Anyone have a 5k monitor? I'm considering one but information is hard to find and they are still very expensive.
Why 5k? Well, at 27" it is exactly double the old 96DPI standard resolution of 2560x1440. So you can have nice 2x scaling, rather than 1.75x with a 4k monitor of that size.
Philips make some cheaper (sub £600) models, but they seem to only support dual DP links. Recent cards have DP ports that can push 5k over one cable, but it seems like only much more expensive monitors actually support it.
It's not just the resolution, it's the size of the screen and how far you sit away from it. At 27", the difference between ~200 PPI (5k) and ~100 PPI (2560x1440) is clearly visible at 1m to me, so the upgrade is definitely worth it.
Why not just go for 4k? Well, it might look almost identical to 5k, but scaling is the problem. Ideally you want 2x scaling, not some odd fraction. With 2x everything scaled looks good, but with say 1.5 or 1.75 scaling you get annoying artefacts that look horrible. Try it out by zooming your browser to 170% - it will look terrible.
I read the whole thing Kuro and Sorry for sounding like a complete idiot but how will games designed for 4k work here? will it force-stretch it to 5 like ps4 does or will the monitor also offer compatibility with 4k?
I agree that the difference is 'visible', but I don't think it's very helpful to have the extra pixels at such a small size.
I owned a 32" 4k, and I found it to be the bare minimum size you could really use, even when sitting close to it.
This is a subjective issue. My subjective viewpoint is that it isn't worth jumping to 5k at a monitor size less than 35". Right now, there are no non-widescreen monitors in between 32" and 39".
I thought 1080p was still the standard? So 4K would be 2x 1080p.
Anyways, I have a 4K at 24 inches with a DPI of ~183. Now, I have very good eye sight and I sit closer to 70 cm from the screen and I have to say that it is barely within my acceptable range. A higher DPI at only slightly further distance I feel isn't going to be worth it.
It also depends on your OS. Windows doesn't scale well at all, so if you are using Windows good luck. Linux does better, and OSX seems to play best with resolutions that come on Macs.
40" is too big for me, I don't want to be moving my head that much or sitting that far back The amount of desktop space you get would be insane, but I prefer dual monitors for that. My plan was to get a 5k primary monitor and then a secondary cheap 4k in portrait mode.
I was going to get a 2k 27" monitor, a nice one like a Eizo or NEC, probably used. But I think ultra HD is the way to go now, text is more readable and when I used a 4k 24" monitor for a week I found coding productivity was enhanced by that.
Again, it's not the resolution that is standard, it's the PPI. Computer monitors have traditionally been 96 PPI, which I rounded to 100. The default settings of almost every OS are 96 DPI.
What is your OS DPI set to? If you set your DPI to 192 (96x2), which is usually expressed as 200% scaling, the actual physical size of everything displayed with the exactly the same as if you had a 1080p 24" monitor. The only difference is that anything vector based, like text, will be much sharper and clearer.
You either need the game to support scaling (most modern ones do) or you could run the monitor at 2560x1440, which is exactly 1/4 5k resolution. Obviously you won't get 5k image quality but it won't look terrible either. Having said that, I don't really play many games these days, mostly emulators.
The amount of desktop space you get would be insane, but I prefer dual monitors for that. My plan was to get a 5k primary monitor and then a secondary cheap 4k in portrait mode.