Nixeus VUE 30: 30" 2560x1600 IPS Monitor Review
by Chris Heinonen on August 20, 2013 6:00 AM ESTFor our pre-calibration measurements we target 200 cd/m2 of light output, the sRGB gamut, and a gamma of 2.2. On the VUE 30 there are color temperature settings you can use for the grayscale and the warm setting was found to produce the most accurate image.
I’m also going to approach this review differently than before. The charts for all these measurements will be available in individual galleries. There is a table at the top of the page that summarizes the pre and post calibration measurements to easily see how well the monitor does before and after calibration. This should make it easier to read, and allow me to better focus commentary about the monitor performance on the areas that need it.
| Pre-Calibration |
Post-Calibration, 200 cd/m2 |
Post-Calibration, 80 cd/m2 |
|
| White Level | 201.78 | 195.562 | 77.6183 |
| Black Level | 0.3214 | 0.3197 | 0.1388 |
| Contrast Ratio | 628:1 | 612:1 | 559:1 |
| Gamma (Average) | 2.2552 | 2.2406 | 2.5132 |
| Color Temperature | 6657K | 6593K | 6452K |
| Grayscale dE2000 | 4.0657 | 0.7705 | 1.3304 |
| Color Checker dE2000 | 5.7431 | 4.0627 | 4.3305 |
| Saturations dE2000 | 4.6853 | 3.7814 | 4.1323 |
The major improvement that we see is for the grayscale and gamma. On our 200 cd/m2 target calibration, those both come out nearly perfect. There is a small gamma spike at 95% but nothing really bad at all. The overall dE2000 is so low as to be unseen. When targeting 80 cd/m2 and the sRGB gamma curve, the Nixeus doesn’t perform quite as well. The gamma has a little more variation and the dE2000 is somewhat higher, though still very low. The loss of contrast ratio is the larger issue here.
Both grayscale results highly improve upon the original, which is slightly warm and has a very large error level as you approach peak white. The problem with the Nixeus VUE 30 lies with color reproduction. The errors for both the 96-point color checker and the saturations measurements improve, but not by a huge degree. Most of that improvement can be tied back to the grayscale improving since those numbers are a large part of these later tests. The default 6-point gamut chart is dropped here as the saturations chart covers that, and that dE2000 average is too heavily impacted by the grayscale data.
What we see is a wildly oversaturated gamut where green, cyan, red, yellow and magenta all fall far outside of the sRGB gamut boundary. With Green even the 60% saturation value is outside the sRGB gamut, which leads to very over-saturated colors. Even post-calibration we see that green dE2000 errors are past 5 from 40% on, and approaching a dE2000 of 10 by 100%. Aside from a few select colors in the Color Checker pattern, and the grayscale, almost all the colors have a large visible error.
The Nixeus lacks an internal LUT to fix this, and only so much can be done through the video card. A large gamut is nice, but just like with an OLED smartphone, we don’t want that gamut to be wildly oversaturated and push the color way outside of their boundaries. For any sort of color-critical work, or even just browsing photographs, the wild gamut of the VUE 30 will likely be a bad choice for those people after accurate colors. If you like a big, punchy image, you’ll probably like it.
Since we can’t control this gamut, perhaps using AdobeRGB as a target will lead to a better result? I decided to give it a try and see if that improves things at all, or if it was still an issue.
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1Angelreloaded - Thursday, August 22, 2013 - link
uhm how can I break this down for you Photography and Filmography are used professionally on these monitors so MS plays a huge roll in ghosting during the film, so yes it does matter considerably, and this day in age people hybrid their workstations so they can game and do pro work on them, hence Nvidia released the Titan to fill that market, 1k for a hybrid workstation/gaming card is amazing.purerice - Wednesday, August 21, 2013 - link
To rephrase what Sancus said, there are two types of customers for >27", >1440p monitors: those who need high refresh rates and those who need high color accuracy. The intended market for the VUE 30 is the high color accuracy market.Asmodian - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
The now discontinued LG W3000H had low input lag due to the lack of OSD and only one input (DVI-DL). It also has a wide gamut and mine has an uncalibrated white point of around 9000K (due to extra green instead of blue). Odd how no one seems to care about input lag on 16:10 displays anymore. Only 16:9 for gaming I guess. :(rtho782 - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
My Dell WFP3007-HC has almost no input lag. The advantage of having a 30" from the days before there were any image processing chips available for 2560x1600 :PSodaAnt - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
I used a dell u3011 for quite a while, which I believe has similar input lag, and I never noticed a thing in gaming. I think its just another tiny lag, keep in mind it isn't even two frames at 60 fps, and if you're running at 30 fps its not even a single frame of lag, so I doubt most people would notice it in gaming.oobble - Wednesday, August 21, 2013 - link
That is completely untrue. Most 2560x1440 27" monitors have an input lag of around 7ms.blackoctagon - Thursday, August 22, 2013 - link
Was that a reply to me? If so then what you state is incorrect, or you otherwise are referring to input lag in a different form to me. What matters is TOTAL monitor latency (a product of 'input lag' as well as pixel response time and processing time). Total latency on most IPSs is not appropriate for fast motion shooters, even though there are a select few IPSs that have low input lag, or have high refresh rates. In any case, this Nixeus is not one of these select few and is appropriate for graphics/photo design work rather than gaming.AnnonymousCoward - Thursday, August 22, 2013 - link
I think the latest Dell 30" has a game mode with sub-16ms lag. This is critical to me for ALL computer usage.Soldier1969 - Friday, August 23, 2013 - link
Uhm spoken by someone that clearly can't afford one or never used one. Only read about them I guess. Ive been gaming on a HP ZR30 for 3 years now very happy with the clarity and shooting motion but thanks nice try.ZeDestructor - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
Same range as on every top-end "professional-use" wide-gamut panel. My U2410s have similar, and my 2408 is far worse at 64ms overall. All of those are eminently good for gaming. If anything, I prefer them over any fast TN because of the nicer colours. Really helps immersion :D. Sucks a bit for online p,lay though, but until eDP-based panels become a major thing, we'll still have input lag from scalers and whatnot, and in any case, you can't go below the panel response.