LG UltraWide 40WP95C-W 39.7" 21:9 Curved FreeSync 5K2K (5120 x 2160) HDR IPS @ 72 Hz

[Blade-Runner]

https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-40wp95c-w

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...monitor.html/DFF/d10-v21-t1-x1131909/SID/GLDL

Just randomly came across this monitor which is getting closer to what I am after for a gaming 5K ultrawide. Just needs a higher refresh rate and G-Sync support. I believe this is the first 5K ultrawide incorporating game related features like FreeSync.

Amazing that this was released with little to no fanfare.

 

[Blade-Runner]

 

[Blade-Runner]

Paging noko.

 

[Bigmonitorguy]

It's a very good monitor for work, but not gaming. Weak HDR (can't handle the brightness), only 72Hz.

 

[SoCali]

What is up with these light bars people put above monitors lately.

 

[Panel]

The people saying this is “for Mac” are ignoring the bad text rendering on macOS for anything not running at 200% scaling. Clear text’s important on a productivity display, isn’t it? If you chop off the sides to think of this monitor in terms of 16:9 resolutions/pixel density, it’s a 32” (really 31.5”) 4K monitor. You won’t want to run that at 200%, and it’ll end up looking terrible.

It’s a tempting productivity + light gaming display, but if your choice of OS is Mac, it might not be for you.

 

[kasakka]

The people saying this is “for Mac” are ignoring the bad text rendering on macOS for anything not running at 200% scaling. Clear text’s important on a productivity display, isn’t it? If you chop off the sides to think of this monitor in terms of 16:9 resolutions/pixel density, it’s a 32” (really 31.5”) 4K monitor. You won’t want to run that at 200%, and it’ll end up looking terrible.

It’s a tempting productivity + light gaming display, but if your choice of OS is Mac, it might not be for you.

In my experience there is no issue running MacOS at odd scaling settings as long as you have 4K+ resolution. For anything less unless it's a laptop display there's just no point to using scaling in the first case.

To explain the issue to others, MacOS scaling works like this. For these numbers let's assume we have a 4K screen of any size.

1. MacOS takes your target res (let's say the "looks like 3200x1800" aka 120% scaling) and then doubles that to 6400x3600.
2. It will then downscale that to your native resolution of 3840x2160.

Since this is not an integer divisible translation, you will end up with some quality loss compared to running e.g at 200% scale. But in real world use this is not an issue at all. It will still look perfectly fine. I have used my LG CX 48" at 120% scaling for two years and been totally fine with it. No, it's not "retina" or whatever bullshit marketing term Apple wants to apply to it. But it is sharp enough and looks totally fine. Similarly at my previous job I ran the LG 5K ultrafine not scaled to 1440p but whatever is the next step up from that because I liked the extra desktop space. Also looked fine.

My real issue with these "5K2K" displays is that they are expensive for what they are. For the price you can get some pretty good 4K 16:9 gaming displays and probably a side monitor to go with it and that's going to be a better user experience every time. 5120x2160 is hard to run for games in the first place and ultrawide compatibility is still sometimes iffy so 16:9 is more straightforward. For work multiple monitors allow you more desktop space as well as individual virtual desktops on each screen.

I think it's a cool form factor but I want to see the prices of these to come down or alternatively their specs to improve. 120 Hz over DP 2.0 or DP 1.4+DSC would be great, with mini-LED or OLED for HDR. Unlikely to happen anytime soon.

 

[Blade-Runner]

It's a very good monitor for work, but not gaming. Weak HDR (can't handle the brightness), only 72Hz.

Depends on what you consider essential for gaming. My X34 still delivers a great experience without HDR and only a 100hz refresh rate, so if I had cash to burn I would consider getting the 40WP95C-W as a stop gap until better 5K gaming ultrawides become available (ideally with OLED, HDR, G-Sync and 140hz).

For the price you can get some pretty good 4K 16:9 gaming displays and probably a side monitor to go with it and that's going to be a better user experience every time. 5120x2160 is hard to run for games in the first place and ultrawide compatibility is still sometimes iffy so 16:9 is more straightforward. For work multiple monitors allow you more desktop space as well as individual virtual desktops on each screen.

