor from, no service to rent from, no hope of a demonstration by a salesperson, nothing.

Of course, one way out is to buy 4K 144Hz, but the problem is the processing power that requires. I can probably get that in something isometric that's older than last year, but obviously not anywhere close to it in modern AAA titles. And I don't want to spend a car's price on my next GPU and CPU (I'd much rather fly to Kenya for holidays or get a new website for my company or buy something for a family member).

Of course, a 4K 144Hz monitor still works fine at 60Hz/60fps, but it's just that if 4K60 is what I'm realistically going to get, then I might as well buy a decent 4K60 monitor (like Philips 288) for a half or third of the price of a 4K144 unit (like M28U or M32U).

I could also resign myself to 1440p (and perhaps continued use of DSR for older games), and realistically speaking, as soon as I'm done with the backlog, my hardware is going to struggle even to sustain 1440p 60fps with all settings on ultra in recent AAA titles, with little hope of hitting 144. And looking at 90-ish fps in 1440p, I probably prefer 60-ish in 4K. And, at 1440p, my existing monitor — the AOC — can already be overclocked to 80Hz. I'd rather have 80fps with better contrast (1:1300) than 144Hz with worse contrast (1:850).

I think 4K60 is less demanding than 1440p at 144Hz in terms of hardware, and also visually good 4K60 monitors are cheaper than visually good 1440p144 monitors.

Then again, there's DLSS and FSR — with which I have no experience yet — so perhaps buying a 4K/144 monitor makes sense even for recent titles?

Depending on how much difference things would make, I catch myself thinking — more and more — that sticking with my existing AOC and spending the monitor budget on a CPU upgrade or just keeping it could be the better solution. After all, 80Hz/fps isn't horrible anyway.

Looking at something like Kingdom Come: Deliverance, at 1440p 80Hz/fps, I think I'd be longing for a higher resolution (4K) more than for a higher framerate (120, 144).

So I think I'm leaning either 4K or no upgrade (keep the AOC, spend the money on CPU), with 1440p 144Hz (more likely 165 or 170) appearing too close to a sidegrade.

But, there is also G7 Odyssey, which I've heard good things about. It could be a wonderful fast-VA experience, though I worry the colours could appear washed out going from an IPS.

I could also get a nice, not awesome maybe but nice, fast-IPS 1440p monitor for a manageable price if I kept looking and made a good judgement call or two.

If I do stay at 1440p, there are some nice 32'' options, too, such as Gigabyte M32Q. That's normally a low PPI for work (fine for gaming), though it allegedly has good text clarity (according to Rtings), and (more worryingly?) Gigabyte QA/QC.

Bottom line, I'm a bit lost between 27'' vs 32'', 1440p vs 4K (at each respective size), VA vs IPS, and 60Hz vs 144/165, upgrading vs sticking with what I have.

To streamline things a bit, 32'' 4K IPS with good contrast and blacks, 144Hz and good motion handling at 60Hz/fps would have all I need, albeit with the kind of price tag that I might as well wait till OLED becomes cheaper, or in any case the expense is giving me a pause. Below this level, it's mostly too many variables representing the compromises to be made, and I'm getting overloaded by the information.