[HN Gopher] Can Dell's 6K monitor beat their 8K monitor? ___________________________________________________________________ Can Dell's 6K monitor beat their 8K monitor? Author : secure Score : 54 points Date : 2023-07-03 19:12 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (michael.stapelberg.ch) (TXT) w3m dump (michael.stapelberg.ch) | tedunangst wrote: | People are happy using DSC for a pixel perfect monitor? I'd never | trust it for graphics work. | mynonameaccount wrote: | Dell cuts cost anywhere they can. Their power cable, keyboard, | and mouse have the tiniest gauge wire I have ever seen and this | is a $2500 system. Do not buy Dell. | adamgamble wrote: | Although I haven't used these monitors, my experience with high | dpi on windows and Linux has been a nightmare compared to OSX. | It's surprising me the non Mac world hasn't made this a bigger | priority. | smolder wrote: | I'm actually not sure what your complaint is at this point. | I've long been using 3 mixed dpi displays on windows 10 for | gaming as well as normal desktop stuff. Any relatively modern | software scales fine to high dpi. Some old software using old | APIs has to be upscaled by the OS and is blurry, but that's | stuff like... Winamp. | ghusbands wrote: | I guess you've not used VMWare, VirtualBox, DaVinci Resolve | or most anything written in Java. There's more, but that's | off the top of my head. There's plenty of software out there | with unusably small text/displays even with just one display. | hedora wrote: | Modern Linux DPI support is a nightmare. It's a shame, since if | you just run and old-school software stack (X11; minimal window | manager; xrandr to adjust DPI if you hotplug a monitor), then | it has much nicer font rendering than Mac OS. | | This is particularly frustrating since I've been using high DPI | displays since the CRT days. Everything horribly regressed | about a decade ago, and still isn't back to 1999 standards. | nine_k wrote: | IDK, high DPI worked fine for me under Linux. I just set the | desired DPI in Xfce settings, and everything scales properly. | (Except Firefox, which has its own DPI setting! But it works | equally painlessly.) | | Where things go haywire is _mixed_ resolution. It 's best | avoided :-\ Hence now I have a 28" 4k external screen which | is exactly like four 14" FHD screens of my laptop, so the DPI | stays strictly the same. | clhodapp wrote: | Mixed resolution can look great on X11 if you do it with | super-sampling, especially if you're able to do it via | integer downscaling. | AshamedCaptain wrote: | I actually think Windows does it better than OS X (and Gnome, | Wayland, and anything that does not support true fractional | scaling). OS X just scales the entire surface and as result it | always look blurry. | filoleg wrote: | > OS X just scales the entire surface and as result it always | look blurry. | | I genuinely have zero idea what you are talking about. Typing | this from my macbook connected to a 5k LG ultrawide monitor, | and it is as crystal sharp as it can get. As opposed to my | windows 10 desktop (connected to the same monitor) having | some occasional application windows render fairly blurry and | inconsistently (one of the main offenders of this is, | ironically, task manager). And don't even get me started on | font rendering in general. | cosmotic wrote: | When I used a 5k LG, on the lowest scaling above 100%, I | would get shimmering effects when I moved windows. You | could see the same art/glyph rendered differently depending | on if it was on an even or odd line; move the window 1 | pixel and the text totally changed. If you only ever run at | integer scaling, this wouldn't be apparent. | | Windows does a _Much_ better job with non-integer scaling | because hairlines are 1px no matter what the scaling and | text is rendered with pixel-hinting instead of macOS 's | new, lame strategy of super sampling. | namdnay wrote: | Surprisingly, macs can't actually scale the UI like | Windows. All you can do is simulate higher or lower | resolutions. Which is fine if your DPI is sky-high, but a | real pain in the arse if you're working with a QHD 24"for | example, and just want everything to be a bit bigger | xnyanta wrote: | macOS will render at the next highest integer scale factor | and then downscale to fit the resolution of your monitor | instead of just rendering at the fractional scale in the | first place | duskwuff wrote: | Does macOS support any scaling factors above 2x? | Aaargh20318 wrote: | It's effectively supersampling. The resulting image looks | excellent. | [deleted] | hocuspocus