Disagree that a 16:9 with a side monitor is going to provide a better user experience in terms of either productivity or gaming, and I say that having now used a 21:9 for almost 7 years. Agree that 5120x2160 is going to be harder to run for games, but this argument gets wheeled out every time there is a generational leap in resolution (happened at 1080P, 1440P and 4K) only to be made redundant once hardware caught up. And ultrawide compatibility is absolutely not an issue as the majority of games natively support it, and the handful that don't just run at 16:9 with black bars on the sides.

 

[Vega]

My god those I'm pretty sure are the weakest numbers I've ever seen on a display.

 

[Desert Fish]

Agree that 5120x2160 is going to be harder to run for games, but this argument gets wheeled out every time there is a generational leap in resolution (happened at 1080P, 1440P and 4K) only to be made redundant once hardware caught up.

Also, scaling (games) becomes less noticeable as the effective pixel density gets higher. My main issue with this monitor is actually that it's not curved enough.

 

[Bigmonitorguy]

The curve isn't really needed on this IPS panel. I'd rather not have the distortion, but it's pretty mild with this 2500R curve.

A single large monitor is much better than multiple monitors in my experience.

I'm hoping for an even larger monitor. This one still feels a bit smaller than it could be, particularly in the vertical dimension. 20% larger would be perfect.

The big question is why not just go with a 43" 16:9 monitor. I think that's a better size actually, but there aren't any good ones out there for some reason. A 43" with an 8K resolution and an RGB pixel structure would be awesome for work.

 

[kasakka]

Disagree that a 16:9 with a side monitor is going to provide a better user experience in terms of either productivity or gaming, and I say that having now used a 21:9 for almost 7 years. Agree that 5120x2160 is going to be harder to run for games, but this argument gets wheeled out every time there is a generational leap in resolution (happened at 1080P, 1440P and 4K) only to be made redundant once hardware caught up. And ultrawide compatibility is absolutely not an issue as the majority of games natively support it, and the handful that don't just run at 16:9 with black bars on the sides.

A 40" 5120x2160 screen is effectively an ultrawide version of a 32" 4K 16:9 and you don't gain a huge amount of extra desktop space when you want to apply some DPI scaling to make text and UI easier to read. With a 32" 4K 16:9 plus a side monitor you are likely to have more usable desktop space for productivity no matter what.

It will take a long time for hw to catch up as it still often struggles with 4K too depending on what you play. Many games still have iffy support for ultrawide, some requiring 3rd party patches or have FOV issues. I wish they just worked but that's not the reality in my experience.

When on top of that you don't have e.g good HDR, pixel response times or high refresh rate these displays seem just too early to be a great option for anything but productivity.

 

[x3sphere]

I have been interested in these for work but held off as price is too high for what you get imo.

That said, I have a Lenovo ThinkVision P40w-20 on the way. Found a good deal on it open box and said to be in excellent condition (was $1k). Essentially the same monitor minus FreeSync. Interestingly it does 75Hz too, a bit higher than the 72Hz this LG does - not much of a difference though.

 

[Bigmonitorguy]

I have been interested in these for work but held off as price is too high for what you get imo.

That said, I have a Lenovo ThinkVision P40w-20 on the way. Found a good deal on it open box and said to be in excellent condition (was $1k). Essentially the same monitor minus FreeSync. Interestingly it does 75Hz too, a bit higher than the 72Hz this LG does - not much of a difference though.

Not sure how they do 75Hz because I think the limit for 5K2K at HDR is 72Hz with DP 1.4a without DSC.

The price is somewhat high because there is no competition from other panel manufacturers for this size/resolution, and it's not a high-volume product.

 

[Thug Esquire]

I have been interested in these for work but held off as price is too high for what you get imo.

That said, I have a Lenovo ThinkVision P40w-20 on the way. Found a good deal on it open box and said to be in excellent condition (was $1k). Essentially the same monitor minus FreeSync. Interestingly it does 75Hz too, a bit higher than the 72Hz this LG does - not much of a difference though.

I hope you'll post when you get that P40w. I am interested in its chops.

 

[x3sphere]

I hope you'll post when you get that P40w. I am interested in its chops.

