- Joined
- Nov 11, 2010
PREFACE:
I've already done the 3 screen portrait mode Eyefinity thing. After the novelty wore off, I was left with 3x the energy usage of a single monitor, bezels that broke up the image, and compatibility issues related to crossfire in apps (mostly games).
One More Note: I offered to help test font color readability differences between the light and dark themes but was told the issue was moot because someone is working on correcting the code to display a readable color no matter which theme you choose to use. I don't know if that happened yet so Due to the Light/Dark Theme issue, you may not like the font color I chose.
Seiki Digital SE50UY04 Mini-Review
I've been using a Dell U3011 for a few years now, having bought it to replace 3 Dell U2410s in Portrait Mode Eyefinity. The 30" seemed a great compromise and, in fact, I've been quite pleased with it; to the point that I have mentioned, on more than one occasion, that it was among the best purchases I've ever made.
Fast forward two years and I find that I spend as much time yearning for a new, higher resolution monitor as I do gaming. Gaming isn't even the issue, either...I just want more real estate for productivity apps.
As I was surfing on one of the hardware forums I frequent, I came across a thread about a person who purchased a Sharp 4k2k Monitor capable of 60Hz and was waiting for it to arrive. While reading the thread I decided to do a Google search to read up a bit on the Sharp monitor.
I came across a link to the Seiki 50” QuadHD TV (advertised as 4k2k) capable of 3840x2160 resolution. At the time, no one seemed to know if it was capable of only 30Hz, whether it took two HDMI cables to create a picture, or much of anything else about it, except that it was being offered for $1299 + free shipping and no tax. After I linked to it in the thread, people started looking at it and discussing its weak points and strengths someone posted a link to the PCPer pod cast where that site had ordered one to see if it was acceptable for gaming.
Based on that review some people decided to take the plunge and order it. I was one of those who decided to order but, when I tried to get it from Tiger Direct, it was out of stock. I went to ShopNBC instead and ordered it. The only negative about using the ShopNBC site was the shipping was slower than everyone else’s’ so I didn’t receive my TV until well after others started receiving theirs.
Reasons Why I Took a Chance
Mine arrived two weeks and 2 days after I ordered it. It arrived using fully adequate shipping packing. It actually came better packed than my Samsun Smart TV so I was pleasantly surprised.
My first impressions of the unit itself matched those of the PCPer podcast in that the unit has a somewhat flimsy base plate stand on which it rests. The screws holding the plate in place did not look much bigger than some case screws I have seen before so I was initially worried about it just snapping and falling over on its own.
Setup was completed without any hassles though so I moved on to connecting it to my computer, using the included HDMI 1.4a cable. (Very nice to see they didn’t skimp on the cable)
Test Setup
Test setup consists of two almost identical systems, both of which used Enhanced Turbo mode for on-the-fly overclocking of all 4 cores, and the only major differences were the Video Cards used and the CPU Used:
Sys #1
MSI Z77A-GD65
Intel Core i7 2600K
Corsair H-100i
(2) Gigabyte W3 Radeon 7970s
180GB SSD, (2) M4 512GB SSDs
Corsair AX-850
Kingston HyperX Beast 2400MHz
Win7 Pro 64/Win8 Pro 64 (Dual Boot)
Sys #2
MSI Z77A-GD65
Intel Core i7 3770K
Corsair H-100i
(2) Asus GeForce GTX Titans
180GB SSD, (2) M4 512GB SSDs
Corsair AX1200i
Kingston HyperX Beast 2400MHz
Win7 Pro 64/Win8 Pro 64 (Dual Boot)
Setup in the OS was painless. I adjusted the Resolution to the panel’s native res and that was it. I did not attempt to do anything differently than the PCPer podcast as far as settings were concerned. I used the HDMI out from my Radeons in Crossfire and it seemed fine. Over the next few days, however, I noticed a problem where the resolution would suddenly “reset” itself.
Initial reports seemed to be related to Radeons so I created a ticket with Seiki and with AMD in an effort to get them to coordinate with each other and research/resolve the problem. Turns out that it was a TV-related issue entirely and Seiki had an updated firmware available the day after I reported the problem. It actually took me longer to get documentation from them on how to flash the Firmware to the latest version than it took them to create the firmware. I believe this is due to a couple factors.