wrote: | There are several scenarios where it clearly doesn't look | that good, and where Windows objectively does a much | better job. | | Most people (and companies) aren't willing to spend $1600 | on Apple's 5K monitor, so they get a good 27" UHD monitor | instead, and they soon realize macOS either gives you | pixel perfect rendering at a 2x scale factor which | corresponds to a ridiculously small 1920x1080 viewport, | or a blurry 2560x1440 equivalent. | Aaargh20318 wrote: | The 2560x1440 equivalent looks tack sharp on macOS. It | renders at 5120x2880 and scales it down to native, as I | said it's effectively supersampling. I used this for | years and never experienced a blurry image. I now run a | 5k2k monitor, also at a fractional scale and again it | looks excellent. | [deleted] | mozman wrote: | I had the LG 5k Ultra wide monitor and couldn't get used to | it. I gave up and got the XDR display, expensive but worth | it | eikenberry wrote: | I'd guess gaming is at least partially responsible. For | anything more than 2k you need a high end/expensive video card, | which just aren't that common. Just look at the steam stats | right now.. 62% of users have 1080p. | drcongo wrote: | High DPI screens with Windows really show how bad the font | rendering is. | hocuspocus wrote: | At high DPI the difference in font rendering between | ClearType, Freetype and macOS diminish greatly, it's mostly a | matter of taste, and at least Microsoft hasn't crippled low | DPI rendering in recent Windows versions like Apple did with | macOS. | Matheus28 wrote: | Slightly off topic but I can't wait until there's a 120 Hz 8K | monitor. It's the only thing holding me back from upgrading from | 4K. I wonder if the current limitation is on the panels, cable | bandwidth or absurd price tag... | PragmaticPulp wrote: | 8K is four times the pixels and therefore four times the | bandwidth as a 4K monitor. | | It took us a long time to go from 1080p to 4K. It has taken | even longer for 4K at 120-144Hz to be practical. | | It's more likely that you'll end up with intermediate steps to | 5K, 6K, than getting 8K 120Hz. | | The other limitation is lack of demand. You need a gigantic | monitor for 8K to be worth it, and you need a powerful video | card to drive it. The number of people who would buy such a | monitor is very, very small. | smolder wrote: | What is your actual use case apart from technology fetishism? | bloggie wrote: | In CAD/EDM tools higher resolution means more productivity, | (to a point) as you can fit more useful information on the | screen at a time - you can "zoom out" more and still keep a | useful level of detail. Especially useful in schematic and | pcb design where dense areas of interest can be spatially | disparate. I don't like large screens and currently use 24" | 4k screens which seem to be either unavailable or expensive, | they were ~$350 in 2015 and don't seem to have any equivalent | nowadays. | | The 120 Hz i don't understand however i am not a gamer. | petepete wrote: | Once you try a high refresh rate monitor, even for work, | you just don't want to go back. Every movement and | animation is buttery smooth. | | Try setting your refresh rate to 30hz for an hour. | ajolly wrote: | Agreed. I have a number of 4K 144 Hertz monitors, I'd | like a 6 or 8K monitor but until they have it in high | refresh create I'm not switching. I'm not much of a | gamer, but when I do occasionally game it is | significantly more fluid as well. | dizhn wrote: | I have 60, 144 and 165hz displays. I have to say I don't | really see much of a difference. Around 30 hz yes. But | not over 60. It's probably some sort of genetic vision | difference thing. | Retric wrote: | People say this, but I've had people fail double blind | tests for 120hz vs 90hz vs 60hz. I've yet to find anyone | that can reliably tell 144hz vs 120hz. | | What people mostly notice is latency not refresh rate. | skeaker wrote: | Anecdotal, but my friends and I have passed such tests. | YMMV | Retric wrote: | You mean double blind 144hz vs 120hz when latency isn't | an issue? | | If you don't mind me asking how old are your friends? | wing-_-nuts wrote: | I can't speak for him, but for me? Straight integer scaling | of 4k and 1440p. I _loathe_ fractional scaling, and I cannot | wait for the day that I can run an 8k display at > 90hz | without compromise | bryantraywick wrote: | Literally a 3'x5-6' monitor that can render text as crisply | and cleanly as print. That's all I want. | Lio wrote: | I guess you could look at the use-cases for 120Hz displays on | MacBook Pros. | | It's