Got the monitor today and I'm very happy with it! Image quality is great and for an IPS the blacklight bleed is fairly minimal. The 75Hz seems a no-go though, despite being advertised. I'm seeing frameskipping at that refresh rate on both Windows and macOS. I will play around with the OSD settings more but I don't see anything else that would affect it and I'm in DP 1.4 mode. And this is with an RTX 3080 / M1 Pro respectively so neither should have problems with DP 1.4...

I tried 72Hz as a custom res in Windows and even that frameskips. 60Hz is fine. Bit of a bummer but not a big deal since I'm only using it for work, primarily coding.

Scaled res of 3840x1620 is very comfortable to use in macOS and looks great to me. I tried no scaling and it was a bit too tiny for long term usage, maybe if I moved the monitor closer could get away with it.

Photo of it (that is the Alienware QD-OLED next to it)

 

[Thug Esquire]

Great shape, probably a close-to-ideal size, for me. I really want a monitor that can really be the 'one':

1. Enough real estate to use and get work done
2. Enough DPI to support 200% scaling while still offering more real estate than a 1920x1200 panel
3. 16:10 ratio for max immersion in games and work
4. 36" diagonal at 6400x4000, yielding 210 DPI.
5. 120Hz for obvious reasons

Even if it were this 21:9 5K2K, if it were 44", then at 126 DPI it'd be more readable than the 4K/32" 138, or the 5K2K/40" 139.

Let's make it happen, folks

 

[Blade-Runner]

A 40" 5120x2160 screen is effectively an ultrawide version of a 32" 4K 16:9 and you don't gain a huge amount of extra desktop space when you want to apply some DPI scaling to make text and UI easier to read. With a 32" 4K 16:9 plus a side monitor you are likely to have more usable desktop space for productivity no matter what.

Your point? A 34" ultra wide 3440x1440 is just a 16:9 1440P with extra horizontal pixels, but the fact of the matter is that it is plenty of additional desktop space for productivity use. I routinely work on 3 documents side by side on mine, and it avoids the need for a second monitor on my desk. Some people don't want two monitors, and these ultrawides serve that specific market.

It will take a long time for hw to catch up as it still often struggles with 4K too depending on what you play.

I am willing to take the bet that either the upcoming 4080 GPUs, or following gen, will be more than capable of running these displays.

Many games still have iffy support for ultrawide, some requiring 3rd party patches or have FOV issues. I wish they just worked but that's not the reality in my experience.

I am calling bullshit on this claim again. Name these games with iffy support that need 3rd party patches or have FOV issues. I have no doubt there will be a couple of obscure titles with issues, but the vast majority of games have native support for 21:9 out of the box.

 

[Blade-Runner]

Got the monitor today and I'm very happy with it! Image quality is great and for an IPS the blacklight bleed is fairly minimal. The 75Hz seems a no-go though, despite being advertised. I'm seeing frameskipping at that refresh rate on both Windows and macOS. I will play around with the OSD settings more but I don't see anything else that would affect it and I'm in DP 1.4 mode. And this is with an RTX 3080 / M1 Pro respectively so neither should have problems with DP 1.4...

I tried 72Hz as a custom res in Windows and even that frameskips. 60Hz is fine. Bit of a bummer but not a big deal since I'm only using it for work, primarily coding.

Scaled res of 3840x1620 is very comfortable to use in macOS and looks great to me. I tried no scaling and it was a bit too tiny for long term usage, maybe if I moved the monitor closer could get away with it.

Photo of it (that is the Alienware QD-OLED next to it)

Yeah I remember reading that the P40w suffers from frame skipping above 60hz, which turned me off the idea of getting it.

 

[kasakka]

Your point? A 34" ultra wide 3440x1440 is just a 16:9 1440P with extra horizontal pixels, but the fact of the matter is that it is plenty of additional desktop space for productivity use. I routinely work on 3 documents side by side on mine, and it avoids the need for a second monitor on my desk. Some people don't want two monitors, and these ultrawides serve that specific market.

I am calling bullshit on this claim again. Name these games with iffy support that need 3rd party patches or have FOV issues. I have no doubt there will be a couple of obscure titles with issues, but the vast majority of games have native support for 21:9 out of the box.

