4k monitor - what do I need?

neilmcl

stator wrote: »

The only reason to buy a 4k monitor is if you want the image quality. I believe the OP is into graphics or CAD or something

Fair point.

System

stator wrote: »

The only reason to buy a 4k monitor is if you want the image quality. I believe the OP is into graphics or CAD or something

Not for £600. £600 would buy you a 27" 1440p monitor with effectively reference picture quality but not a 40" 4K one. Even decent 27" 4K displays start at over £1000.

£600 in a 40" 4K screen gets you a crappy TN or VA panel which, unlike an IPS panel, has only a narrow viewing angle so you'd not really want it for serious graphics/CAD.

stator

Regardless of whether you think it's any good or not, the OP owns this monitor so discussion of whether they should have bought it or not is irrelevent and unhelpful

Snooze

Thanks to you stator for taking the time to answer my questions rather than ignoring it and telling me how monumentally stupid I am, how I will regret this, that and a whole bunch of other things because only idiots use a single screen, you must have every wall and flat space covered with separate screens otherwise you've completely failed at life and are a disgrace to society.... :rolleyes:

To wrap up the thread : The opportunity to purchase a friend of friend's old gaming PC at a very attractive price popped up so I bought it. It has an Nvidia GTX 760 in it and good spec overall. I've connected it all up with DP and the picture is glorious after a few tweaks to the colour profile. Text is pin sharp at 300% scale and the perfect size for readability when using the PC from my sofa 8-10ft away. The screen is perfect for my needs doing image editing work as well and the increase in real estate over my 23" screen before it is great.

Sure, it's not a screen for pro's and the viewing angles are a bit lacking due to the panel type but I knew this already and will only be using it square on so it's not problem for me. But it's only a £540 screen at current Amazon prices so one needs to lower one's expectations naturally. I only paid £280 for this (not £600, Neil) because it has a large crack across the back case rendering the Vesa mount useless but I won't be using that anyway.

Oh and it plays "a bit of Minecraft" just fine.

stator

When you stream videos at 4k does the PC cope nicely or does it slow down / fans get louder?
The GTX 760 supports h264 decode @ 4k but it doesn't support h265 because of it's age.
So, if you find it's struggling or a bit noisey for your like, then upgrading the video card is what you want to do, to one of the ones I listed above.
Not all streaming services use h265 (I don't know if any of them do to be honest, I'm not well researched). But they will in the future, as the bandwidth requirements are lower than h264. So I guess you'd want to check the services you are using and if required upgrade.

Snooze

stator wrote: »

When you stream videos at 4k does the PC cope nicely or does it slow down / fans get louder?
The GTX 760 supports h264 decode @ 4k but it doesn't support h265 because of it's age.
So, if you find it's struggling or a bit noisey for your like, then upgrading the video card is what you want to do, to one of the ones I listed above.
Not all streaming services use h265 (I don't know if any of them do to be honest, I'm not well researched). But they will in the future, as the bandwidth requirements are lower than h264. So I guess you'd want to check the services you are using and if required upgrade.

I've not actually tried any 4k videos yet but normal 1080p video runs just fine and looks great full screen. I don't have any requirement to run 4k videos on it currently and it'll be some years yet til they become mainstream due to the expense of the hardware needed to make and edit them for the average consumer.

stator

Go onto youtube and search for 4k/UHD videos, there are loads to try out.
Also if you have a service like Netflix or Amazon Prime there should be some limited 4k/UHD content on there.