4k hdtv as a monitor?

[11thHour]

I'm looking at 40" 4k monitors and see there are a number of 4k tv options in the price range I might get a monitor. What are the pros/cons of using a 4k tv as a monitor? (I'm thinking this has been asked here before but i haven't found the thread.)

 

[Viper GTS]

Pros:

• Bigger and cheaper than monitors
• Typically IPS panels
• More usable DPI if you want the resolution for desktop space @ 100% UI scaling, particularly if your vision is less than perfect

Cons:

• Need to find one capable of 4:4:4 @ 60hz, not all make good monitors. You must do your research.
• Extremely limited input options, you'll almost certainly need an HDMI 2.0 video card (GTX 9x0 series) or Club3D's new DP to HDMI 2.0 adapter.
• Relatively few image adjustment options on cheaper TVs, some may not be able to fully disable sharpening or other features designed for video and poorly suited for desktop use.
• Poor power management compared to monitors - TV may shut off if the input signal goes away but it probably won't be coming back on without physically turning it back on. Monitors have sleep modes. This causes strange behavior in the desktop OS which will likely resize/move windows to some standard size/placement if the display disappears.
• Likely high input lag vs a monitor.
• Typically fixed stands (height/tilt). You may need an arm or aftermarket stand to make it act more like a monitor and end up at a usable height.
• Typically glossy.
• No G-Sync/Freesync/etc

All this said - I love mine and have never regretted buying it a year ago. I will still replace it with a monitor when they are available.

Viper GTS

 

[11thHour]

Pros:

• Bigger and cheaper than monitors
• Typically IPS panels
• More usable DPI if you want the resolution for desktop space @ 100% UI scaling, particularly if your vision is less than perfect

Cons:

• Need to find one capable of 4:4:4 @ 60hz, not all make good monitors. You must do your research.
• Extremely limited input options, you'll almost certainly need an HDMI 2.0 video card (GTX 9x0 series) or Club3D's new DP to HDMI 2.0 adapter.
• Relatively few image adjustment options on cheaper TVs, some may not be able to fully disable sharpening or other features designed for video and poorly suited for desktop use.
• Poor power management compared to monitors - TV may shut off if the input signal goes away but it probably won't be coming back on without physically turning it back on. Monitors have sleep modes. This causes strange behavior in the desktop OS which will likely resize/move windows to some standard size/placement if the display disappears.
• Likely high input lag vs a monitor.
• Typically fixed stands (height/tilt). You may need an arm or aftermarket stand to make it act more like a monitor and end up at a usable height.
• Typically glossy.
• No G-Sync/Freesync/etc

All this said - I love mine and have never regretted buying it a year ago. I will still replace it with a monitor when they are available.

Viper GTS

Great feedback, thanks Viper. I'm going to have to do some research on some of these things to learn a little more.

 

[ispaure]

The biggest thing I'd warn you about is input lag. Sometimes configuring game mode on the TV isn't straightforward, and might only work with specific resolutions ie. native and specific hz. So make sure you research this.

Also, viewing distance. You want to get something big, especially if you use it for browsing the internet etc since text tends to be smaller. You can adjust the DPI in Windows, but bigger is always better.

That said, for the past 4 months I've used solely my PC on a 55 inch 4K monitor for anything from checking email to playing the latest games. As long as you keep the TV not far from you it's an enjoyable experience.

 

[MongGrel]

Just something from Nef land.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=37952124#post37952124

36" 4096x2160 (4K not UHD!) is about perfect size IMO.
8K/16K OLED panels in this size will be awesome!

 

[Greg04]

I'm looking at 40" 4k monitors and see there are a number of 4k tv options in the price range I might get a monitor. What are the pros/cons of using a 4k tv as a monitor? (I'm thinking this has been asked here before but i haven't found the thread.)

Check out http://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-usage/pc-monitor/best

If you are really serious and don't own a very recent GPU, you're looking at the $750-1000 range to get a respectable setup. That's if you are interested in 4:4:4 goodness.

 

[postmortemIA]

Make sure it has special filtering for PC input, because it will look like crap otherwise, even on native resolution.

 

[Rubycon]

4K UHD TVs make great PC displays as long as they support 60Hz 4:4:4 over HDMI. Otherwise text will be difficult to read. There are a plethora of discussions on settings to use for best results as well.

 

[DiogoDX]

I'm using a samsung 40' 4K JU6500 with a 980Ti and the experience is great. It does 4:4:4 60Hz in PC mode.

Here in Brazil this TV is much more cheap than a good monitor.

 

[11thHour]

Check out http://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-usage/pc-monitor/best

If you are really serious and don't own a very recent GPU, you're looking at the $750-1000 range to get a respectable setup. That's if you are interested in 4:4:4 goodness.

This is a great link and site! The reviews are very thorough and the comments/discussions are very insightful. I'm still getting a grasp of all the variables and haven't gone forward on one yet. My rule of thumb is to measure 10 times, cut once...and then I'll only have a 75% chance of screwing it up.

