Ultrawides aren't even that good for most gaming because so many games are not designed for it. In some games the UI can't scale to ultrawide and becomes broken and difficult if not impossible to use, some games are locked to 16:9 letterboxed (probably to prevent the former), some games are locked to 16:9 and
not letterboxed, and some flat won't run at ultrawide res. Outside of driving/flying sims, optimization for ultrawide displays is very spotty.
If you can get your game to even work with ultrawide, then you run into the geometrical problems of ultrawide. From a single projection point, the additional screen space only adds a small amount to your field of vision. An extreme case of 3 monitors in shown in this diagram. If the middle monitor has a FOV of 90 degrees, then the two monitors to the side of it add an additional 26 degrees to the FOV. This means you get a total FOV of 142 degrees as opposed to 90. So you're paying for three times as many monitors and three times as much GPU for a 58% increase in screen space. So, the issue here is diminishing returns. The effectiveness of the additional screen space can be increased by sitting further away from the screen, but the further back you go the smaller everything is going to be on the screen. This diagram shows a straight line of monitors for simplicity's sake, but realistically you would place 3 monitors like that in a curved configuration both to take less space on your desk and to reduce the viewing angles of the outer monitors.
The next is the effect of projecting a small viewing angle over a wide screen: things at the edges of the screen become severely warped. Take a look at this example of what a game looks like at triplewide resolution:
When it fills your peripheral vision, that pig looks quite natural. But if you turn your head at all to look at the other screen directly, it's a distorted mess. That's going to happen in any game that projects a single image. Nvidia tried to fix this issue with simultaneous multiprojection, but hardly anything actually uses it, so most things you play are going to have this problem. Shoutouts to Minecraft for having the best widescreen optimization of any game. It can be set to any aspect ratio without a problem by clicking and dragging the window to wherever you want it and I wish more games worked like that.
Bezels are continuously brought up as the major drawback of multimonitor setups, but I think the above issues affect your experience a lot more than bezels do. Your brain is pretty good at filtering out things in the way of your field of vision and as long as you aren't using an old piece of junk with 1 inch bezels like the 4x3 monitors suggested above, you won't even notice them most of the time.
For productivity, it's occasionally useful for those situations where you need 4 or more programs running simultaneously. Generally though it's not much different from using 2 monitors.
I say all this from having used a triple monitor setup like this for several years now. None of this is to say that I don't like using it. It's a great setup and I don't plan on getting rid of it any time soon, but it's not without its limitations. For a long time it was cheaper to buy 3 1080p monitors than a single ultrawide, but the price on the bigger screens has been coming down as they become less of a luxury/niche item, so I can't anymore give the blanket statement that it's cheaper than ultrawide. I'm not sure what the quality is like on the cheap new ultrawides that are coming out.
No. Used 19" 4x3 flat screens are cheap and will work forever. VESA monitor arms allowing you to mount at least three of them on the bottom level aren't cheap, but much cheaper than these whacky curved things.
If you're 17 years old or living in a 3rd world nation, go for it. If you can afford better, it's worth it. Those cheap old 4x3 monitors have horrible color ranges, and additionally they are TN displays, so the colors are going to get even worse unless you hold your head in a very specific position. This is made even worse if you have 3 different models that all have different colors and latencies. I wouldn't ever recommend CRTs to anyone in current year, but I'd still use one over an LCD from the 2000s. You might get by if you never put a good screen right next to it to be able to see the difference. If you ever try to use a graphical editor like photoshop on a setup like that though you'll immediately realize why those monitors are as cheap as they are. Their image quality is hot garbage. I used to use a setup like this with 2 of those monitors and an equally craptastic 16:9 monitor in the middle. After I upgraded to an IPS monitor in the middle I realized just how bad those monitors were and I've long since gotten rid of them. I got them for free and I gave them away for free because that's just how much they're worth.
And for what it's worth, I did think my crappy multimonitor setup was the coolest thing ever when I was 17. Later on I learned that there are both better monitors and better jobs out there.
For a lot of situations couldn't you just assemble a system of rods?
Don't do this. It's not worth your time trying to cobble together a multimonitor mounting rack over buying some cheap mounting arms off amazonbasics or whatever. If you don't make them adjustable, you'll never get the screens aligned the way you want them to be, and if you do make them adjustable you'll end up spending more time and money on this than it would cost to buy a few premade mounting solutions. If you want a cheapass way to attach a bunch of monitors together, screw the stands down to a board. Accomplishing the same thing with a welded rebar scrapheap is a waste of time and rebar.
LG makes a pretty good monitors
Edit: Is 4K really needed for everyday use?
If you're just trying to watch yootoob and vidya, it's not that helpful. If you're doing content creation, it is. I never saw a need for one until I started using a pen tablet. If buying a 4K monitor would hurt your wallet, don't do it. It won't be worth it. Don't cheap out on it either. You'll get a better experience out of a high quality 1080p monitor than a no-name Chinesium 4K monitor.