useful for smoother scrolling amongst other things. | | I'd like a display that has parity to my laptop but is just | bigger so I can fit more on it. | practice9 wrote: | MBP's 120hz display is a lifesaver for me. | | Previously, I actually often felt motion sickness when | scrolling through code on small 60hz laptop screens. Had no | problems with larger (> 23") desktop screens, though. | ethbr0 wrote: | Perhaps parent is a gun shrimp or pigeon. | | I try not to be overly sapien-centric when making assumptions | about my fellow HN readers. | adolph wrote: | An interesting part of the recent book An Immense World was | its coverage of how mantis shrimp likely don't use | photoreceptors like human's do. | | _Marshall now thinks that the mantis shrimp sees colors in | a unique way. Rather than discriminating between millions | of subtle shades, its eye actually does the opposite, | collapsing all the varied hues of the spectrum into just | 12._ | | From Science: "A Different Form of Color Vision in Mantis | Shrimp" | | _The mantis shrimps (stomatopods) can have up to 12 | photoreceptors, far more than needed for even extreme color | acuity. Thoen et al. conducted paired color discrimination | tests with stomatopods and found that their ability to | discriminate among colors was surprisingly low. Instead, | stomatopods appear to use a color identification approach | that results from a temporal scan of an object across the | 12 photoreceptor sensitivities. This entirely unique form | of vision would allow for extremely rapid color recognition | without the need to discriminate between wavelengths within | a spectrum._ | CobaltFire wrote: | I run the DELL G3223Q (144Hz 4K) and mine calibrated at ~98% | DCI-P3 for reference. I'm quite happy with it. | | https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/dell/g3223q | malfist wrote: | 8k@120Hz is going to need one heck of a video card | densh wrote: | I'd argue that AI driven super resolution like DLSS should be | more than sufficient to upscale 4k to 8k with minimal | performance loss and acceptable image quality even for | gaming. | smolder wrote: | It's venturing into cryptocurrency-space-heater levels of | pointless number crunching to render at that level of detail | for anyone who has human eyes. | nordsieck wrote: | > It's venturing into cryptocurrency-space-heater levels of | pointless number crunching to render at that level of | detail for anyone who has human eyes. | | Depends on your monitor size. | | Might be a waste at 27", but if you want to use a 48" | display, I can assure you that you'd notice the move from | 4k -> 8k. | buildbot wrote: | Yeah, even driving the display at 4K, you start to notice | the higher pixel fill factor for 8K displays above 48in. | I love my 65in 8K Q900 - even though it mostly lives at | 4k (120hz!). | ajolly wrote: | Can you explain this a bit more, I tried googling but I | can't quite understand what you mean here by pixel fill | factor and how it would differ between the resolutions? | justahuman74 wrote: | Not for tmux + firefox | walrus01 wrote: | Unless people are far more sensitive than I am, I don't see | how >60Hz is needed for a desktop workstation environment. | High frame rate is really only noticeable for very fast | reaction time gaming. | | 4K 120Hz may be noticeable if editing ultra high frame rate | video on a video editing workstation, but if you are a | video production crew with a camera capable of recording at | that framerate, you probably already know that. | jonatron wrote: | I can immediately tell just from moving the mouse a | little. I wouldn't say it's needed either though. | selectodude wrote: | When I throw my iPhone into low power mode and it drops | to a 60FPS cap, it is immediately noticeable. | ricardobeat wrote: | It's immediately noticeable when scrolling in a browser, | dragging stuff around or just moving the mouse. If you | haven't seen it in person, go to an Apple store and do a | quick comparison between the Macbook Pro (120hz) and the | Air (60hz), or iPad vs iPad Pro. They're always next to | each other. | smcleod wrote: | 60Hz is really noticeable when you've been using 120Hz | even for a few minutes. 