 

[Madpacket]

This is a great link and site! The reviews are very thorough and the comments/discussions are very insightful. I'm still getting a grasp of all the variables and haven't gone forward on one yet. My rule of thumb is to measure 10 times, cut once...and then I'll only have a 75% chance of screwing it up.

Just buy a 4K monitor, not a TV and you will have none of the problems Viper has stated. There are plenty of options showing up now.

I personally bought a 49" 4K WasabI Mango (rebranded LG IPS display with 1200:1 contrast ratio and low input lag, low G2G pixel response, Freesync etc) for cheap. They come in smaller sizes but you can get them at NewEgg now. They're all 4:4:4 10 bit panels and look beautiful. No scaling issues to worry about like 4K panels at 32" and smaller. Philips also has a cheap 40" VA panel but it suffers from slow G2G response times and has no Freesync.

 

[tential]

Just buy a 4K monitor, not a TV and you will have none of the problems Viper has stated. There are plenty of options showing up now.

I personally bought a 49" 4K WasabI Mango (rebranded LG IPS display with 1200:1 contrast ratio and low input lag, low G2G pixel response, Freesync etc) for cheap. They come in smaller sizes but you can get them at NewEgg now. They're all 4:4:4 10 bit panels and look beautiful. No scaling issues to worry about like 4K panels at 32" and smaller. Philips also has a cheap 40" VA panel but it suffers from slow G2G response times and has no Freesync.

Yup. I game on a TV, and a projector. But I'm buying that monitor for the lower input lag for shooters/fighting games. It's better to just have a good monitor, especially when they're dropping in price with a lot of features from overseas.

4K HDTV is only a great buy if you are an Nvidia loyalist. Otherwise, the monitor is good because you still have the option of using freesync later downt he line.

 

[11thHour]

Just buy a 4K monitor, not a TV and you will have none of the problems Viper has stated. There are plenty of options showing up now.

I personally bought a 49" 4K WasabI Mango (rebranded LG IPS display with 1200:1 contrast ratio and low input lag, low G2G pixel response, Freesync etc) for cheap. They come in smaller sizes but you can get them at NewEgg now. They're all 4:4:4 10 bit panels and look beautiful. No scaling issues to worry about like 4K panels at 32" and smaller. Philips also has a cheap 40" VA panel but it suffers from slow G2G response times and has no Freesync.

Interesting. I'm looking for a 40" and they have a 43"... My biggest concern buying one of those would be warranty issues, getting it from a 3rd party seller. (looks like someone's complained about the issue as well.)

 

[Puffnstuff]

I briefly considered going the tv route and was looking at a Samsung curved unit. I ended up getting a dedicated 34" curved monitor and called it a day.

 

[AdamK47]

Don't get a 4k TV. Get the Philips BDM4065UC 40" 4k monitor. It's a VA panel and has great color contrast.

 

[Socio]

Don't get a 4k TV. Get the Philips BDM4065UC 40" 4k monitor. It's a VA panel and has great color contrast.

Hey Adam have a few questions about that monitor;

It has a 8.5ms response rate how does it affect gaming?

Some have complained of smearing with fast moving objects do you see that?

I can play games adequately at 1920X1080, there is no way I can play at 3840 x 2160 until I do some major upgrading. Can you play games at lower resolutions than 3840 x 2160 with the desktop at 3840 x 2160?

 

[AdamK47]

I do see some smearing. It's not bad. It's about as comparable to a DoubleSight 30" IPS that I also own. There is some pretty nasty after image if I turn the pixel response time up in the monitor settings. I leave that at default instead.

This Philips uses a VA panel which produces deep dark blacks without any sort of glow in corners. That's important to have with a monitor this size.

I use 3840x2160 in everything I play since my PC has more than enough horsepower to run it. Of course you can run anything at any resolution you want with the desktop resolution still at 3840x2160.

 

[Socio]

Thanks for the information, think I am going to pull the trigger on one.

 

[11thHour]

Don't get a 4k TV. Get the Philips BDM4065UC 40" 4k monitor. It's a VA panel and has great color contrast.

What's the best connection to the video card for these, hdmi or display port?

At this point, I'm considering this philips monitor and a MSI GeForce GTX 970 GAMING 100 Million Edition OC 4GB GDDR5. The 980's are too expensive and this card should let me play some flight sim games.

 

[AdamK47]

DisplayPort.

Not all cables are created equal. I have three cables. The only one that works correctly all the time is the Accell B142C-007B UltraAV DisplayPort 1.2 cable.

 

[11thHour]

DisplayPort.

Not all cables are created equal. I have three cables. The only one that works correctly all the time is the Accell B142C-007B UltraAV DisplayPort 1.2 cable.

Thanks, I never would have known that. I went ahead and ordered the monitor, card, and cable. This is mainly for work and are needed now so it would have been really difficult to wait for oled or the price of this monitor to come down.