Because it does not have expensive up-conversion hardware built-in, if you feed it crappy video, you’re going to get crappy video out. Just in a larger, blockier video.
Playback of 1080p content I downloaded from Youtube (mp4 versions of most recent music videos) is surprisingly well.
10bit 720p content in the form of mkv files is excellent
Make MKV rips of movies like Brave, Prometheus, Avengers, T2 (BluRay edition) are also excellent.
4k Content looks amazing, and that’s an accurate statement. If there are –any- questions regarding the picture quality feel free to look through the high definition video/photography forums like redforum to take their word for it.
Those guys and gals are professionals who spend 10s of thousands of dollars on 4k2k and 8k4k photography and video equipment. The majority opinion over there is that this is a surprisingly great panel for its price point. I am not the only person who replaced a high-end 30” with this and didn’t look back.
Gaming Testing
The first thing I did was run Valley at Ultra Extreme Custom(to choose 3840x2160) and by test 9/18 my Radeons were being crushed against their upper frame buffer limit of 3GB and cursing me while yelling, “Rape!”. In order to successfully complete a run I had to use the following settings:
3840x2160 Ultra DX11 2xAA
For comparison’s sake I used these same settings for the GeForce Titan testing.
Test Platform 1
Core i7 2600K 3.4GHz using Upper Multiplier limit of 47 with Radeon 7970s stock clocks on the Gigabyte W3 is 1100MHz/1500MHz
Score = 1611 points with 38.5fps average
Test Platform 2
Core i7 3770K 3.4GHz using Upper Multiplier limit of 47 with GeForce Titans at stock clocks
Score = 2384 with 57.0fps average
Next up was Bioshock 1. Why use an older game such as that when games like Bioshock Infinite are available?
Figure 3 - Radeon 7970s in Xfire Screenshot
RESERVED FOR Bioshock Infinite Generic Benchmark results later today
Each quarter of the screen is 1920x1080. If you’re reading this while using American Idol Resolution, you can plainly see you’re missing out on 75% of the big picture.
I bought this TV to use as a monitor mainly for the added desktop real estate it provides and, in this area, it is superior. I generally surf the net while having several apps open. My browser takes up roughly half of two of the 4 blocks on the right side. At this resolution, that leaves me with enough space left over to watch a movie in a 39” diagonal window in Windows Media Player.
When using productivity applications such as MS Access, Excel, Word, Power Point, etc. there is simply no comparison to my old setup, or even to my old Eyefinity setup. (Anyone recall the cursor glitch?)
30Hz Gaming
It’s “different”. I won’t try to say it’s not. I will say that it’s perfectly acceptable to me. However, it is eminently playable for me. I also tweaked my game’s ini files to remove the input lag entirely in some games and reduced it to levels that do not adversely affect my game play in others.
While my game library is small, it does have some of the most popular games. Skyrim, FONV, BioShock !, 2, and 3, Kerbal Space Program are the most recent games but I also loaded Total Annihilation Supreme Commander Pack from GOG and it is simply awesome.
Reliability/Service
Unknown. I’d never heard of Seiki before last month. I don’t even know if they’ll be around next month. However, I can’t imagine them going out of business when they respond to a customer’s request within 24h while Samsung has not responded in 9 months to a simple question I had about rearranging the icons in my Smart TV Menu…
Final Impressions
Increasing my desktop real estate to footprint ratio what I've been waiting for, and hoping for, and dreaming of for over a year now.
During that time I have searched high and low for a way to go beyond 2560x1600 without going back to using Eyefinity/NV Surround.
For a “cheap”, no-frills TV to succeed where a monitor behemoth has fallen short says something very good about Seiki’s latest product release. For me, it can best be summarized in 3 words; Worth. Every. Penny.
Preface:
I've already done the 3 screen portrait mode Eyefinity thing. After the novelty wore off, I was left with 3x the energy usage of a single monitor, bezels that broke up the image, and compatibility issues related to crossfire in apps (mostly games).
One More Note: I offered to help test font color readability differences between the light and dark themes but was told the issue was moot because someone is working on correcting the code to display a readable color no matter which theme you choose to use. I don't know if that happened yet so Due to the Light/Dark Theme issue, you may not like the font color I chose.
