Posts by Zachary Moore27

The New Guy, MytByte,

Thanks again for all the advice, everyone—after weighing everything, I ended up pulling the trigger on the Iiyam.

So far, I’m honestly loving it; the monitor is pretty much exactly what I was looking for. It even has these surprisingly decent speakers built-in, which caught me totally off guard!

Black Friday didn't end up being much of a lucky break for me, so I actually could have just grabbed it earlier—but hey, you can't exactly predict those things, right?

Thanks for the link! I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on that—who knows, maybe something good will pop up.

As of right now, though, these early Black Friday deals are basically the same price once you factor in shipping costs.

I'm really holding out hope that something better comes along soon. 😁

Thanks so much for all the advice and the recommendation—the Iiyama option definitely makes sense to me.

I’m nowhere near being a "gamer," let alone a hardcore one—I usually just squeeze in about two or three hours of NFL head coach simulator a week.

Given how I actually use a monitor, I totally agree that having good viewing angles is way more important than a high refresh rate... plus, it's the most budget-friendly choice out of the three.

I might wait a couple of weeks to see if any Black Friday deals pop up, though I'm honestly a little skeptical that we'll see any truly amazing offers this year.

I've settled on 4K at a 16:9 ratio—actually, I completely ruled out 32-inch 16:9 monitors because once I mentally mapped them out in my workspace, they just felt way too massive... and I feel like I get more bang for my buck in terms of productivity by focusing on extra horizontal space.

I briefly toyed with the idea of a 29-inch ultrawide (21:9), but I eventually decided it would be just too small for what I need.

Thanks again!

Hey there!

I’m looking for some help—or maybe just some solid advice or recommendations—on picking out a new monitor.

Since I’ve been working from home for the last few months—ever since this spring season kicked off—and my current monitor is basically on its deathbed, I figured it was finally time to go out and hunt down a new one.

I mostly just use my monitor and computer for office stuff—which, in my case, really just means grinding through emails, browsing the web, working in Word and Excel, and keeping up with Slack.

I don't really play anything besides Football Manager—which, let's be honest, is pretty static stuff—and I definitely don't use my computer for watching movies.

I’m spending anywhere from 6 to 10 hours a day in front of my monitor—Monday through Friday, that is.

So, since I’m constantly juggling multiple windows—usually having a document open right next to my browser, or sometimes even two different documents side-by-side—I’ve finally come to the realization that my current setup just isn't cutting it. My current 23-inch 1080p screen feels way too cramped for this kind of multitasking! I'm starting to lean heavily toward picking up a 34-inch 21:9 1440p ultrawide... that extra horizontal space would be such a game-changer for my workflow. Then again, I’m also seriously weighing the option of a 31.5-inch 4K 16:9 display. It's a tough call—that extra real estate vs. that crisp resolution—but man, I definitely need more room to breathe!

So, if you're looking to set a rough ballpark budget for picking up a new monitor—I mean, let's be honest, there are so many options out there now that it can get a little overwhelming—you really have to decide what kind of setup you're aiming for! It's all about what you need it for, right? Whether it's just some basic office work or something more intense... anyway, I'd say it really depends on whether you're looking for something entry-level or if you're ready to go all out on a high-end display. $1167.

Given my budget—and honestly, given what I’m actually looking for in a machine—the field has narrowed down quite a bit. It’s funny how that works, right? You start with a thousand possibilities and suddenly you're staring at just three options. So, after some serious thought, I've boiled everything down to these three models:

Philips
Xiaomi
Philips Xiaomi Iiyam

For me, the biggest selling point with the Philips setup is definitely that USB-C connection—it's just so convenient. I’m planning on upgrading my laptop sometime in the near future, so knowing I can use the exact same cable for both charging and video output is a massive win in my book. Plus, it’s packed with all those extra ports you actually need—like the USB hub and Ethernet—which makes everything so much cleaner.

I’ve gotta say—it feels like Xiaomi really hits that sweet spot where you get so much bang for your buck!

The Philips model is definitely the most budget-friendly option here—plus, it comes with an IPS panel, which is what I’ve always been used to. It's got a flat screen, too. Honestly, I’ve never actually messed around with a curved monitor or a VA panel before... I'm just sitting here wondering if that's something you really have to "train" your eyes to get used to, or if it might end up causing me some sort of headache down the road.

