Hello! Very very sorry for the slow reply! I have had the tab open in my browser since, but have been so busy and exhausted to test properly and write up a decent reply!
I did finally test the monitors side by side last week, but that took so long, I ran out of time to write a full post! Anyway, its Saturday morning now and I've had a nice strong coffee!
Now, where to begin... (TL;DR at the bottom)
Resetting both monitors to factory default settings, the Dell looks fairly accurate on white, slightly warm - but comfortably so, the LG is slightly blue which seems harsh to me. I previously configured my LG colours to 50 red (default), 40 green, 40 blue, which comes out close to the default Dell colours. so +1 Dell so far for nicer calibration by default (I'm talking eye comfort, not actual colour accuracy - I don't have my display calibration Spyder anymore, I felt that I could do just as good myself).
The brightness goes a lot lower - just like my old Dell U2311h. I leave the Dell about 30% brightness for internet and email so my eyes aren't burning, up to 50% for gaming. To compare to the LG on 0% brightness the Dell would be about 13% - The numbers seem off, since the dell on 0% looks a lot lower than 13% less, its more like 20-30% less. I had the LG left on 0% for both reading and games, and I often found that late at night reading forums on the LG, I kept wanting to reduce the brightness below 0 as white text was harsh to read, and black text on white seemed like the monitor was a lamp in my face, I ended up reducing the contrast to around 50% to reduce the harshness, yet it was still bright.
The Dell also goes a reasonable amount brighter too defaulting to 75% which is similar to the LG's default 100%. Turning up the Dell to 100% is more like an extra 10-15% brightness.
I briefly went through the
Lagom LCD test the other day. I remember having a hard time setting things up on the LG screen - having to tweak all sorts of extra settings the LG had like black levels, gamma settings, power efficiency, etc. and still had a hard time trying to get every test perfect. In the end I think I gave up thinking that I was just splitting hairs, and went with custom monitor settings that looked "right" with text and with games. The Lagom LCD test is a good base to start from as it can identify any faults with your monitor, or any settings that are way out - like gamma. I think the LG worked best with gamma on either OFF or LOW, but its like there needed to be a middle ground between off and low because either setting would skew other tests like contrast. I only briefly went through the tests on the Dell as I didn't want to burn as much time as I did on the LG, and generally felt like everything was accurate out of the box. I'll update you if I go through the test again.
The other things on the Lagom LCD test are input lag - which is basically the delay created by the monitor's image processing and refresh rate combined. The test showed about 1 frame difference, which is technically 16ms I believe (out of 1 frame at 60fps being 16.6ms). I previously did this at 75fps, but just re-did the test on 60 and it seems to be about the same. I also tried all of the response time settings on both monitor menus which made next to no difference. So +1 to the LG here. Personally I have never noticed any problems in games with things like response times or input lag - except for Dead Island 1 + 2 which turned out to be made for controllers, and when using keyboard and mouse, the constant input of wwwwwwww for forward and the mouse movement created input lag and stutter which drove me crazy. I ended up finishing the game with a xbox controller or steam controller which was then perfectly smooth when using a joystick input. It pays to find out if a game is a console port or not. Unfortunately, a lot of them are. The same goes for ghosting, I've never really noticed it or been phased by it, I believe I only ever noticed it in game with a really old 17" LCD when they where first replacing CRT's. Since then, I think it's an outdated concern. I am also far from a pro CS:GO "flick shooter" - so far from it, that my preference for multiplayer games are PVE player vs environment - team vs PC. I've strangely found PUBG to be a great game concept - only that the lag tends to be a real issue.
Back on topic!!
Freesync...
I have not noticed or been paying too much attention to freesync's performance yet. It may be that I have left graphics settings medium-low to maintain a high frame rate at all times. Its really only single player games that have been well drawn that I like to crank up settings and put up with varying framerates. I think I am also quite used to having freesync now. I should really test by turning it off for a few game hours and see if I *really* notice a difference. Disclaimer: I have been having terrible stutter problems for the last year or so which has boggled me so much that I have basically given up on a solution. It doesn't seem to be a freesync issue, its more like CPU or GPU issue where its just locking up for a few microseconds, and then once the frame is drawn and sent to the monitor, freesync displays it immediately. It looks like a stutter, probably because freesync is waiting on the new frame to be drawn. I often see 75fps when this stuttering is happening - most of the time it is while something is panning across the screen. I recorded videos of both monitors side by side doing the AMD Freesync Windmill test. Let me know if you'd like me to upload them - which may show freesync performance - or it might just show my disappointing stutter. Something I did notice is the freesync settings in the windmill test showed lower FPS test settings with only the LG monitor on (45, 50, 55, 60FPS) - which would be from the lower freesync limit - proving that the LG is definitely 40-75. Strangely the minimum test setting of the dell was 55 and not 50, indicating that my Dell might have a minimum that is higher than 48, maybe even 50+. On the Radeon driver software, under Display, if you hover the mouse over the freesync button it shows the LG reporting 40-75, and the Dell reporting 48-75. I have downloaded the nVidia Pendulum test which apparently allows for lower framerates to test manually. I'll have to give that a try later on. so for now, that's +1 LG.
Finally one problem that I, and several others, have noticed - when connecting via HDMI to the Dell and putting the PC to sleep, the Dell reports lost signal with a 5min wait like a disconnected cable - rather than receiving a sleep signal and powering off instantly. I also tested this on a Dell laptop with HDMI which also came up with lost signal, which rules out the RX470 or the cable. I tried another cable to be sure, with same results. Now a similar issue also happened for the LG, but when using displayport, where the monitor would go to sleep properly, but would not receive the wake signal, and would need to be manually turned back on... HDMI with the LG worked perfectly with this RX470. So something in the monitor's programming isn't listening to the HDMI sleep signal. People on the google searches claim that sleep works fine over VGA - but freesync does not, and its 2017/8... VGA should no longer exist, lol. Speaking of which, it was disappointing to see that the Dell shipped with only a VGA cable... the LG on the other hand shipped with a HDMI so that's -1 Dell (sleep problem), and +1 LG for HDMI.
Sorry again for the delay - but as you can see, there was a lot on my mind to unload - which I think has taken me about an hour or more to type, haha.
Quick response to your last post - CRI is new to me, and difficult to find. That LED light sounds fantastic. Greater than 80 is good, greater than 90 is excellent, incandescent and halogen are near 100. The grey wall sounds like a good idea - I'm renting this house, maybe when I buy again. I'll play around with the freesync ranges at some stage in the future, I might even bump it up the to do list, because its... important... haha.
TL;DR. So far, Dell is better quality picture, brightness, and colour wise - I am happier with the Dell. LG is better for gaming and performance with some brightness/colour/gamma tweaking required - it also requires freesync to be activated in the monitor menus. Dell also requires 75hz to be manually selected in the windows control panel - display settings somewhere.
Cheers!
-Adam
edit: now for some breakfast (at midday), then I'll upload some comparison pics later