Seiki Digital SE50UY04 Mini-Review
I've been using a Dell U3011 for a few years now, having bought it to replace 3 Dell U2410s in Portrait Mode Eyefinity. The 30" seemed a great compromise and, in fact, I've been quite pleased with it; to the point that I have mentioned, on more than one occasion, that it was among the best purchases I've ever made.
Fast forward two years and I find that I spend as much time yearning for a new, higher resolution monitor as I do gaming. Gaming isn't even the issue, either...I just want more real estate for productivity apps.
As I was surfing on one of the hardware forums I frequent, I came across a thread about a person who purchased a Sharp 4k2k Monitor capable of 60Hz and was waiting for it to arrive. While reading the thread I decided to do a Google search to read up a bit on the Sharp monitor.
I came across a link to the Seiki 50” QuadHD TV (advertised as 4k2k) capable of 3840x2160 resolution. At the time, no one seemed to know if it was capable of only 30Hz, whether it took two HDMI cables to create a picture, or much of anything else about it, except that it was being offered for $1299 + free shipping and no tax. After I linked to it in the thread, people started looking at it and discussing its weak points and strengths someone posted a link to the PCPer pod cast where that site had ordered one to see if it was acceptable for gaming.
Based on that review some people decided to take the plunge and order it. I was one of those who decided to order but, when I tried to get it from Tiger Direct, it was out of stock. I went to ShopNBC instead and ordered it. The only negative about using the ShopNBC site was the shipping was slower than everyone else’s’ so I didn’t receive my TV until well after others started receiving theirs.
Reasons Why I Took a Chance
- Abnormally Low Price
- No bells & Whistles (Since I am going to use it as a monitor, I don’t need all the options available in my Samsung TV
- The Possibility (unknown, untested, and ultimately un-doable 60Hz refresh using (2) HDMI cables as input)
- 1yr Replacement Warranty
Mine arrived two weeks and 2 days after I ordered it. It arrived using fully adequate shipping packing. It actually came better packed than my Samsun Smart TV so I was pleasantly surprised.
My first impressions of the unit itself matched those of the PCPer podcast in that the unit has a somewhat flimsy base plate stand on which it rests. The screws holding the plate in place did not look much bigger than some case screws I have seen before so I was initially worried about it just snapping and falling over on its own.
Setup was completed without any hassles though so I moved on to connecting it to my computer, using the included HDMI 1.4a cable. (Very nice to see they didn’t skimp on the cable)
Figure 1 - Size Comparison of Seiki 50" vs. Dell U3011
Test Setup
Test setup consists of two almost identical systems, both of which used Enhanced Turbo mode for on-the-fly overclocking of all 4 cores, and the only major differences were the Video Cards used and the CPU Used:
Sys #1
MSI Z77A-GD65
Intel Core i7 2600K
Corsair H-100i
(2) Gigabyte W3 Radeon 7970s
180GB SSD, (2) M4 512GB SSDs
Corsair AX-850
Kingston HyperX Beast 2400MHz
Win7 Pro 64/Win8 Pro 64 (Dual Boot)
Sys #2
MSI Z77A-GD65
Intel Core i7 3770K
Corsair H-100i
(2) Asus GeForce GTX Titans
180GB SSD, (2) M4 512GB SSDs
Corsair AX1200i
Kingston HyperX Beast 2400MHz
Win7 Pro 64/Win8 Pro 64 (Dual Boot)
Setup in the OS was painless. I adjusted the Resolution to the panel’s native res and that was it. I did not attempt to do anything differently than the PCPer podcast as far as settings were concerned. I used the HDMI out from my Radeons in Crossfire and it seemed fine. Over the next few days, however, I noticed a problem where the resolution would suddenly “reset” itself.
Initial reports seemed to be related to Radeons so I created a ticket with Seiki and with AMD in an effort to get them to coordinate with each other and research/resolve the problem. Turns out that it was a TV-related issue entirely and Seiki had an updated firmware available the day after I reported the problem. It actually took me longer to get documentation from them on how to flash the Firmware to the latest version than it took them to create the firmware. I believe this is due to a couple factors.