If it works for you, great. For me 5120x1440 superultrawide with 100% scaling is enough for running 3 windows comfortably side by side. 5120x2160 would require DPI scaling which reduces the effective desktop space to probably something closer to 3440x1440 which for me is just not enough.

Look no further than https://www.reddit.com/r/widescreengamingforum/ for various people asking for fixes to various games. There's enough problematic games that ultrawide support is not at "it just works" level.

 

[Blade-Runner]

If it works for you, great. For me 5120x1440 superultrawide with 100% scaling is enough for running 3 windows comfortably side by side. 5120x2160 would require DPI scaling which reduces the effective desktop space to probably something closer to 3440x1440 which for me is just not enough.

So all your ragging on 21:9 has to do with your personal preferences and nothing else...got it.

Look no further than https://www.reddit.com/r/widescreengamingforum/ for various people asking for fixes to various games. There's enough problematic games that ultrawide support is not at "it just works" level.

Oh noes, Young Souls (whatever the fuck that is) needs a 3rd party fix to work at 32:9. Dude you are delusional and clutching at straws. Please point me to a game that anyone actually gives a fuck about that needs a third party fix.

 

[kasakka]

So all your ragging on 21:9 has to do with your personal preferences and nothing else...got it.



Oh noes, Young Souls (whatever the fuck that is) needs a 3rd party fix to work at 32:9. Dude you are delusional and clutching at straws. Please point me to a game that anyone actually gives a fuck about that needs a third party fix.

I have explained in other posts why I feel dual monitors are better than these 5K2K monitors. It has nothing to do with 21:9 itself but that the 5K2K displays are overpriced for what they are. For the same money you can get a better spec 4K 16:9 display and a side monitor with more usable desktop space than spending it on a single overpriced 5K2K that runs at 60 Hz, has garbage HDR and so on.

As for ultrawide support, how about a little game like Elden Ring that its developers even intentionally crippled for 21:9 support? How about say Control that works for 3440x1440 but does not work right for e.g 3840x1600 or 5120x1440 but is fine after being patched? PCGamingWiki has a pretty long list of games old and new that say "hackable" or "limited" for UW support. If the games you play don't have issues with it, then great. But last ultrawide I had I felt during that time I ran into support problems more often than I'd like, whether it was something like the FOV distortion on Metro Exodus, the afore-mentioned issues in Control, games using FOV scaling that just shrinks the available vertical height while not providing more horizontal viewing area and so on.

 

[undertaker2k8]

I have explained in other posts why I feel dual monitors are better than these 5K2K monitors. It has nothing to do with 21:9 itself but that the 5K2K displays are overpriced for what they are. For the same money you can get a better spec 4K 16:9 display and a side monitor with more usable desktop space than spending it on a single overpriced 5K2K that runs at 60 Hz, has garbage HDR and so on.

As for ultrawide support, how about a little game like Elden Ring that its developers even intentionally crippled for 21:9 support? How about say Control that works for 3440x1440 but does not work right for e.g 3840x1600 or 5120x1440 but is fine after being patched? PCGamingWiki has a pretty long list of games old and new that say "hackable" or "limited" for UW support. If the games you play don't have issues with it, then great. But last ultrawide I had I felt during that time I ran into support problems more often than I'd like, whether it was something like the FOV distortion on Metro Exodus, the afore-mentioned issues in Control, games using FOV scaling that just shrinks the available vertical height while not providing more horizontal viewing area and so on.

Agree with some points but if there ever is a 40" 5K OLED, I'm signing up on Day 1. Biggest peeve right now is absolute lack of console support though games with proper HDR look amazing still on my AW3423 depsite being limited to 27.3" 1080p 60/120 Hz.

 

[kasakka]

Agree with some points but if there ever is a 40" 5K OLED, I'm signing up on Day 1.

I don't disagree with that. We are just not there yet and probably won't be for several years with the glacial pace of the display industry. I would even take a LCD capable of 120+ Hz with a mini-LED backlight.

 

[Bigmonitorguy]

I tried the side monitor thing a number of times. Never worked for me. I end up not using the side monitor much because it isn't comfortable for the neck and the eyes. I much prefer a single large monitor. I use different setups for work and gaming, so I can have the best monitor for each purpose.

