I'm thinking of going Ultra HD - what should I know?

[Lesthegringo]

I know that the first thing I will have to consider is the framerate with a GTX1070Ti, down the road when availability and prices improve a better GPU will be on the list. But what else should I be aware of?

My rig is an i9-9900K, running on a Z390 mobo, 32Gb DDR4 3600 ram, 64bit Win 10 installed on an NVMe drive and the aforementioned GTX1070Ti

Games are AMS, AMS2, AC, ACC plus some flight sims

Les

 

[Botmeister]

It seems you got everything except a graphics card. ACC on high/ultra settings reaches around 50-60 fps on 2160p resolution on my 2080ti. The rest of your pc specs are the same or even better than mine. You're good to go as far as I'm concerned! Just make sure your power unit is big enough, new graphic cards consume more power (see PSU). When choosing PSU, make sure to have 20% extra on top of the the total calculated power usage of all your pc parts together. PS. no flight sim experience here

 

[Lesthegringo]

Great, thanks - I remember when I was building the PC that the guy advising me said ALWAYS go for a bigger PSU than you need, because you always add and never take away! I have a 650w Corsair unit, hopefully enough

Les

 

[Audii-Dudii]

You'll also need to make sure your monitor cable can handle the additional bandwidth required at the refresh rate you wish to achieve. Go ahead and ask me how I learned this...

 

[Lesthegringo]

I'll spare you the blushes...

Does DisplayPort do the job? That's what I am using now with the ultrawide monitor I have

Les

 

[Audii-Dudii]

Does DisplayPort do the job? That's what I am using now with the ultrawide monitor I have

Yes, it will, although you'll need to use a cable that is certified to comply with at least the v1.3 or better yet, the v1.4 DP standard to achieve the higher refresh rates many UHD monitors can provide.

Even then, don't assume any cable that is claimed to be v1.3 or v1.4 compliant actually is, especially if it's a generic, Chinese-made cable being sold at a budget price.

 

[RasmusP]

I'll spare you the blushes...

Does DisplayPort do the job? That's what I am using now with the ultrawide monitor I have

Les

Display port has 2 standards currently. 1.2 and 1.4
1.3 wasn't really used Afaik.

The old gsync module uses only 1.2 so with my 3440x1440, the bandwidth limit is at 100 hz.
With a good cable and some luck you can push it to 120 hz but that's beyond the specs.

For 4k you need dp 1.4 or hdmi 2.0 if you want more than 60 hz.
All monitors that have 4k and are 100 hz or higher have these connections!
Your 1070ti should have 3x dp 1.4

The monitors mostly come with a cable but beware that the max length is often 2m!
More than that and the image might flicker...


Anyway about going for 4k in general: are you sure that you need it?
I went from 1080p to 1440p, both 27" and the jump was massive in terms of clarity and less pixel crawling.

With 4k you get one nice option though: you can run 1080p and scale 1 Pixel in 4 Pixel and get a "good image" since there's no uneven, blurry scaling. Just multiplied in all directions.

With 1440p, you can't go lower or everything will be blurry...
You could go with 720p but that looks bad too...

One other advantage with 1440p is that you don't need scaling everywhere. I have good eyes so I can use 100% native scaling with 99% of all apps, games, programs etc.
With 4k you need scaling or buttons will become way too tiny.

 

[Lesthegringo]

I'm surprised by the lack of larger UHD monitors, very little over 32". I sort of imagined that it would be quite prevalent

Les

 

[RasmusP]

I'm surprised by the lack of larger UHD monitors, very little over 32". I sort of imagined that it would be quite prevalent

Les

Most people who want a bigger monitor are console people. And they simply buy a TV with a gaming mode then (or low latency in general)

 

[Mr Latte]

I'm surprised by the lack of larger UHD monitors, very little over 32". I sort of imagined that it would be quite prevalent

Les

2021 will see more 4K monitors with high refresh rates.
The truth is when you start looking at the prices, high-end monitors cost.
Then some of the better TVs will make more sense as a purchase decision for a lot of people.

Although there is another problem, most of the better TVs are not available in under 55"
The 48" LG OLED was a huge hit last year and with picture quality, black levels, and proper HDR that will blow away any £1000+ monitor.

Yet this size is still too big for some people and costs a premium.
For instance the 55" model was actually available cheaper and as an example currently in the UK is £1299 for the C series model.

When you look at what the TV offers in quality/size and additions which a monitor does not have, then when you see what you get for £1200 or more in a monitor. They do have some disadvantages as well (reflective screen) but I think you are going to see more people move to TVs for multi-usage purposes and as a primary monitor.
LG does apparently have a 42" OLED coming but nothing yet on availability or pricing.

Good video.

I like how you can run games in window mode for 21:9 and get an image thats still bigger and better than LGs 38" high-end monitor. You can also set a custom res to do that, however I think custom res limits 60Hz but this may be fixed for 2021 models?

Personally, I am keen to see the Philips 806 2021 OLED
It features, FreeSync Premium Pro, has a new anti-burn-in feature and 4 sided Ambilight.
Also has ultra-thin bezel/frame which to me in 2021 is one of the biggest letdowns still with most monitors.

Samsung Infinity Edge which is less than 1mm border is only available it seems on their highend Tvs. Its just annoying by now we cant buy 32" 4k monitors with the quality of a TV and with such small bezels. They would be great for triple screen setups.

 

[Procrastinator1]

This is a great write up with details of each unit, which have gsync, lag time, refresh rates, etc. I went with the 49in LG 8500, which had everything I wanted and around 12ms lag. Plus the fact it was it was only $599 meant I could do a ridiculous triple setup for relatively short money.

Our TV Motion Tests: G-SYNC Compatible

Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) technology is designed to improve your gaming experience by reducing the amount of screen tearing that occurs when your game's frame rate doesn't match your display's refresh rate.

www.rtings.com