• Out of those three models, is there one that stands out as actually decent for a designer—or are they all just such a massive letdown that I should just strike them from my list immediately?
• Given that budget—which, let's be honest, is pretty tight considering what I'm hunting for—is there anything else out there worth taking a look at?
• Would a 32-inch 4K monitor be the better move here? — just thinking out loud!

It might be just as important to keep in mind—I’d probably be running everything on a MacBook Air 2017 i5 / HD Graphics 6000.

If there’s anything else you guys need—any extra details that might help me paint a clearer picture of what I’m actually looking for—just say the word! I'm happy to dive deeper into the specifics. 🙂

I was out running errands on my phone this morning—totally missed the fact that you actually added a dedicated GPU to the build! I did a little digging online, and since it has solid Windows drivers, it looks like you could probably tackle some way more demanding games than the ones we talked about. If the Pentium doesn't really offer much of an upgrade, you’d likely end up running a Celeron paired with that graphics card instead...

I've got two quick questions for you:

1) Since these processors come with integrated graphics built-in, do I need to manually toggle the dedicated one through the BIOS, or is it automatic..?

2) Also, do you happen to know if that specific card tends to be pretty noisy?

I’ve got a nagging feeling she might keep an eye on disk usage—maybe it's just safer to stick with a standard drive so I don't have to worry about it. Or, if that old HDD from my previous laptop is still kicking, I could probably just repurpose it for storage... I'll have to double-check that later today.

You can totally play on Linux too—I run Football Manager on mine without any issues at all. 😁

How much of a jump are we really looking at between this Celeron and the Pentium? Honestly, I'm leaning more towards the Pentium side of things...

I'm looking at some older titles—think Need for Speed Most Wanted or Underground from back in '05/'06, maybe PES 2008, just that whole era of classic games. 🙂 The plan is to run a dual boot with Windows and Ubuntu, though I mentioned Ubuntu because, let's be honest, Linux hardware support isn't quite as seamless as Windows yet. That said, Steam actually has a pretty decent library of games available for Linux these days. 🙂

Regarding the power supply, I was leaning towards picking up a Corsair unit—it’s been running quietly in my own rig all day long without any issues, which is a huge plus for me, and so far, it hasn't let me down. 🙂

I'm also thinking an AMD build might be the smarter move here. Since the Pentium is a relatively newer chip, I know from experience that Linux drivers for my old Haswell Pentium were just barely catching up. It feels like Intel puts way more of their focus into the i3, i5, and i7 lines anyway...

One quick question: I haven't really messed around with an SSD before, so I'm wondering if it'll cause any headaches if I split it into different partitions? My idea is to set up one for Windows, one for Linux, and then a third one just for general storage.

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly! 🙂

I’ll probably need to do a bit of digging regarding processors—specifically how Linux handles their integrated graphics, since I’m most likely running Ubuntu on this thing. To be honest, the Pentium side of things has me slightly worried... I'm just not entirely sure how stable the Skylake drivers are yet. I remember it took a little while for everything to really "click" when we were dealing with Haswell.

Hey there!

I'm looking to pick up a new PC for my better half—mostly for surfing the web, office work, movies, torrenting, and stuff like that. She might also want to play some older games, maybe an old NFS title or something similar. She already has a monitor, mouse, and keyboard, and we definitely don't need a CD/DVD drive.

The budget she's working with is around 2,000 - $833, though it would be ideal if we could stay closer to $667. I'm planning to buy everything in a shop in a major US city like Chicago using cash, and ideally, I'd love to find a place where they can just build the whole thing right there on the spot. 😁

One important detail: this computer will basically be running all day long. She turns it on when she wakes up and doesn't shut it down until bedtime—with Chrome pretty much always active and running at least 4 or 5 tabs at once (Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest...).

The requirement is that it needs to have an Intel processor, and based on what she needs to do, I'm thinking integrated graphics should be more than enough.

Do you think I can put together a decent SSD within this budget? Or would it be better to go with an SSD for the OS paired with a traditional hard drive for storage?

Thanks in advance for all the suggestions! 🙂

Or, you can just grab one of those microfiber cloths and lightly mist it with some non-alcoholic lens cleaner—they're usually around $10 and you can find them at any local Visionworks or even a CVS.

Your rig should run like an absolute dream on Ubuntu—I’ve got a setup that’s almost identical to yours! 🙂