 

[Thug Esquire]

I tried the side monitor thing a number of times. Never worked for me. I end up not using the side monitor much because it isn't comfortable for the neck and the eyes. I much prefer a single large monitor. I use different setups for work and gaming, so I can have the best monitor for each purpose.

Same, and I think the idea of a 36" 16:10 would be incredible. 6400x4000, let's do it!

 

[Blade-Runner]

I have explained in other posts why I feel dual monitors are better than these 5K2K monitors. It has nothing to do with 21:9 itself but that the 5K2K displays are overpriced for what they are. For the same money you can get a better spec 4K 16:9 display and a side monitor with more usable desktop space than spending it on a single overpriced 5K2K that runs at 60 Hz, has garbage HDR and so on.

And no one is saying that this is the most ideal monitor given its weaknesses, but you seem to be hinging a lot of your argument on the ultra wide aspect ratio from a productivity perspective which is absolute nonsense for the reasons already explained. I wouldn't buy this monitor because for the price it needs to have HDR, G-Sync, higher refresh rate, etc. You are conflating completely different issues.

As for ultrawide support, how about a little game like Elden Ring that its developers even intentionally crippled for 21:9 support?

Again grasping for straws, and like I said before the handful of games that don't have 21:9 support you just play with black bars at 16:9....you are literally no worse off than if you were on a standard monitor. You absolutely don't need a third party patch unless you want to insist on playing at 21:9 for those particular games.

How about say Control that works for 3440x1440 but does not work right for e.g 3840x1600 or 5120x1440 but is fine after being patched?

And? You play at the supported aspect ratio and have black bars. It doesn't change the fact that MOST games have native support for ultra wide aspect ratios, and the ones that don't you just play with black bars. If you are not going to use these monitors for productivity and only intend to play the handful of games with no native support then its probably not worth the premium, but I very much doubt there are many users falling into that narrow and specific demographic.

whether it was something like the FOV distortion on Metro Exodus

You mean the FOV distortion caused by a bug that was patched in March 2019?

 

[undertaker2k8]

Curved UW is definitely preferable for single viewer DT use, the best option there is the AW34, hopefully 38-40 inch OLEDs are not too far off.

 

[kasakka]

And no one is saying that this is the most ideal monitor given its weaknesses, but you seem to be hinging a lot of your argument on the ultra wide aspect ratio from a productivity perspective which is absolute nonsense for the reasons already explained. I wouldn't buy this monitor because for the price it needs to have HDR, G-Sync, higher refresh rate, etc. You are conflating completely different issues.


Again grasping for straws, and like I said before the handful of games that don't have 21:9 support you just play with black bars at 16:9....you are literally no worse off than if you were on a standard monitor. You absolutely don't need a third party patch unless you want to insist on playing at 21:9 for those particular games.


And? You play at the supported aspect ratio and have black bars. It doesn't change the fact that MOST games have native support for ultra wide aspect ratios, and the ones that don't you just play with black bars. If you are not going to use these monitors for productivity and only intend to play the handful of games with no native support then its probably not worth the premium, but I very much doubt there are many users falling into that narrow and specific demographic.


You mean the FOV distortion caused by a bug that was patched in March 2019?

I feel you are handwaving ultrawide issues as "just run at 16:9". If I buy an ultrawide or super ultrawide display then I sure as hell would like to run every game I own utilizing its full capabilities and it should not need patching them. In my experience that's not the reality though. I have nothing against ultrawide, in fact I would prefer it if there were display options on the market that I felt were good enough. I'd gladly jump on a 5K2K 40" with better specs than the current ones.

The Metro Exodus issue came to mind as a particularly bad case of FOV distortion. FOV distortion is mosty not an issue on 21:9 but very common at 32:9 superultrawide which makes that aspect ratio worse for gaming. It's great that Metro Exodus was patched to fix that tho.

I don't think this discussion is leading to anything fruitful so let's just drop it and talk about the 5K2K models.

 

[Blade-Runner]

I feel you are handwaving ultrawide issues as "just run at 16:9". If I buy an ultrawide or super ultrawide display then I sure as hell would like to run every game I own utilizing its full capabilities and it should not need patching them. In my experience that's not the reality though. I have nothing against ultrawide, in fact I would prefer it if there were display options on the market that I felt were good enough. I'd gladly jump on a 5K2K 40" with better specs than the current ones.

