Need help with 4k IPS monitor choice

[PrincessFrosty]

I've been reading more and more 4k threads and I'm fairly sure I want to make the transition from my much loved Dell 30" 2560x1600 IPS which I've had for 7 years.

I've been away from the display scene for a long time now, so I'm wondering right off the bat if there's any really popular 4k IPS monitors right now and if there's anything we should specifically be avoiding, I'm not interested in anything less than 60hz and I'm not interested in TN panels. Anywhere between 27-32" roughly is a good sweet spot for me. It will be used for a lot of desktop work and gaming of all kinds. The GTX980 alone wont be a great experience for the AAA games I expect but will work for most older titles and I'll be getting a 2nd one in the future.

Some that I've looked at so far:

Dell P2715Q 27" - This meets all the criteria and is currently on sale for £500 which is one of the best deals so far, it's also 350cd/m2 brightness. I'm also more inclined to go with Dell again since their last panel was so reliable.

Acer 4k2k B276HK 27" - Not a huge fan of Acer kit to be honest, not really sure why, just not a brand I've relied on before. £419 seems very cheap for a 4k IPS panel...

Asus PB279Q 27" - I like Asus and I use their kit a lot so more faith in this but it's a fair bit more expensive at £630

BenQ BL3201PT 32" - This is larger at 32" which I'm OK with, it's also a bit brighter again, I have a BenQ 24" 120hz panel which I'm very pleased with so it makes this option tempting, it's on deal at £680 at the moment. As well as the larger size it also has a 4ms G2G which seems like the best response time of all the IPS panels.

Over this panels start getting into the £1k range which I'm not going to spend, I think 800 is my limit this time around. Is there any advice anyone can give with these panels, I really need to get more informed about the smaller details to make a good purchase decision.

 

[Gigglinpig]

Have you checked out the new Asus 4k 60hz g-sync that's coming out this Summer? This is the one I am waiting for to make the 4K plunge.


http://rog.asus.com/393642015/gaming-monitors/ces-2015-rog-swift-pg27aq-27-inch-4k-lcd-with-gsync/


27-inch LCD with super-thin bezel design and ROG aesthetics
4K (3840 x 2160) @ 60Hz
In-Plane Switching spec LCD
Nvidia G-Sync
ASUS ROG GamePlus
DisplayPort 1.2
Contrast Ratio: 1000:1
Brightness: 300 cd/m²

 

[monstercameron]

http://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-27MU67-B-4k-uhd-led-monitor

4k, 10bit, ips, freesync, $600 USD

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Appreciate the feedback, I'm actually not bothered by tearing so I'm not particularly interested in g/free-sync, especially if it pushes up the price of the panel or means I have to wait. I can't seem to find that LG panel for sale in the UK despite the good price :/

I could wait but given that I recently discovered the prices on these things had plummeted It gave me the itch to buy and I have a nice fat savings account to eat into so I'm not that inclined to wait at this stage.

 

[awnm]

4k seems to make most sense at 30" and greater - 27" seems to be pushing the usability too much without significant font scaling.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

I can use small screens I have an 11" Zenbook with a full 1080p IPS screen that I can easily use, and windows can scale the DPI anyway. Am I right in saying there isn't much between these monitors then? No one seems to have a strong opinion either way that I've been able to find.

 

[Fire&Blood]

I can use small screens I have an 11" Zenbook with a full 1080p IPS screen that I can easily use, and windows can scale the DPI anyway. Am I right in saying there isn't much between these monitors then? No one seems to have a strong opinion either way that I've been able to find.

Consider again what awnm suggested, a 27" 4K display implies scaling which Windows still doesn't do well.

A 32" 4K display still offers a ~30% PPI increase over a 27" 1440p display.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

I'm aware of the PPI of the monitors, my Zenbook has about 200 PPI and I have zero issue using that, so I think I can deal with 163PPI of 4k@27"

I'm primarily interested in getting a 4k monitor to increase the PPI, I already have a 30" 2560x1600 IPS and quite frankly I don't want any bigger than that. I'm willing to entertain up to 32" panels but 27" is fine for me.

 

[omeds]

Great info in the first 2 posts, thanks guys. I knew of the ASUS coming out, but didn't know about the LG already available.

What other options are there for 4k freesync/gsync displays atm, that are not TN??

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Ugh this is making my head spin trying to decide, I really want to grab one for the weekend but end up delving into endless threads about these panels, at hardOCP i've been reading threads on the BenQ and Dell panels both of which have had issues.

Maybe the technology isn't quite mature yet but for these panels at the $1k price point shouldn't be having DP issues and alike. I'm liking the Dell P2715Q 27" for the £500 price point but it's tempting to spend the extra £170 for the 32" BenQ, especially considering it has a 2ms pixel response time advantage.

