[CNET] Intel in push for cheap 4K displays

[Vesku]

http://www.cnet.com/news/intel-to-deliver-cheaper-4k-monitors-thanks-to-samsung-partnership/

Nice to see a push for mainstream 4K PC resolution but can we also expect Intel to tighten up its resolution requirements for ultrabooks?

 

[Ayah]

they've been plummeting in price already.

but yes, if history matters, they'll definitely be tightening res requirements for ultrabooks, as well as battery life.

still waiting for reasonably priced graphics capabilities to come around to be able to run that kind of resolution in multitask multidisplay use. (for me, 3 screens = 3 tasks/games)

 

[BrightCandle]

With no spec for 120hz at 4k it wont be getting me anytime soon. Refresh rate matters a lot more to me than pixel density at this point. They really really need to get on and work out how to get 4k at 120hz.

 

[tviceman]

Until high DPI issues are entirely resolved in Windows, I am not moving up from 1440p.

 

[Erenhardt]

Does it mean intel with "contra-revenue" some 4k displays so we can have it cheaper? Because that is how intel pushes things lately. Great news!

 

[tolis626]

With no spec for 120hz at 4k it wont be getting me anytime soon. Refresh rate matters a lot more to me than pixel density at this point. They really really need to get on and work out how to get 4k at 120hz.

I'm a little sceptical about that. On one hand, there are too few 120+Hz 1440p screens around (The Swift and overclockable Korean ones?). On the other hand, I think the push for high refresh rate 4K panels will be from TV companies because they'll want it for 3D and "super wow fluid 20GHz motion rate" stuff. So the technology itself will arrive sooner rather than later (1440p 120Hz monitors would only be for gamers) in my opinion. Perhaps as soon as bandwidth problems are corrected with the connections, or maybe a little later. Surely not as late in the lifespan of 4K panels as it was with 1440p ones.

 

[Bill Brasky]

I'm a little sceptical about that. On one hand, there are too few 120+Hz 1440p screens around (The Swift and overclockable Korean ones?). On the other hand, I think the push for high refresh rate 4K panels will be from TV companies because they'll want it for 3D and "super wow fluid 20GHz motion rate" stuff. So the technology itself will arrive sooner rather than later (1440p 120Hz monitors would only be for gamers) in my opinion. Perhaps as soon as bandwidth problems are corrected with the connections, or maybe a little later. Surely not as late in the lifespan of 4K panels as it was with 1440p ones.

I thought 4k 120hz was a bandwidth problem? Can hdmi 2 or displayport do that?

 

[tolis626]

I thought 4k 120hz was a bandwidth problem? Can hdmi 2 or displayport do that?

Yup, that's exactly what I said. I think HDMI 2.0 can barely do 4k at 60Hz. 120Hz at 4k is out of the question even with DP for now. What will be interesting is what will happen after bandwidth problems are solved. Whether that will happen via improved interfaces (HDMI 2.1 and DP 1.4 anyone?) or with data stream compression is yet to be seen, but it's bound to happen sooner rather than later.

 

[KaRLiToS]

With no spec for 120hz at 4k it wont be getting me anytime soon. Refresh rate matters a lot more to me than pixel density at this point. They really really need to get on and work out how to get 4k at 120hz.

Believe me, even if you had 4 x Titan Black in SLI or R9 290x, you wouldn't get 120fps on 4k in many games. Even with AA off.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

Believe me, even if you had 4 x Titan Black in SLI or R9 290x, you wouldn't get 120fps on 4k in many games. Even with AA off.

Besides the games where anything over 60fps isn't possible (bad ports and crappy games through EA etc) I think we are getting close on the graphical front. Our GPUs are already managing 30-60 fps in games depending on the game and settings, so I think. We are only a generation or two from 120 fps at 4k with medium-high settings. Minimums will be a much bigger problem though as even today it is hard to keep your minimums above 120 at 1080p. That's a CPU problem though.

 

[BrightCandle]

Its definitely a spec/bandwidth issue. Display port nor HDMI can cope with 4k at 120hz and so its a really really long way off. With 1080p 3D was designed in from the outset with 120hz being standard and even then it took quite a while before we saw decent gaming monitors based on it. Seeing as quite a lot of gamers these days are using the lightboost 2 144hz monitors it seems kind of crazy to have pushed into the 4k realm with no plan in sight at all. I guess the only option is going to be 120hz with 1440p and the Asus Rog monitor and that is literally it.

Not to mention of course the severe scaling issues in Windows in general making 4k on the desktop a problem just on basic Windows activities. I want 4k but right now its too far away from ready.

 

[dn7309]

I will get a 4k display when I see the need to upgrade to the mac pro.

 

[tolis626]

I will get a 4k display when I see the need to upgrade to the mac pro.

What does needing to buy a trash can have to do with displays?


Seriously though, right now it doesn't make much sense for gaming. Sure, the high DPI looks nice and for productivity it's awesome. But not only are we too far away from acceptable performance at 4k (meaning mainstream, not needing 2 or more GPUs), we are also at the infancy of this particular generation of panels. Big improvements are needed.

