4K Monitors

I'm planning on buying a completely new set up (everything from keyboard to monitors to desktop) when I move but not sure if buying 1-2 4K monitors is worth it.

Is there anyone here with personal experience with them? I'd greatly appreciate any advice you could give me.

Thanks!

 

I'd personally wait until better 4k monitors come out.

4k is great but a lot of the current monitors have a high ms response time or capped fps.

Although I haven't looked at 4k monitors for awhile

 

So say in like 8 months you'd probably still go for something like double 1920x1080 monitors?

 

No, to me they're not worth it YET. You'll enjoy your experience just fine in a 1080p (high definition already). It'll be a lot cheaper and stress your computer out a lot less. Many games struggle to stay at 1080 60fps even running really nice cards in SLI or Crossfire configurations on max as it is.

In the future when the price comes down and the monitor becomes more standard, and the hardware doesn't struggle as much I'll definitely jump into 4k.

 

I've been very strongly considering buying a Dell 4k monitor, specfically: http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&cs=04&l=en&sku=860-BBFF

It is cheap, 60Hz, and 24" which is exactly what I had been looking for. I'm not sure if it is really worth that kind of money since I only want one for development work and not gaming.

 

If you play games, go for a 144hz TN panel, the quality is a little worse than IPS, but the fluidity more than makes up for it.

 

6ms response that's so bad for gaming my friend...

Syed knows you wanna go for a 144hz monitor that has Nvidia G-sync and 4k if there are any monitors with all 3 of those features out there you should buy it but I would assume it will run over 600 dollars for 24inch.

 

144hz at 4k simply doesn't exist. There are not connectors that I know of that will support the bandwidth required yet. I have no idea what the response time of my monitors are but I think FPS is far more important.

 

I would hold out on getting a 4k monitor.

Your graphics card needs to output 4k and if it doesn't, it'll be upscaled (and likely not look all that good.) Even if it does output 4k at this point, it likely isn't true 4k. Also, if you're looking to game in 4K, you're going to need to build an extremely expensive rig.

Regarding the output problem. The problem is that HDMI 2.0 has yet to become the main HDMI connector. Current systems that use HDMI 1.3 (current standard) only transfer 4k at 60 HZ which is not true 4k. This is why Consoles such as Xbox One/PS4 are expected to be upgraded this fall to support 4K video streaming (HDMI 2.0)

2015 is rumored to be the year 4K becomes "mainstream." Prices will start dropping and 4K content is now being more-widely produced. Basically, I would hold out. Pick up some good-sized HD monitors (I bought myself a nice 21.5" Acer one for $120 a few weeks ago) and use that for the time being.

Edit: 6ms response isn't bad at all for gaming. Most TVs are in the 20+ and a TV is considered good under 20. The figures may be different for monitors, but it definitely isn't horrible.

 

Most decent graphics cards support true 4k it will just be 30Hz unless you have display port 1.2?

 

True 4K isn't broadcasted in 30 HZ (I may of meant 30 instead of 60, not sure.) It's either not broadcasted in 30 and that's what the HDMI has it limited to (instead of 60), or it's not broadcasted in 120 because the HDMI has it limited to 60 (it's one of those two.)

Even though, these graphic cards support 4k, it's the same as the PS4/Xbox One. These consoles currently support 4k video streaming, but there's a catch. They're HDMI 1.3. Yes, the 1.3 HDMI cord can stream 4k, but it is a throttled amount (at either 30 or 60 hz instead of the 60 or 120 it is supposed to be to provide the 4k content.)

I may of over-answered (just re-read your question), but from my understanding, anything that has HDMI 1.3 cannot support a true 4k setup due to the hz limitation. The HDMI 2.0 standard has yet to truly roll out across the board.

Only reason I know anything about the 4K outputs and all is that I was shopping for a TV a few weeks ago and I almost bought a 4K TV. The cheaper TVs have shitty upscalers and 4k content is limited so I didn't bother and plan on buying one once there is more content/they've dropped further in price.

 

I got 4k res on my lenovo, there doesn't seem to be any scaling options to make it so the icons are scaled with the rest of the screen (tried all the settings, none are proportionate). Better for watching movies etc, but I still use 1920*1080 for normal usage.

 

HDMI 2.0 supports 60Hz. Anything below that will only support 30Hz. Displayport 1.2 or 1.3 (can't recall which) supports 60Hz but if you daisy chain them the monitors will be limited to 30Hz each. Most high end graphics cards (basically anything this gen) support the displayport standard that allows 60Hz but not all support the HDMI 2.0 standard. For gaming you will likely new two of the top cards to push AAA games. However, for older stuff any fairly recent card for fair pretty well. Netflix has some* content in 4k and they are shooting their shows in 4k so more content is being available.

What I really want a 4k display for is coding. It will be much easier on my eyes and I will be able to have smaller fonts that are still readable. I currently code on the smallest sized font Putty offers which is 8px or 9px (can't recall). I've seen my friends Apple retina display and it was gloriously sharp and easy to read even though it was small as hell. That would allow me to put more content on the screen at a time and that helps a ton. I have dual screens at work but since programs can't nicely take up both I really am limited to having code only on one and docs or my app running on the other.



*Netflix requires you to pay more for 4k and you'll need damn good internet, even though they compress the shit out of it

 

Ah ight, so I did have the 60 and 120 switched. I imagine display port would be the way to go then. I'm not sure how difficult it is to find a 4k monitor with a displayport input, I currently use a display port -> hdmi adapter on my own.

Apple is rumored to be releasing a retina macbook air sometime this year if you'd be interested in one of those, their Macbook Pro Retina is super nice, but super expensive. I don't really have any suggestions for monitors tbh, but if you're coding, I imagine a 4k monitor would be fine now. I'd be much more wary if you plan on watching 4k movies/shows/attempting to game.

Regarding the streaming, Netflix may cost extra, but Amazon Prime includes free 4k streaming. The 4k streaming requires round a 25mb/s connection, but there are compression innovations in the works that they hope will nearly halve the size of 4k. With 4k's current size, movies can't even fit on one single-layered BluRay dvd (which is what most players use.)

 

So I don't use a laptop for stuff. At work we have laptops but we use docking stations and dual screens to make them basically desktops that you can easily take to meetings. Some of the first 4k monitors required two inputs and they would tell the OS that it was two screens instead of one. Those are shit and likely do not have the correct DisplayPort port. You have to be very careful to make sure that the monitor you are getting supports 60hz because a lot don't. If it does, it will almost certainly use the displayport standard.

The compression of 4k streams is actually a shit ton. The compression on HD streams is also a shit ton. It's not even feasible yet to stream HD streams without massive amounts of compression and horrible bit rates unless you have like Google Fiber.

 

I just ordered: http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&cs=04&l=en&sku=210-ADOF

I will report back how it is.

 

Awesome! Looking forward to the report.

 

This is absurd!

TRIGGER WARNING: MASSIVE FUCKING IMAGES!

http://i.imgur.com/zecahfw.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/TpmgkMR.png

That is a legit normal RS window.

 

:laugh: :laugh:

Oh god.. that just made me laugh so hard... but that's just ridiculous like u said. I was thinking of buying a 4k monitor but this would happen.. I would think 2 1080p monitors would be better..

 

I think I'm going to really like it for coding since I can display so much text on one screen.