The consumer value of "4K"

[BonzaiDuck]

I had seen others remark with similar sentiments to those I seem to have.

I may still have 20-20 distance vision, but my near-vision requires glasses. I still need the glasses to read text from my TV set 12' from the couch.

Here's a personal history. When LCD monitors first became available, I looked at the prices to say to myself "You're kidding . . . aren't you?!" I squeezed more years out of my "tube" monitors. At the point where you could get a decent LCD for maybe $200+, I bought my first. That was before "1080p".

I held off buying an LCD HDTV with similar logic, until it became apparent that I'd need a "converter-box" to use the old mammoth GE color tube TV. I waited. I watched. We finally dumped all the tubes and replaced them with a 42" LED_LCD LG, a 32" Samsung, 28" Panasonic and Sansui (!! lemme tell ya bout that, too! Soch a dee-ull!)

OK!! Happity-joy! HD . .. 1920x1080 -- Wunderbar! Ausgezeichnet!

My main computer monitor shared through KVM is a modest Hanns-G 28" 1920x1080 with one . . . dead . . . pixel. Oh-my-gosh!! A dead pixel!! Jus' Tewwible!! (but seriously . . . )

Now everybody is goo-gah over 4K. Sure, technology keeps advancing -- I understand that. I'm also looking at the prices on the new ones. Can't see it. Or -- I can't see paying the price, when my eyes likely can't see the difference.

And looking at the new graphics cards, I can see they're almost over-powered for 1080p. I'm guessing you need to consider SLI for multi-monitor setups and especially 4K setups. The performance differences between flagship and second-tier cards only seem more noticeable at 3840x2160.

We're pushing more and more data through the cards at a faster rate to get 4K. But really. Can my eyes really tell the difference?

Somebody tell me about the "benefits of 4K." I want to know! I want to know! Would it be . . . that if I bought a 60" or 80" display, that I'd "suddenly see the light?" Truth is, unless I purchase a palatial home with larger rooms, that size of a TV, monitor or any other deployment just doesn't make sense.

 

[wand3r3r]

If you look at pictures you can see a LOT more detail on the screen. Very obvious.

Games, especially with detailed textures. There is a huge difference (obviously a performance increase, but even with lower settings 4k looks much better than e.g. 1080p "imo"). I would sacrifice in game settings for 4k without question, in order to maintain playable gameplay. The next GPU upgrade may start to approach playable 4k and the monitor will almost certainly outlive a gpu or two.

I would liken it to going from the older phones with huge visible pixels, to a retina screen where you cannot distinguish pixels and there is a ton of detail. Not that a phone is near the experience that a high resolution monitor offers.

These depend on the size of the 4k monitor and your viewing distance.

There are some scaling questions but I found windows scaling sufficient for my needs and uses. I also have 20/20 vision but a 28" monitor would probably require 125-150% scaling to be able to sit a reasonable distance from it.

You need high resolution "content" to benefit from it. If all you do is surf the web etc. then there's no point.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

If you look at pictures you can see a LOT more detail on the screen. Very obvious.

Games, especially with detailed textures. There is a huge difference (obviously a performance increase, but even with lower settings 4k looks much better than e.g. 1080p "imo"). I would sacrifice in game settings for 4k without question, in order to maintain playable gameplay. The next GPU upgrade may start to approach playable 4k and the monitor will almost certainly outlive a gpu or two.

I would liken it to going from the older phones with huge visible pixels, to a retina screen where you cannot distinguish pixels and there is a ton of detail. Not that a phone is near the experience that a high resolution monitor offers.

These depend on the size of the 4k monitor and your viewing distance.

There are some scaling questions but I found windows scaling sufficient for my needs and uses. I also have 20/20 vision but a 28" monitor would probably require 125-150% scaling to be able to sit a reasonable distance from it.

You need high resolution "content" to benefit from it. If all you do is surf the web etc. then there's no point.

True on most counts, or haven't yet found one with which to fundamentally disagree. "IF all you do is search the web," work with e-mail and business apps, your mainstreamer would be happy with an i3 processor and a $50 graphics card.

I especially surmise the point you make about display size and distance. At one extreme, the movie and game enthusiast might "enjoy" something like Disneyland's "California Adventure" (while he also enjoys a bank account with considerably more than average digits in the balance.) On the other, in a 20x16' room, 42" HD is almost the practical limit for me.

I've got two high-end systems, one which feeds both the desktop HD and an AVR/HDTV. I have a spare HDMI cable of equal length to the one already deployed. It only differs as it's a DVI-to-HDMI cable, but I think it still passes audio as well as video, and I have a DVI input on the AVR -- or -- the HDTV. So I could assign Media Center operability to one machine, and gaming to the other.

But -- no -- I'm not going to spring for 4K TV and monitor now. to me, HD is just fine. Or -- y'all need to convince me. Put it another way: I'm toying with the idea of purchasing another gfx card for SLI. But I don't think it will make much of a difference. When it finally "makes a difference," both cards would likely be long outdated.

Any more folks with thoughts and observations?

 

[Qwertilot]

If you look at retina mac's you'll see how the text can turn out. It really is much better than 1080.

 

[wand3r3r]

I agree with going for a monitor before a TV since there isn't any content for 4k TV's yet (technically maybe netflix and maybe a couple homemade youtube videos).

One more point, if you need space for productivity then a 4k monitor would be an excellent replacement for dual monitor or similar. It would need to be large enough to have say word + a browser open side by side (or even more windows) and still be legible. I often have e.g. an IDE, VM, and browser open simultaneously. At least that is part of my drive for going 4k.

You may want to check into G-sync, 4k is where it would be most useful. Whether it's worth the $ is up to you.