- Their firmware upgrade process is well defined on their site and this TV’s update process is completely different so their Tech writer probably was never informed of the change in update processes.
- It felt like the person I dealt with believed I was a little more technically astute than I actually am, so he thought I’d figure it out. (and I didn’t until he listed the steps for me)
Because it does not have expensive up-conversion hardware built-in, if you feed it crappy video, you’re going to get crappy video out. Just in a larger, blockier video.
Playback of 1080p content I downloaded from Youtube (mp4 versions of most recent music videos) is surprisingly well.
10bit 720p content in the form of mkv files is excellent
Make MKV rips of movies like Brave, Prometheus, Avengers, T2 (BluRay edition) are also excellent.
4k Content looks amazing, and that’s an accurate statement. If there are –any- questions regarding the picture quality feel free to look through the high definition video/photography forums like redforum to take their word for it.
Those guys and gals are professionals who spend 10s of thousands of dollars on 4k2k and 8k4k photography and video equipment. The majority opinion over there is that this is a surprisingly great panel for its price point. I am not the only person who replaced a high-end 30” with this and didn’t look back.
Gaming Testing
The first thing I did was run Valley at Ultra Extreme Custom(to choose 3840x2160) and by test 9/18 my Radeons were being crushed against their upper frame buffer limit of 3GB and cursing me while yelling, “Rape!”. In order to successfully complete a run I had to use the following settings:
3840x2160 Ultra DX11 2xAA
For comparison’s sake I used these same settings for the GeForce Titan testing.
Test Platform 1
Core i7 2600K 3.4GHz using Upper Multiplier limit of 47 with Radeon 7970s stock clocks on the Gigabyte W3 is 1100MHz/1500MHz
Score = 1611 points with 38.5fps average
Test Platform 2
Core i7 3770K 3.4GHz using Upper Multiplier limit of 47 with GeForce Titans at stock clocks
Score = 2384 with 57.0fps average
Next up was Bioshock 1. Why use an older game such as that when games like Bioshock Infinite are available?
- Because I like the look and feel of Bioshock 1 better
- Because I wanted to use a less taxing game since I already knew the TV is limited to a 30Hz refresh rate
- Because I’m the one doing the testing, lol.
Figure 3 - Radeon 7970s in Xfire Screenshot
RESERVED FOR Bioshock Infinite Generic Benchmark results later today
Each quarter of the screen is 1920x1080. If you’re reading this while using American Idol Resolution, you can plainly see you’re missing out on 75% of the big picture.
I bought this TV to use as a monitor mainly for the added desktop real estate it provides and, in this area, it is superior. I generally surf the net while having several apps open. My browser takes up roughly half of two of the 4 blocks on the right side. At this resolution, that leaves me with enough space left over to watch a movie in a 39” diagonal window in Windows Media Player.
When using productivity applications such as MS Access, Excel, Word, Power Point, etc. there is simply no comparison to my old setup, or even to my old Eyefinity setup. (Anyone recall the cursor glitch?)
30Hz Gaming
It’s “different”. I won’t try to say it’s not. I will say that it’s perfectly acceptable to me. However, it is eminently playable for me. I also tweaked my game’s ini files to remove the input lag entirely in some games and reduced it to levels that do not adversely affect my game play in others.
While my game library is small, it does have some of the most popular games. Skyrim, FONV, BioShock !, 2, and 3, Kerbal Space Program are the most recent games but I also loaded Total Annihilation Supreme Commander Pack from GOG and it is simply awesome.
Reliability/Service
Unknown. I’d never heard of Seiki before last month. I don’t even know if they’ll be around next month. However, I can’t imagine them going out of business when they respond to a customer’s request within 24h while Samsung has not responded in 9 months to a simple question I had about rearranging the icons in my Smart TV Menu…
Final Impressions
Increasing my desktop real estate to footprint ratio what I've been waiting for, and hoping for, and dreaming of for over a year now.
During that time I have searched high and low for a way to go beyond 2560x1600 without going back to using Eyefinity/NV Surround.
For a “cheap”, no-frills TV to succeed where a monitor behemoth has fallen short says something very good about Seiki’s latest product release. For me, it can best be summarized in 3 words; Worth. Every. Penny.
Preface:
