4K Monitors: Everything You Need to Know About Ultra HD PC Displays

[CommanderFrank]

If you are ready to get into Ultra HD on your PC monitor, the technology is steadily improving over the initial offerings and the cost is beginning to stabilize over the broad market. Here’s what you need to know before taking the plunge.

Refresh rates with 4K panels are also somewhat of a concern. A number of the more affordable 4K displays currently on the market offer only 30Hz refresh rates.

 

[Megalith]

I like how VA panels aren't even mentioned. Seriously, do tech bloggers know anything.

 

[WorldExclusive]

Better info is in the Display Forum.

 

[Ducman69]

But the real question PC users are facing IMO is whether to go with a 16:9 4K or a 21:9 3K.

The 21:9 is great for multitasking since its like having two 4:3 monitors without a bezel, the "movie like" widescreen experience looks really cool when gaming and you tend to have more comfortable peripheral vision than you do looking up or down when sitting close to a large screen, and you keep the 4K PPI really and just cut off the top and bottom of the screen which allows you to run higher frame rates or graphics settings thanks to that slightly reduced work load.

I spent quite a while thinking about it, and like many others here decided that 21:9 was actually the way to go.

36" 16:9 4K vs 34" 21:9 3K

As you can see above, a 34" 21:9 3K is like a 36" 16:9 4K, which I don't think most people can go THAT much larger while being comfortable sitting close before you get the "head on a swivel" effect.

 

[temujin987]

pfff, 30hz... i set my screens to 24hz for the best cinematic experience

 

[WorldExclusive]

I can do 3840x1607 21:9 on a 4K monitor and switch back to 3840x2160. That can't be done with a dedicated 21:9 monitor.
Until 21:9 monitors reach the size of 40"+ monitors with 5K resolutions, 4K is still king for productivity and flexibility.
I never understood the 34" 21:9 hype when 40"+ 4K monitors were on the horizon. The prices are starting to drop on 21:9 to where it should have been since the beginning.

 

[Neurofreeze]

I can do 3840x1607 21:9 on a 4K monitor and switch back to 3840x2160. That can't be done with a dedicated 21:9 monitor.
Until 21:9 monitors reach the size of 40"+ monitors with 5K resolutions, 4K is still king for productivity and flexibility.
I never understood the 34" 21:9 hype when 40"+ 4K monitors were on the horizon. The prices are starting to drop on 21:9 to where it should have been since the beginning.

A few reasons:
1) 4K monitors are hard to drive for gamers at native resolution, and sometimes even for non-gamers for everyday tasks for el cheapo PCs. You have to have a powerful enough GPU plus the right connectors, especially if you want 60Hz. Sure you could scale, but, why have a 4K monitor if you're spending all your time scaling?
2) 4K monitors that are affordable currently tend to be horrible. Yeah, you got a lot of pixels. Too bad most of them look like crap. Lackluster contrast, really bad uniformity, mediocre color reproduction. Getting the good 4K monitors are insanely pricey.
3) 4:4:4 Chroma. Good luck getting that on a cheap 40" 4K TV (it doesn't exist, the few 4K TVs that do offer it are 55" and up, and $1500; but they are really excellent TVs). While it does exist on every actual monitor.

 

[Ducman69]

I can do 3840x1607 21:9 on a 4K monitor and switch back to 3840x2160. That can't be done with a dedicated 21:9 monitor.
Until 21:9 monitors reach the size of 40"+ monitors with 5K resolutions, 4K is still king for productivity and flexibility.
I never understood the 34" 21:9 hype when 40"+ 4K monitors were on the horizon. The prices are starting to drop on 21:9 to where it should have been since the beginning.

Why stop at 40"? Why not grab a 60" 4K television set? The problem becomes one of "first row in the movie theater" feeling, where it becomes TOO big to use all of the screen comfortably. And if using that argument, why not get a 21:9 screen with the same vertical height as your 4K screen, that is just wider? There's a good reason to do that too!