If a single GPU is able to push 120Hz at 1440p before stable 60+Hz is possible on 4K, I'll go for the Swift or something similar. Otherwise (or even if things pan out like that, I still haven't really decided), I might just get a 4K monitor and run upscaled 1080p games on it without a GPU upgrade. Maybe...

 

[AkumaX]

Until high DPI issues are entirely resolved in Windows, I am not moving up from 1440p.

had a 2160p monitor on Windows 8.1.1. Too many programs aren't hiDPI ready. Many websites are also unusable. Windows + 2160p has a long ways to go...

 

[Grooveriding]

Scaling is not that much of a problem. There are a few apps that stink. The most notable to me was Photoshop. Seemed really poor on Adobe's part not to scale well at 4K in their apps. Some web sites do give big empty spaces on either side, but you already get this at 1600p. I wouldn't expect that ever to not be an issue at high resolutions.

The real issue is GPU power. Given where we're at now though, I'd expect dual or triple GPU setups of big die 20nm cards to handle max settings @ 4K pretty well. So mid to late 2015 maybe. Screens should cost a lot less by then as well.

 

[MagickMan]

Until scaling is fixed, >1440 isn't comfortably, or practically, usable. They need to yell at MS, not the manufacturers.

 

[KaRLiToS]

Scaling is not that much of a problem. There are a few apps that stink. The most notable to me was Photoshop. Seemed really poor on Adobe's part not to scale well at 4K in their apps. Some web sites do give big empty spaces on either side, but you already get this at 1600p. I wouldn't expect that ever to not be an issue at high resolutions.

The real issue is GPU power. Given where we're at now though, I'd expect dual or triple GPU setups of big die 20nm cards to handle max settings @ 4K pretty well. So mid to late 2015 maybe. Screens should cost a lot less by then as well.

Very true. We don't have enough GPU power to run 4k @ max settings with full Anti-Aliasing. I tested it myself with 4 x R9 290x. And even with medium to high settings with No AA some games still struggle.

Until scaling is fixed, >1440 isn't comfortably, or practically, usable. They need to yell at MS, not the manufacturers.

What? Seriously?

 

[CakeMonster]

Scaling in Windows will sort itself out soon. I'm not even worried about that.

What annoys me and what there's not a current solution for is scaling in games. With a 4K monitor I'll want to play in a lower resolution, but I don't want Windows to resize all my windows + the windows on my other monitor. I have a 1600p display today and some games I'd prefer to play in a lower resolution but I won't because it will screw up my whole desktop arrangement. Why can't games scale like video where it will fill the screen without messing up everything else?

 

[bystander36]

Its definitely a spec/bandwidth issue. Display port nor HDMI can cope with 4k at 120hz and so its a really really long way off. With 1080p 3D was designed in from the outset with 120hz being standard and even then it took quite a while before we saw decent gaming monitors based on it. Seeing as quite a lot of gamers these days are using the lightboost 2 144hz monitors it seems kind of crazy to have pushed into the 4k realm with no plan in sight at all. I guess the only option is going to be 120hz with 1440p and the Asus Rog monitor and that is literally it.

Not to mention of course the severe scaling issues in Windows in general making 4k on the desktop a problem just on basic Windows activities. I want 4k but right now its too far away from ready.

Wouldn't 120hz be possible if they continued to use the split screen method for 4k? They could power half the screen with one DP/HDMI port, and the other half with another. That is the only way I see it happening anytime soon.

 

[BrightCandle]

Scaling in Windows will sort itself out soon. I'm not even worried about that.

A large part of the problem lies with the developers of the applications themselves. Its not always Microsoft's software that is at fault but the fact that the applications report supporting their own scaling and then don't actually do it. This isn't something that will resolve quickly, its been a problem for years and some of these applications are going to take many years for this to get fixed, even if they actively start doing something about it now.

Wouldn't 120hz be possible if they continued to use the split screen method for 4k? They could power half the screen with one DP/HDMI port, and the other half with another. That is the only way I see it happening anytime soon.

I guess, although I for one don't think MST within a single display has a future, its a complexity nightmare on both ends and it had a lot of problems when it was initially released. Its a short term workaround but it brings with it issues with more than one monitor and synchronisation between displays as you are effectively running surround/eyefinity all the time. If its not in the spec we aren't going to see many companies do it.

 

[MagickMan]

Very true. We don't have enough GPU power to run 4k @ max settings with full Anti-Aliasing. I tested it myself with 4 x R9 290x. And even with medium to high settings with No AA some games still struggle.





What? Seriously?

Correct, 1440 (2560x1440) is about the limit, given the scaling crapshoot in Windows.

 

[selni]

Until scaling is fixed, >1440 isn't comfortably, or practically, usable. They need to yell at MS, not the manufacturers.

There's only so much MS (at least the windows team, I'm sure there's MS products that don't handle DPI scaling as well) can do about this - the problem is bad third party software.

 

[rgallant]

not only ms what about nv.

looking at nvcp on 1440
3d settings box is 5 1/4" x 4" on a 27" screen folks even nv programers don't have anything but their laptops to view their programing .

it's a joke for the company with the larges market share of dgpu's that can't even scale their own gui.
get the most of the gforce experience with your face 6" from your monitor screen to set up your state of the art gpu