120Hz feels a lot less tiring and | work in a terminal, editor and websites is just a lot | smoother. | [deleted] | Sohcahtoa82 wrote: | Yeah, I'm a gamer and I _definitely_ notice the | difference between 60 hz and 120+ hz. | | But for desktop productivity? I don't feel I gain | anything from it. 60 hz is fine. | howinteresting wrote: | Many people are more sensitive than you are. I can easily | tell the difference between 60 and 120 on both my phone | and my desktop. | | Though response times also matter a lot for ghosting and | such. | [deleted] | ricardobeat wrote: | ARM macs can probably handle that, the M2 can do 10 8k video | streams at once, 22 simultaneously on the Ultra, and people | are running 4k 120hz on the M1 with a couple hacks. | speed_spread wrote: | Not in text mode. Hercules FTW | dogma1138 wrote: | Not for productivity. | wruza wrote: | Not if you ignore overhyped (imo) rtx graphics and return | back to gaming worlds, instead of smoke-and-neon-lights-in- | mirrors pseudorealism. | bryantraywick wrote: | Absolutely. Mediocre resolution increases has been one of many | disappointments for me when it comes to technology over the | past 20 years. We had CRT monitors with better resolution than | 1080p back in the late 90's early 2000's before LCD panels | saddled us with 1080p resolution for 15 years. 4k is the bare | minimum that should be available right now. I can't wait until | I can have a 16k monitor at about 3'x5-6' on my desk. Maybe it | will happen in my lifetime, but I'm not holding my breath. | walrus01 wrote: | I think you're going to be waiting a long time, even the | geforce 4080 and 4090 don't support displayport 2.0. | | Additionally much of the demand for >60Hz is for gaming | purposes, and there is nowhere near a powerful enough GPU | anyone can afford that would be able to render games in high | quality or extreme detail level at 8K above 60 FPS. Right now a | GPU that costs $1500 USD can _maybe_ render a 4K game with | extreme detail level at framerates that vary between 55 to 75 | fps. | 111111IIIIIII wrote: | The 3090 does support displayport 2.0, though. The 40 series | are geared towards productivity use cases where people are | fine with 60hz. | rektide wrote: | It's been pretty amazing how stagnant the monitor space is. I | too am really craving an 8k@120 monitor, although there's a | decent chance I'll balk at the price. | zone411 wrote: | I agree, but we got LG's 16:18 DualUp monitors a year ago. | Having a 43'' monitor in the middle and these two on the | sides creates a better setup than it was than what was | previously possible. | Aaargh20318 wrote: | It's crazy how much of a regression there was in resolution | and picture quality when we went from CRT to LCD displays. In | the late 90's you could get a CRT that did 2048x1536 no sweat | with great color and decent refresh rate. Then suddenly LCD | displays became the standard and they looked awful. Low | resolutions, terrible colors and bad viewing angles. The only | real advantage they had was size. It took a decade or so to | get back to decent resolutions and color reproduction. | goosedragons wrote: | How much did a 2048x1536 CRT monitor cost though? That's | usually high and I bet it probably priced similar to what a | 6K or 8K monitor is today. | smcleod wrote: | Not at all! Your common as milk Philips and ViewSonic | 19-21" could do that easily! | snovv_crash wrote: | Also that CRT was probably 21" max, and weighed 20% of | the human looking at it. | I_am_tiberius wrote: | Great review. Are you returning the monitor? Also, have you kept | the Kinesis 360 keyboard and did you get used to the plam pads? | Personally, I'm using the palm pads of the Advantage 2. | secure wrote: | Yeah, I'm returning it. | | I kept the 360, but am currently using the Advantage 2 again. I | never got used to the 360 palm pads. | I_am_tiberius wrote: | Funnily, I was trying to buy the monitor as well last Friday | in Austria, but was informed that the inventory nr on the | website was wrong - so my order was cancelled. After your | review, I guess I'll be waiting for the Samsung ViewFinity S9 | (5k). | | Re Kinesis: I have mixed feelings as well but in the meantime | I got used to the 360 model. With the old palm pads, it feels | more like the Advantage 2. I'm a bit sad that I didn't order | the pro model. I really liked my Advantage 2 as well, but I | can't go back to it as some electronic part seems to be | damaged. It just seems to send random characters without | touching the keyboard. | 111111IIIIIII wrote: | Why are you returning it? I am keeping mine because I don't | know of anything better. | | Also, check out the MoErgo Glove80 keyboard. | bentcorner wrote: | I wonder what impact Apple's VR headset is going to have in, say, | 10 years. Hopefully prices for their headsets as a complete unit | will have dropped, and at that point, while I'm no optical | scientist, we must be approaching the limits of eye clarity, no? | So eventually VR