34 inch 16x9 vs 42 inch 21x9

Generally speaking, the larger you go, the more wider ratios look natural to you, and we've seen that throughout history as we've moved from 5:4 to 4:3 to 16:10 to 16:9 to 21:9 as larger screens have become cheaper. Just look away from your screen at something on the wall. You'll find that 4:3 is actually about what your focus area is shaped like, but your comfortable field of vision is not very tall but instead very WIDE and does look more like 21:9. Don't believe me? Grab a wooden spoon, and using your arm over your head draw how high and low you comfortably see it compared to on each side of your head. Very very wide natural periphery FOV (which makes sense, we're land based animals so the horizontal plane was more important).

So the ultra-wide screen ratio gives you essentially two 4:3 split-screen for multitasking "focused" work, while feeling immersive and "movie-like" in games in your natural peripheral field of view.

Perhaps this can better show what I'm talking about... its all subjective, but to me the wider ratio in games just looks more cinematic, and dual 4:3 more practical than split 3:4:
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/MFMw4vBghwc/maxresdefault.jpg

And as mentioned, while generally more pixels = more betta, if you can't comfortably drive the 4K resolution without making sacrifices in quality or framerate, whats the point? For right now, 3K is more manageable for gaming... which is still insanely high considering consoles are playing games at 900p more of the time since they can't always handle 1080p.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

Why not grab a 60" 4K television set? The problem becomes one of "first row in the movie theater" feeling, where it becomes TOO big to use all of the screen comfortably

to each their own, but once i went to a larger screen for PC gaming, aint no going back (well, went back to a 24" sony GDM-FW900 CRT for a little bit, but i missed the large screen experience).

im currently on a 1080p 50" pioneer kuro thats about 5' in front of me. for gaming, its really immersive when the screen starts to take up your peripheral vision, you can see the finer nuances of animation, everything is larger so objects like enemies "carry more weight" when theyre coming at you, etc. psychologically it can be a bit different from using a much smaller screen.

cant wait for a 60" 4K screen, and ill probably use it at ~5' too.

30hz is garbage, SLI isnt worth it (profiles lol), and hdmi 2.0 only achieves 4:4:4 w/ 8-bit color

imma have to wait. maybe if i wait long enough panasonic will make a 4k plasma

 

[WorldExclusive]

A few reasons:
1) 4K monitors are hard to drive for gamers at native resolution, and sometimes even for non-gamers for everyday tasks for el cheapo PCs. You have to have a powerful enough GPU plus the right connectors, especially if you want 60Hz. Sure you could scale, but, why have a 4K monitor if you're spending all your time scaling?
2) 4K monitors that are affordable currently tend to be horrible. Yeah, you got a lot of pixels. Too bad most of them look like crap. Lackluster contrast, really bad uniformity, mediocre color reproduction. Getting the good 4K monitors are insanely pricey.
3) 4:4:4 Chroma. Good luck getting that on a cheap 40" 4K TV (it doesn't exist, the few 4K TVs that do offer it are 55" and up, and $1500; but they are really excellent TVs). While it does exist on every actual monitor.

Respectfully, your opinions are from 2014.
It's 2015 now, and those points no longer apply.

 

[Quartz-1]

A few reasons:
1) 4K monitors are hard to drive for gamers at native resolution, and sometimes even for non-gamers for everyday tasks for el cheapo PCs. You have to have a powerful enough GPU plus the right connectors, especially if you want 60Hz. Sure you could scale, but, why have a 4K monitor if you're spending all your time scaling?

Actually, this was solved years ago by SLI and Crossfire. Last year the high-end GPUs (780, 290) were entirely capable of driving 4K displays on their own. You added a second card for improved visual quality.

2) 4K monitors that are affordable currently tend to be horrible. Yeah, you got a lot of pixels. Too bad most of them look like crap. Lackluster contrast, really bad uniformity, mediocre color reproduction. Getting the good 4K monitors are insanely pricey.

Truly good monitors are always pricey, but last year's 4K monitors were - and remain - just fine.

