- Joined
- Jan 6, 2013
- Location
- Edmonton Alberta Canada
4k, where to get started.. It's this supposedly mythical hard to get pricey and illusive super resolution, or Ultra resolution that you'd have to spend thousands of dollars to attain and only ever get 30hz out of which just doesn't work for us gaming and productivity folks.
Along came this 28" 4k display for under $700.00 and at such a pricetag it's definitely not something you just buy without looking into first. Heck you could buy a triple monitor array, a stand for them and an okay video card to run it instead.
Once you fire it up and run a game at that resolution you fully understand where the future is taking us. The depth, the colour, the sheer amount of action on your screen is just mindblowing! Imagine taking your 1080p display and glueing it to your forhead and not getting a blurry image from it being so close! The detail and depth just blow you away.
So enough with teasing you, i'll let you know what it's taken to get it working and what kind of an experience it is. First off it's not hard to get it running but getting cables for it may be an issue and has caused me to have to completely rearrange my desk to move my computer and still have it hooked up to my racing sim's 3 screen setup. I can't find a cable locally that is display port 1.2 that is over 6 feet long and an 8 foot cable is whats required to maintain my desk layout, minor problem for now.
Having all 4 monitors hooked up in Eyefinity seems to work out as well as it usually did when I had my 1080p Asus hooked up. Turn on the 4k and turnoff the triple and you revert back to a single desktop.. Turn off the 4k and turn on the triple and you've got eyefinity running again ready to race, so thankfully that worked out well.
Customizing the screen sucks! Although the Asus has a wicked height and rotating stand for putting the monitor at a comfortable height you struggle to find a decent Ultra High Definition resolution wallpaper that isn't some sissy forest or digitally rendered fractal background. It seems that the content isn't quite there yet.
Watching video's is also a bit sombre. Youtube is an important part of a PC's daily uses and now with the 4k resolution your youtube at fullscreen sets us back 8-9 years where any video you tried to watch was so pixelated it hurt. Well, just watch a 4k video right? Nope, first you have to find one that you want to watch and then if you're lucky your ISP is fast enough to load it so you can watch it all in one shot.
Owning a Go-Pro camera now has a new perk and after sticking my camera in a lake while fishing and bringing the video home was an eye opening experience!
Eye strain would be my last fault i've found to complain about and it's minor really. I've found that the screen is so sharp in definition and windows UI doesn't scale up to the task well that you are always trying to focus on small details causing minor strain over time. Something maybe fixed in windows 8? Maybe a successor of windows will have more 4k compatibility?
Hardware is a kicker if you really want to take advantage of the resolution. Your computer now has to produce a massive image at least 60 times a second. I've found even on an Asus 280x in crossfire games like BF4 struggle at Ultra but actually do very well at High settings! In the near future I know i'm stuck upgrading to a much more powerful GPU or multiple GPU's to keep up with the urge to go bigger and better for visual appearance. Sadly a small graphics card just can't keep up making the 4k experience even more expensive.
So if you get the chance buy a monitor like this, your games will look stunning and you'll be future proof as the content comes out and is more mainstream (youtube). The prices are finally coming down and a monitor like this is something to experience.. Now I wait for my Oculus Rift DK2!
Along came this 28" 4k display for under $700.00 and at such a pricetag it's definitely not something you just buy without looking into first. Heck you could buy a triple monitor array, a stand for them and an okay video card to run it instead.
Once you fire it up and run a game at that resolution you fully understand where the future is taking us. The depth, the colour, the sheer amount of action on your screen is just mindblowing! Imagine taking your 1080p display and glueing it to your forhead and not getting a blurry image from it being so close! The detail and depth just blow you away.
So enough with teasing you, i'll let you know what it's taken to get it working and what kind of an experience it is. First off it's not hard to get it running but getting cables for it may be an issue and has caused me to have to completely rearrange my desk to move my computer and still have it hooked up to my racing sim's 3 screen setup. I can't find a cable locally that is display port 1.2 that is over 6 feet long and an 8 foot cable is whats required to maintain my desk layout, minor problem for now.
Having all 4 monitors hooked up in Eyefinity seems to work out as well as it usually did when I had my 1080p Asus hooked up. Turn on the 4k and turnoff the triple and you revert back to a single desktop.. Turn off the 4k and turn on the triple and you've got eyefinity running again ready to race, so thankfully that worked out well.
Customizing the screen sucks! Although the Asus has a wicked height and rotating stand for putting the monitor at a comfortable height you struggle to find a decent Ultra High Definition resolution wallpaper that isn't some sissy forest or digitally rendered fractal background. It seems that the content isn't quite there yet.
Watching video's is also a bit sombre. Youtube is an important part of a PC's daily uses and now with the 4k resolution your youtube at fullscreen sets us back 8-9 years where any video you tried to watch was so pixelated it hurt. Well, just watch a 4k video right? Nope, first you have to find one that you want to watch and then if you're lucky your ISP is fast enough to load it so you can watch it all in one shot.
Owning a Go-Pro camera now has a new perk and after sticking my camera in a lake while fishing and bringing the video home was an eye opening experience!
Eye strain would be my last fault i've found to complain about and it's minor really. I've found that the screen is so sharp in definition and windows UI doesn't scale up to the task well that you are always trying to focus on small details causing minor strain over time. Something maybe fixed in windows 8? Maybe a successor of windows will have more 4k compatibility?
Hardware is a kicker if you really want to take advantage of the resolution. Your computer now has to produce a massive image at least 60 times a second. I've found even on an Asus 280x in crossfire games like BF4 struggle at Ultra but actually do very well at High settings! In the near future I know i'm stuck upgrading to a much more powerful GPU or multiple GPU's to keep up with the urge to go bigger and better for visual appearance. Sadly a small graphics card just can't keep up making the 4k experience even more expensive.
So if you get the chance buy a monitor like this, your games will look stunning and you'll be future proof as the content comes out and is more mainstream (youtube). The prices are finally coming down and a monitor like this is something to experience.. Now I wait for my Oculus Rift DK2!