I'm actually now torn between do I go larger than my 30" to the 32" of the BenQ and get improved sized and a smaller improvement in PPI, or go smaller than the 30" to 27" and enjoy a higher PPI increase but with quite a lot of screen size shaved off.

Ugh, first world problems

 

[zagitta]

I am able to use an 11" 1080p screen too but I'm unable to use my 4k 28" AOC u2868pqu without DPI scaling, the two things aren't really comparable since you don't sit as close to the screen as you do with a laptop.

Windows DPI scaling is really terrible, ESPECIALLY with multiple monitors. Hell windows explorer doesn't even work without blurring on multiple monitors when using the new windows 8.1 display aware scaling.

In my honest opinion 1440p or 1600p is the sweetspot for desktop monitors less than 32" for a few more years until the windows DPI scaling gets solved by apps getting updated. Perhaps it's better with only one monitor though, haven't done any testing in that regard.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

I'm hearing conflicting info about the usability of 27-28" 4k with no scaling in windows. Some people say it's usable and others not, I know I'm definitely at the high end of that because I've always preferred high density pixels, I used to use my Iiyama CRT at 2048x1536 which was 19" which is 135 PPI without any issues.

I am however leaning more towards the BenQ right now, I've found the cheapest place in the UK so far to be Scan.co.uk at £671.18

I might also flog my BenQ 120hz 24" 1080p panel to help cover the cost as I'll also likely be looking at a 2nd MSI 980 Gaming edition for SLI

*EDIT*

bleep, I ordered the BenQ for next day delivery tomorrow, coming to the office so sure to be some jellybeans around, fingers crossed no dead pixels, fuuuuu... always apprehensive about these kinds of purchases.

Thing is though, I got my Dell 30" 2560x1600 IPS panel over 7 years ago and it's served me really well since then, even today it's still going strong with only a tiny amount of burn in, good kit lasts so long it's worth it. That panel was £800 so it's only about £100 a year for its use. I'll report back on quality tomorrow when it's all set up

Cursing is not allowed in the technical forums
Moderator Subyman

 

[awnm]

Congrats! Agree it's worth spending a bit extra on a quality monitor given how long they last.

Look forward to your report on this guy. Especially interested in what happens at 1080p.

 

[TemjinGold]

OP: Is there a store near you that you could hop in and check out monitors in person? That should solve your "do I need to go big or go small" problem.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

It arrived today at work and I managed to get away early which was cool, just got it installed and setup, immediately did a monitor test for all primary colours, black and white to check for dead pixels, had the usual scare of bits of dust on the screen maliciously pretending to be dead pixels but no actual dead pixels or sub pixels which I'm SUPER happy about, so they've managed to manafacture nearly 25 million individual sub pixels perfectly, really impressive.

This is a very similar jump in quality I had going to my original 2560x1600 panel all them years ago, it immediately hits you, the increase in quality, the colours popping, the brightness, despite having only 60hz the pixel response time being really good, a huge jump over the 8ms or so of my old Dell.

I think it's safe to say this will last me another 7-8 years like my Dell did, which makes it a really solid investment, if you buy into new tech like this ahead of time but you also shoot for something really high quality, it will last you a long time.

What was most striking was seeing the line up of monitors added in the screen management panel, I'll put the image here:

The biggest is the 4k, the next is my 2560x1600 panel and the end is 1080p, that really hit it home just how mental the size is. I'm going to spend tonight playing games and watching TV and stuff and will report back my experience, any questions feel free to ask.

 

[awnm]

Ha great image! That mini 1080 screen

Really interested to hear whether you need font scaling at 4K on on the 32". And how the 1080p scaling goes for gaming - is it sharp?

(PS your sig says BL2701PT - should be 3201? Don't want to lose those 5"!)

 

[RussianSensation]

(PS your sig says BL2701PT - should be 3201? Don't want to lose those 5"!)

Ya, I dunno what happened there as there is no such 4K monitor in 32" size.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Native windows I don't need font scaling, the PPI is right about where I expected it coming from monitors with similar PPI in the past, it's easily usable for me but a lot of other people in the past have asked how I can use such high PPIs so I'd estimate that for some people it's OK but for many others it might be too small. I love the additional desktop area, you can do a lot with a workspace that is 4x larger than 1080p

I've not tried scaling yet, I played GTAV most of last night in native 4k, i had somewhere between ultra and very high settings in GTA for my 2560x1600 panel and all I did was drop the 2xMSAA and went from 2560x1600 @ 60-70fps to 4k @ 45-55fps which is very playable for me considering.