 

[x3sphere]

to each their own, but once i went to a larger screen for PC gaming, aint no going back (well, went back to a 24" sony GDM-FW900 CRT for a little bit, but i missed the large screen experience).

im currently on a 1080p 50" pioneer kuro thats about 5' in front of me. for gaming, its really immersive when the screen starts to take up your peripheral vision, you can see the finer nuances of animation, everything is larger so objects like enemies "carry more weight" when theyre coming at you, etc. psychologically it can be a bit different from using a much smaller screen.

cant wait for a 60" 4K screen, and ill probably use it at ~5' too.

30hz is garbage, SLI isnt worth it (profiles lol), and hdmi 2.0 only achieves 4:4:4 w/ 8-bit color

imma have to wait. maybe if i wait long enough panasonic will make a 4k plasma

4K Plasma is never going to happen, unfortunately. OLED is your only hope. Should be affordable in two years or so if prices continue their downward trajectory... LG is aiming for mainstream adoption by 2017.

 

[Sovern]

Who needs 4K when you have 8K.

 

[Trimlock]

I've worked on a larger 4k screen sitting about 18 inches in front of me and the same with a 21:9 monitor. I'll be buying a 21:9 monitor next.

Also Plasma is effectively dead. The best picture technology proved to be too pricey to move past 1080p and while the margins were already razor thin I kind of agree with the panel makers to let it go...

 

[Quartz-1]

I've worked on a larger 4k screen sitting about 18 inches in front of me and the same with a 21:9 monitor.

18" is too close IMO - all my monitors are at 24"-30" distance.

 

[CreepyUncleGoogle]

4K is such a waste of time and effort. It takes a lot more power to drive a higher resolution screen which shortens battery life. On top of that, to run something at native resolution to the panel, you need to have a comparably more powerful GPU with more memory and memory bandwidth. I'll stick with 1024x600 or 1366x768* thanks.

*only on 14+ inch displays and anything bigger than like 17 inches is just idiotic huge and wasteful

 

[BlankIt]

Right? I for one, enjoy to play in 480x320. Why waste the money upgrading when my current Pentium 4 rig

 

[Trimlock]

18" is too close IMO - all my monitors are at 24"-30" distance.

My 27" at home sits about that far away, I just don't have the room to push the larger screens back further.

I did see the arms that you can adjust above you and angle down. May try that when I get a 21:9.

 

[xXaNaXx]

no 4k for me until such time as:

1) the monitors support "true" 120Hz+, and
2) there are affordable single-GPU video cards that can push that refresh rate at that resolution

 

[Tgrove]

A few reasons:
1) 4K monitors are hard to drive for gamers at native resolution, and sometimes even for non-gamers for everyday tasks for el cheapo PCs. You have to have a powerful enough GPU plus the right connectors, especially if you want 60Hz. Sure you could scale, but, why have a 4K monitor if you're spending all your time scaling?
2) 4K monitors that are affordable currently tend to be horrible. Yeah, you got a lot of pixels. Too bad most of them look like crap. Lackluster contrast, really bad uniformity, mediocre color reproduction. Getting the good 4K monitors are insanely pricey.
3) 4:4:4 Chroma. Good luck getting that on a cheap 40" 4K TV (it doesn't exist, the few 4K TVs that do offer it are 55" and up, and $1500; but they are really excellent TVs). While it does exist on every actual monitor.

Other posters touched on your other points. #3 is incorrect as well. The Samsung ju6700 can do 4:4:4 chroma on hdmi 2.0 60hz and the 40" cost less than 1k, the 48" cost $1150

 

[Tgrove]

Other posters touched on your other points. #3 is incorrect as well. The Samsung ju6700 can do 4:4:4 chroma on hdmi 2.0 60hz and the 40" cost less than 1k, the 48" cost $1150

Actually those prices are for the CURVED version (ju6700), the flat versions are even cheaper (ju6500)

 

[Tgrove]

Actually those prices are for the CURVED version (ju6700), the flat versions are even cheaper (ju6500)

And those are just tvs, there's way more monitors ok that list also