headsets will offer effectively 360 degrees of | "monitor" that can't be matched by any panel, and the only actual | pixels they will need to produce are a postage stamp sized thing | in front of your eyeball. | | I can imagine that a lot of personal computing is going to | transform into some kind of "screen+lens+eyeball" as COGs for | these kinds of headset displays are going to be lower than | traditional monitor (or possibly even smartphone) displays. | davidhyde wrote: | Just give me a 2K monitor that turns on instantly, doesn't hunt | for sources, consumes less than 20W of power and I'll be a happy | guy. Bonus for having physical buttons to select explicit input | sources without delays. | coder543 wrote: | I would say that less than 30W might be a more realistic | goal[0]. Maybe lower end monitors consume less power than | these... I'm not sure. | | Also, it just seems strange that anyone is asking for a 1080p | monitor in 2023 outside of Esports. Are you sure you want 1080p | (2K) and not 1440p (2.5K)? It bothers me when people use 2K to | refer to 1440p. 1080p is 2K[1]. | | [0]: this chart has a few recent monitors and gives a general | idea of how much power monitors consume: | https://youtu.be/Wik4DhEaj_8?t=527 | | [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2K_resolution is very clear | on this subject, and I agree completely. 1080p is _much_ closer | to 2000 horizontal pixels than 1440p. | davidhyde wrote: | Yeh, I meant 1440p. 16:10. Was not aware these were referred | to as 2.5k, thanks! I actually have a 32" one so no scaling | is required and I think it only takes about 30W so it doesn't | feel like I'm sitting in front of a heater in summer. | Honestly, anything below 50W is fine. My biggest gripe really | is that it takes 7 seconds to turn on. | coder543 wrote: | It is kind of weird that I don't think I've ever seen any | monitor reviewers report the monitor's time-to-wake. | | Certainly, one of the most impressive things about the M1 | laptops when they came out was that they woke _instantly_ | from sleep, including the screen. | dogma1138 wrote: | You ain't getting a modern monitor with less than 20W of power | unless you want something very small and very dim with very low | refresh rate. | swader999 wrote: | 6k is even way too much to spend. | [deleted] | steveBK123 wrote: | Friends dont let friends buy Dell monitors. | photonbeam wrote: | What do friends let friends buy? | dewey wrote: | What's the issue with Dell monitors? I'm still using my Dell | P2715Q (4k) from > 5 years ago every day and the only reason | that would make me switch is that it doesn't support the latest | HDMI connections any more. | sedatk wrote: | Yeah, until I got enamored by 144Hz, I'd exclusively buy Dell | monitors because of their great price/performance. | densh wrote: | The comments regarding matte vs glossy and text sharpness | resonates with me. It's really hard to use any non-Apple screens | since their color is completely washed out and lifeless and text | lacks crispness on all screens at a range of price points I've | ever tried. What's even more puzzling is how a large number of | people online seem to adamantly defend widely sold lower-dpi 32" | 4k matte screens as a superior product. It's been over a decade | since first retina products shipped and somehow 200 dpi+ desktop | screens is still an extremely niche product. | howinteresting wrote: | The M1 MacBook Pro 14" shipped with a GtG response time of | 58.4ms. | | The U3224KB featured in this review has a GtG response time of | 5ms in fast mode, which is considered average but not great. | Most high-end monitors manage GtG response times of around 1ms. | With OLED it's closer to 0.5ms. | | 58.4ms is unacceptably bad. | densh wrote: | Sure, they are not fast response gaming screens, but I am | specifically calling out reading all forms of text | (web/email/documents/coding) as a main use case. | | OLED would be great if we could finally get 27" 5K. Currently | all the gaming screens sit at around 1440p pixel density and | are often coupled with non RGB pixel layout that causes color | fringing on text: https://pcmonitors.info/articles/qd-oled- | and-woled-fringing-... | hedora wrote: | You should be able to set the font anti-aliaser's subpixel | order unless you're running a terrible operating system. | howinteresting wrote: | To be clear, a 58ms response time is so bad that it | produces a ton of ghosting while just scrolling text. | Apparently Apple screens have always been this bad and Mac | users just live with it. | dogleash wrote: | > somehow 200 dpi+ desktop