One thing I noticed is that claims of still needing AA at 4k are not really true. It's incredibly sharp and aliasing was only really noticeable for me when colours were highly contrasting such as bright yellow on black (the GPS guide line on GTA mini map) and also the line was only slightly off-vertical or off-horizontal. This is where you get rows of like 50px in a straight line edge and then its offset by 1 pixel for the next 50 or so pixels. Oddly things like round and curved shapes made any aliasing REALLY hard to see and even straight lines at angles like 45 degrees looked really nice, I mentioned this in another thread but when you complete a GTA heist you get a large circle pop up at the end with your RP/JP scores in it, and those circles appear very sharp. I can only imagine how much better it looks when across only a 27" monitor.

I immediately have a preference for 4k with no AA over 1080p (or some other lower res) but with AA.

I'm going to find some test images and see if I can guage how scaling is done by eye and may even take some pics, right now I've not messed with it, but I know this is a hot topic so I'll see if I can add something of value to it. Oh and yes the sig was wrong, I copied from the wrong model no, thx for spotting that.

 

[RussianSensation]

I love the additional desktop area, you can do a lot with a workspace that is 4x larger than 1080p

I've not tried scaling yet, I played GTAV most of last night in native 4k, i had somewhere between ultra and very high settings in GTA for my 2560x1600 panel and all I did was drop the 2xMSAA and went from 2560x1600 @ 60-70fps to 4k @ 45-55fps which is very playable for me considering.

One thing I noticed is that claims of still needing AA at 4k are not really true.

Congrats on the new screen and thanks for sharing your experiences. I think you made the right call in getting a 32" 4K panel. I think a lot of users who comment that 4K and PPI scaling are a big issues when it comes to using the monitor for things other than gaming in regard to 24-28" 4K panels.

 

[Fire&Blood]

Congrats, I think you made the right choice with the BenQ. 32" gives you more room to maneuver within ideal viewing distance, leaning back in the chair and still comfortably reading, may not work as well on a 27".

Post updates as you make observations, I'm sure I'm not the only considering 4K.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

I can't say for sure that 27-28" panels would be too small in windows for me, they may or may not be, I'd still see that as a contentious point that would absolutely require me to use one for a bit to be sure, but absolutely 24" is too small, the PPI is fantastic there and games I'm sure look insane, but for desktop use that's going to be a huge pain.

Just for the record I'm almost exactly at arms length from my panel at the moment. Obviously view distance is a huge factor, if you sit really far back then pretty much everyone is going to need scaling, even me.

I think the 32" is the right choice, it's greater PPI and greater size than my old panel but may be quite overwhelming from someone not already coming from a 30", it's also somewhat of nagging feeling the thought of going down in size from 30" after all those years, actually if there was a 30" 4k panel in between then I would have taken that. 30-32" is really pushing the limit of what is comfortable for gaming at normal distances, you always have the option to push it back a bit as well.

Probably play a bunch of GTAV tonight and Killing floor 2, I'm also really super excited to try games like RTS and strat which potentially allow you to see more of the battlefield/landscape with higher resolution, I might fire up a new game of Civ5 and take some screens.

Also with Win10 looming I'll be all over that to check for new scaling options, hopefully this is something they've addressed.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

One thing to note about this monitor for anyone potentially interested, which was posted by at least 2 people in the large HardOCP thread dedicated to it. I'm getting the same glitch where every few hours (somewhere between 1-3h) I get a what appears to be a single frame which is partially filled with multi-coloured noise, what appears to be something like 1/4 to 1/3 of the screen.

The glitch is obvious when it happens but it feels very rare, I think I played minecraft in window mode + used lots of desktop apps like watching movies and browsing for about 18 straight hours or so and I probably noticed it 3 times.

I dont know if that's limited to a subset of the monitors or maybe specific connectivity or video cards, it's possible. There's no indication it gets any worse so far, so I'm almost certainly going to "live with it", I could return the panel for a replacement but quite frankly something like 1 dead pixel would bother me way more and there's no guarantee I'd get a pixel perfect monitor 2nd time around.

Honestly i can't see anyone being terribly bothered by this but it's best for customers to know what they're getting so I'm addressing the issue honestly to help you all be more informed.

 

[awnm]

Thanks for the updates. Does power cycling the display fix the glitch?

 

[PrincessFrosty]

I've actually not seen it since I posted last which is quite a number of hours of use. It's been turned off by the power button but not had the power completely pulled. If I do get it again I'll try that, but it's so rare that it'll be timely to test.

 

[awnm]

Full and detailed review of the BL3201 at PC Monitors:

Overall this is a monitor worthy of praise. It is of a size that we feel compliments the UHD resolution very nicely and it offers a very solid performance without any nasty surprises. No monitor is technically perfect and this is no exception, but it’s undoubtedly one of the best UHD models we’ve tested.

How's yours shaping up @PrincessFrosty?