 

[Lepton87]

That 40'' 4K monitor is actually rather cheap, it's less expensive than a 21:9 34'' 3440x144 IPS or equivalent. I briefly considered going with a 2560x1440 32'' for now until a monitor that I really want becomes available and which I could actually afford. What lacks from that monitor and what I really want is 120/144Hz refresh rate, heck even 75Hz would make me choose that monitor but still it seems like a better choice than 34 2560x1440 60Hz, I can swallow the almost 50% price hike it steels costs almost 2x less than the Acer Predator X34 100Hz 3440x1440. I'd like not go into 4K just yet because a single 980Ti even watercooled is not enough to game fluidly in all games with all of their graphical glory, turnning IQ settings down will be a must in modern games, on the flip side there are often graphical options that have negligible effect on the image quality, sometimes turning them off is barely percitable and sometimes you need to compare images side by side to notice the difference and that often costs 50% of performance for basically the same IQ. I never had to do that but I ques I can live with that. I wish the 16nm launch were different than 28nm launch especially for NV. I'd like to buy a proper high-end Icard when 16nm GPUs launch but if that doesn't I want settle for a mid-range card so maybe AMD can deliver this time. I won't definately buy a mid-range card still I won't buy an another Titan I don't even remember what I was thinking at the time and then I even went TITAN SLI although I paid 50% of the original price for the second Titan but to make matters worse I sunk a lot of money in FC waterblocks for the titans and unfortunately that was wasted money. Soon after my purchase 980 was released and it was at that moment when the performance of kepler cards fell terribly behind both maxwell and the competition, going from being about on par with R9 290X to being quite a bit slower than a vanilla R9 290, R290X became substantially faster. As soon after that I had a leak and one of my cards got fried in the process so I bought 980Ti and then installed an FC block on it but I think it's too late to go SLI unless I can find somewhere a heavily discounted 980Ti but it's an unrealistic demand to make the SLI route even more of a stretch for a reasonable price I need an identical gigabyte card, right? So it can't buy just any 980Ti, only that specific Gigabyte card, right? Not worth it with 16nm coming relatively, I've been stuck on 28nm since 2012 I can wait just a little bit longer for 16nm.
BTW. Are both new graphics card confirmed to be made on 16nm FF+ TSMC node or can still samsung's 14nm node be used for one vendor or maybe for some GPUs like for example entry level GPU goes to samsung and the rest to TSMC is such a solution even feasible?

 

[AdamK47]

I've been following this 40" Philips since it was only available in Europe. People were buying them and having them shipped to the US for up to $1200. It wasn't until the middle of last year when Philips went ahead and released the monitor for US sale.

A 40" 4K VA panel at a solid 60 FPS (no dips) with 3840x2160 and every setting turned up is a great thing to behold.

 

[Miramonti]

DisplayPort.

Not all cables are created equal. I have three cables. The only one that works correctly all the time is the Accell B142C-007B UltraAV DisplayPort 1.2 cable.

The Accell works better than the supplied cable? When do you notice the difference?

I went ahead and bought this monitor last week. I almost rma'd it until I found the rocker switch on the back (which the directions said nothing about), thinking that pressing the directional nob was broken.

The price on Amazon is now $699. I bought it for $786, but Amazon credited the difference.

I'm disappointed with the amount of burn-in already. I use a light blue background and there is already some purple shading settling in. I've since switched to a black background. Overall, at only 21 pounds, its a beautiful screen and a 40" is about perfect for the 4k resolution.

 

[Lepton87]

The Accell works better than the supplied cable? When do you notice the difference?

I went ahead and bought this monitor last week. I almost rma'd it until I found the rocker switch on the back (which the directions said nothing about), thinking that pressing the directional nob was broken.

The price on Amazon is now $699. I bought it for $786, but Amazon credited the difference.

I'm disappointed with the amount of burn-in already. I use a light blue background and there is already some purple shading settling in. I've since switched to a black background. Overall, at only 21 pounds, its a beautiful screen and a 40" is about perfect for the 4k resolution.

Knowing what you know now would you still have bought it or would you have chosen something else? This is actually the cheapest monitor that I consider it "only" costs 3000PLN in Poland while Acer predator X34(34'' curved 21:9 100Hz G-SYNC better for games but how much better? How about the future when I can actually maintain 60fps at 4K with only very occasional dips that are too rare to really impact the experience?) which is the monitor that I would like the most costs almost two times more at 5500PLN. Is is worth the price hike? It is smaller and has a lower resolution but for now I consider the lower resolution to be an advantage because a single card even a water cooled 980Ti can't handle 4K resolution I would really need two high-end graphics cards but that is for now in the future when 16nm gpus become available I expect them to double the performance of the current crop of 28nm gpus which should handle 4K just barely but I don't need to have every setting cranked up to the maximum if the difference in IQ is small enough to be barely noticeable I have no qualms turning such a setting down or off. I do this right now even if I the game is playable at the maximum details. I prefer to have some performance left to not noticeable IQ advantage in motion and only noticeable in still image when compared side by side. Many games have such graphics settings ever since I use only a single card I always try to seek those and disable them.