And I can find games that require third party patches to run at 4K, have no HDR support and are hard capped at 60 fps, so by your logic there is no point buying a monitor with those features because some random bunch of games can't utilize its full capabilities. That's how asinine your argument is, so yes I agree there is no point discussing this aspect further.

 

[noko]

Paging noko.

You rang?

Yep, nice seeing something in the 5K range. 5K I would spend a small fortune on would need DP 2.0, HDMI 2.1, 120hz+, VRR and now OLED or QD OLED. Very wishful thinking in the end at this stage for monitors. Seeing inventories starting to bloat at a number of stores, expect some good deals on Black Friday time frame for OLEDs. Seems like 4K 42" OLED from LG maybe an option for me since once what I really want comes around I can move it to the bedroom. MSI/Samsung upcoming, whenever available, price, QD OLED 3440x1440p maybe an option as well but as more limiting unless we have some blow out features such as 240hz, HDMI 2.1 and DP 2.0 maybe, making it more usable for a longer period of time.

 

[AgentQ]

Has anyone seen confirmation that 72Hz mode works properly without frameskipping?

The Lenovo P40w-20 using this same panel advertises 75Hz but skips frames beyond 60Hz. I'm curious if LG actually made the panel work at a genuine 72Hz.

 

[Bill_F]

Has anyone seen confirmation that 72Hz mode works properly without frameskipping?

The Lenovo P40w-20 using this same panel advertises 75Hz but skips frames beyond 60Hz. I'm curious if LG actually made the panel work at a genuine 72Hz.

I was able to successfully perform the camera skipping test on mine with no issues for 72Hz using USB-C from X670 mobo (fed from dgpu). This monitor paired with Ryzen 7950X3D and EKWB 6900 XT (XTX version) is a very nice experience. Once you fix the gpu driver downclocking bugs and get the GPU up to full speed I can run almost all games at Ultra settings no AA at full res at 50-72hz (basically no noise thanks to water).The curve is very small. Can run full res from both Thunderbolt and DP full size port from 2 different PCs. Can run HDMI at full res 30Hz even from rockchip SBC. Much better colors, black levels, uniformity compared to previous freesync monitor. No dead pixels. Currently the monitor is on black Friday/Holiday sale. Running full resolution 4096x2160 video from the Sony FX6 looks amazing on this display and you still have room on the left/right sides for UI elements, etc.
Have to warn yall the stand that it comes with needs a very wide area to be situated. A narrow desk for a typical 27"/34" monitor won't fit the stand on this one, so measure before you lift the monitor out of the box.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

I feel you are handwaving ultrawide issues as "just run at 16:9". If I buy an ultrawide or super ultrawide display then I sure as hell would like to run every game I own utilizing its full capabilities and it should not need patching them. In my experience that's not the reality though. I have nothing against ultrawide, in fact I would prefer it if there were display options on the market that I felt were good enough. I'd gladly jump on a 5K2K 40" with better specs than the current ones.

The Metro Exodus issue came to mind as a particularly bad case of FOV distortion. FOV distortion is mosty not an issue on 21:9 but very common at 32:9 superultrawide which makes that aspect ratio worse for gaming. It's great that Metro Exodus was patched to fix that tho.

I don't think this discussion is leading to anything fruitful so let's just drop it and talk about the 5K2K models.

I think your criticisms are more than reasonable (I read all the responses, I'm not just responding to this last post). I clicked on this and was like: why would I buy this display over simply getting an LG C2/C3 42" for less money, better motion clarity, 120Hz, and no ultrawide issues? Even that particular TV aside, it's like you say: one could easily buy 2x 4k displays with better HDR and higher Hz than this with more real estate than this if the argument is related to productivity.

Needs at least 120Hz, better HDR, no curve, and to cost at least $400 less for this to be reasonable vs the competition. For what it is, it's ultra niche. It's only worth it for people willing to deal with the compromises this display has AND be willing to pay for the over-inflated price just in order to have a "single" display of this size and resolution. And I agree that this just ain't it.