screens is still an extremely niche | product. | | Resolution and color accuracy are subject to diminishing | returns. | | I could be wearing my glasses right now. They're not a strong | correction, but I could see slightly better. In fact, they're | within arm's reach. Meh. | stalfosknight wrote: | Why is it that pretty much all displays in the PC world have such | dismal pixel densities (< 226 ppi)? It would be nice to be able | to shop for a new desktop display without having to give up | Retina in macOS. | howinteresting wrote: | Most people buying high-end monitors prioritize high refresh | rates over pixel densities. | api wrote: | Gamers do. For coding I prefer high contrast and clarity. I'm | disappointed there haven't been any huge genuine OLED | screens. MicroLED could be nice too. | howinteresting wrote: | Right, and most people buying high-end monitors are gamers. | addisonl wrote: | Interesting, I'd assume it's professionals in the | video/photography/production space spending the serious | money on high end displays. Where are you getting your | data? | Clamchop wrote: | High refresh rates seem to have gotten quite cheap. In | addition to refresh rates, the high end is concerned with | HDR, resolution, color reproduction, curve, and width, | depending on the professional segment being targeted. | | The products exist but they're not as numerous as I'd expect | (certainly not outside of the Apple ecosystem), and it's an | eye-watering leap as far as prices go, hundreds of dollars at | one end and multiple thousands at the other with very little | in between. | sedatk wrote: | My experience is that HDR is rarely worth it on a computer | monitor because OLED is so rare. FALD or other non-OLED HDR | displays don't get near a decent OLED TV's HDR performance. | Sohcahtoa82 wrote: | Because people have switched to larger screens (32+ inch) that | they place farther away, lowering the need for pixel density. | | I'm on a 4K 27" monitor. That's a PPI of 163. I don't feel it's | dismal, and I sit relatively close to my monitor. | wmf wrote: | Apple defines 218 DPI as Retina BTW. | hedora wrote: | I think part of the reason is that high DPI support was | completely broken under windows for at least a decade after it | was working fine in MacOS and Linux (pre-wayland and the rise | of "HiDPI support"). | | Most PC's are targeting windows, and stuff would be | unreasonably small if you plugged in a midrange monitor from | the early 2000's. So, monitor manufacturers stopped offering | monitors with reasonable DPI. | mkozlows wrote: | Because they're expensive. It's the same reason that phones | have higher DPI than laptops/tablets do -- what's economical on | a 6" screen isn't on a 13", and what's economical on 13" isn't | on 27." | | (Why? Yields. A 6" phone screen is like 12 square inches. A 27" | desktop monitor is over 300 square inches. If you have a 98% | yield of phone screens without defects, that implies only one | defect per ~600 square inches, which means that at a handwave | level, you'd have a 50% yield of desktop monitors with that | same tech. "We have to throw away half the screens we make as | junk" is a lot worse than "we have to throw away 2% of them.") | 111111IIIIIII wrote: | I just purchased 2 of the 6Ks and I am keeping both. AMA. | | I do not understand the complaints about pixel density. The | display is 223 ppi, which is the same or slightly higher than | Apple displays. I am using them in a dual display configuration | with an M1 Macbook Pro via TB4 and a Windows PC with an RTX 4090 | via DisplayPort. The KVM feature makes switching back and forth a | breeze. I am using 175% scaling (in Windows) and I don't think 8K | with 1:2 scaling would give suitably sized OS components for me, | so it would be fractional scaling either way. | | The startup time doesn't matter in practice because they still | wake up from sleep instantaneously. | | The mini-DP IN port is annoying but Club3D makes a bi-directional | adapter that makes it regular DisplayPort for about $20. | | I am fine with the camera defaulting to ON for Windows Hello to | work in my 2 computer setup. | | My only serious complaint is the piss poor speakers and the | fabric covering them. | | I would also prefer a glossy display, but in practice I just | don't find it makes any difference. I arrange my office for no | reflections anyhow, which results in an equivalent experience. | Additionally, the Dell 6K has excellent blacks. It has much | better blacks than any IPS panel I have used. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-07-03 23:00 UTC)