The 970 just dropped in price, it’s now around £220, also the the RX480 is about £220 which has 8GB vram and when drivers mature for that, it might perform around the 980 card.

Exactly.
For me, lights are the most important thing . You can have a perfect pixar/avatar sequence, at 4, 8 or 32k resolution. But without a fantastic light engine, all colors, shadows, self shadows, objects, reflections, refractions, everything will look dull, lifeless, dead, empty. Turns the lights one by one, and admire the show.

Sure, hdr could give a new life to games and characters.

There’s nothing wrong about going with Samsung… My advice would be to research the model and make sure it’s not assembled in Mexico though. I have a 5 year old edge lit 32″ 5500 series that has some screen imperfections that I bought from Best buy. I wasn’t able to notice the problems at the time because I didn’t know what to look for back then but all around it was a good TV and It’s sitting on a dresser right now retired from gaming. The unit was assembled in Mexico after researching it so the manufacturing process left this blob like area that didn’t get as bright as the rest of the screen so you could only notice it on bright images or full color test screens… I didn’t notice it within my warranty so I couldn’t do anything about it. Other than that it had the normal downfalls that edge lit TV’s all have like light bleed at the corners and uneven black levels.

Considering you have a Samsung TV at the moment there’s a simple feature I use on mine that really increased the picture quality in gaming that should work with yours and all other Samsung tv’s though I can’t confirm that it actually does. What it does is change how the TV displays the image so it’s more in line with a computer monitor. You’ll have to readjust the brightness and contrast levels after doing this and you won’t be able to use the advanced picture options as they’ll be greyed out while you have it set like this kinda like when you use game mode. There’s no risk to doing this at all as all your doing is changing the name of the input to COMPUTER and the tv is treating the image as such. The image will seem more natural than what your used to if you’re used to all the image enhancing settings in the menu but it will be an all around cleaner image once you get used to the way it looks.

So down to it…

-Hit the ‘SOURCE’ button on your remote and highlight the input for your console
-While it’s highlighted hit the ‘TOOLS’ button on your remote and select edit name
-Scroll through the list a select Computer and hit Ok

That’s it. If you have a newer remote then there might not be a ‘TOOLS’ button but I’m sure there’s an alternative.

As for adjusting the TV’s brightness and contrast after that there is a certain image I use to do this but I’m not sure if I can post images on this site without it being blocked so I’ll reply to my own post with it. It’s a 0-255 greyscale so just copy it and display it through your console either with a USB or navigate to it with the consoles browser. What you want to do is adjust your TV’s brightness and contrast settings until 0-16 are completely black and 240-255 are completely white… 235 is actually the white target but I know it’s not on the greyscale so adjust it until the bar for 232 is just noticeable. I usually end up with the values around 30 for brightness and 90-100 on contrast for reference.

I know this has turned into a wall of text but nobody really knows about this feature that Samsung Tvs have and since your not going to be upgrading until sometime next year this might breath some new life into your current setup. I’d go into more detail about what’s actually going on with the image but I’ll spare you for now unless you want to know.

http://www.lydogbilde.no/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/75285378.fButmPlS.GreyscaleStep8.jpg

You’re right. As an example, take 720p video of the real world and compare it to the state of the art in real-time graphics today. Even the highest quality graphics currently possible, at whatever resolution, won’t match that “low rez” video of real life. That is exactly what Microsoft is referring to when they talk about “better pixels.” There is still tremendous improvement yet to be realized in rendered image quality before increased resolution really becomes necessary.

Just look at the expert consensus in the audio/video world when it comes to 4K resolution versus High Dynamic Range color (HDR). Everyone I have read has agreed that the resolution increase from 1080p to 4K is only marginally noticeable most of the time, while HDR significantly improves picture quality and is the best reason to upgrade to 4K. “Better pixels” beats “more pixels”, all other things being equal.

Thanks Matt for the heads up!! I recently went to Best Buy and had one of thier more knowledgable sales person walk me around thier Top 4K TVs.

I currently own a 55inch Smart Samsung 1080p LED 3D model 7500 TV. Have it for nearly two years now and I love it. Even my friends who come over love it as well which is why I like Samsung much but lots of other companies have come out with pretty good 4K TVs too.

According to the BB sales rep, Sony has the best motion rates compared to all brands however I’m not sold much by that because honestly they all look great and can’t tell much differences. You’re absolutely right on regarding Samsung curve TV, curve offers absolutely no advantages or benefits infact it’s a disadvantage when viewing from average distance so no curve coming here. Flat is the way to go!!

I agree that OLED looks sick however yeah $10,000 is definitely not what I’m looking to spend so that’s not even a possibility. I refuse to ever get an LG tv. I once bought an LG TV a few years back and the crap ended giving problems months after purchasing, so no LG coming here.

Vizio would be the best bang for the buck 4K TV and they do look pretty good too but Samsung has my interest based on my own TV excellent performance although Sony too are making some what of a comeback and might consider over Samsung but it’s gotta be a big deal or something. There’s lots of time between now and end of 2017 so honestly I’ll be picking up either a 2017 or 2018 latest sick 65inch 4K TV then. I gotta make sure though that I’m able to hook up both my awesome PS4 and the new Beast (XBScorpio) to come. I truly want that 4K gaming/movies experience.

Oddly enough Vizio is the brand you should really look into… not only will you be getting quality that rivals or out performs even the likes of Samsung you’d be saving about a third to half the price by doing so. The P and M series Vizio’s specifically should run about $800 to $1000 for a 50″-60″ panel. Look them up yourself and you’ll see they top most of the lists you’ll find for the best TV’s… I used to think of them as just a Wal-mart brand TV and never put any thought into it until I started looking into some of the best TV’s on the market as of the past couple of years. I’ll be picking one up next summer when the 2017 models hit unless something else comes out of nowhere. I’ll just end off with a couple of thoughts about what’s on the market as of now.

OLED is going to be expensive for some time to come and that would be my only recommendation to really spend that kind of money now if you have it… LG OLED is misleading as they still use LCD with a white OLED backlight so while they might seem like they are cheaper the color reproduction won’t compare to what a real OLED will be able to do which is why the real sets still top out over $10,000.

This is more of my own opinion but curved TV’s are a Samsung gimick which offer nothing in terms of improved image quality for the premium they cost.

Sony TV’s were great in the 80’s and 90’s when the Trinitron was king but they never got a real grasp on the flat screen market… I can’t say much about them other than that. Their TV’s are ok but they just seem to follow market conformity.

If I were to recommend any other brand than Vizio at the moment it would be Sharp or a non-curved Samsung though you’d be paying a premium for the namesake but their build qualities are good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA3moBYaEYc