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Comment by nlh | Hacker News Reader

After working on a 27" 5K monitor (first the Dell, now the LG UltraFine), I don't think I can ever go back to non-HiDPI for my desktop, so 1440p is just a non-starter for me.

The only monitor out there that would be an "upgrade" for me currently is the Apple 6K, which is far far into absurd-level purchase category.

Dell has an 8K out there (UP3218K) which, at a scant $4000, looks to only slightly less crazy than the Apple 6K @ $5000 (plus stand!).

It's a bit sad there are so few choices for us HiDPI addicts. Anything else out there I'm missing?

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Can you actually see a difference? I have slightly better than 20/20 vision with glasses and don't see a difference between 4k @ 14", 27" or 32".

At this point 32" 4k is perfect for me, the only thing I'd wish for is improved panel. I have not seen the Apple 6k, but just picked up an M1 Macbook Air, it has best display I've seen (quite a bit better than my work 16")

I almost certainly can't see the difference between 4k and 5k (although it depends on the screen resolution - if the 4k screen is using some weird multiplier then everything is blurry and crappy).

But TFA is looking at 1440p screens, which is 2560x1440 and is LoDPI (@1x) on a 27" screen. I can absolutely tell the difference on those and that's what I can't ever go back to.

The LG 5K screen is 5120x2880 - same "size" as 1440p but everything @2x, and that is glooooorious :)

The difference between 4K and 5K on the same screen size would just be the amount of screen real estate (essentially, that’s the real estate of 1080p and 1440p respectively) which you can definitely notice.

(If you’re using a non-integer scaling factor, that’s a different story, but I’ve always stuck to integer scaling factors.)

Where do you find a 5k monitor these days? They seem to have mostly vanished, other than the old LG one that Apple still sometimes has in stock (I’ve heard bad things about it). I also love my first-gen 5K iMac display, but can’t use it for my work MacBook. I’d love to find a solid 5K display but until then I’m still on a 1440p ultrawide.

There was Iiyama 5k as well, but they stopped making it. I almost bought it too, what a shame.

The short answer is you basically don't find them :(

But the LG UltraFine 5K is still alive and well. My original one (vintage 2017) died recently (bad mainboard) and I went out shelled out $1400 for a brand new one from the Apple Store. They had a bunch in stock - it was not hard to locate.

I don't know whether it's new firmware or new hardware or what, but this monitor works 1000000000 better than my older version of the exact same one. I had plenty of issues on the last one - wouldn't startup after sleep, etc. This new one is just flawless - starts right up every morning, no ghosting, etc.

HiDPI does look really nice. Do you use it for gaming? How does your graphics card hold up?

I've got an rx580 and a 4K display. For esports games and old titles such as Dirt 3, I get near 60 frames at max settings.

I had a Radeon VII I used on my MacPro5,1 that I would dual boot to Windows, which worked great with the LG Ultrafine 4K display (21.5", 4096x2304).

I upgraded to a LG 5K (same DPI, 27", 5120x2880) with the gc-titan-ridge thunderbolt card, but that was sort of a pain on an unsupported machine so I am moving to a M1 Mac mini + Thunderbolt PC. Hoping to drive it with a 3080, but I think it should be fine.

For any fast paced competitive games, you should be able to drive 60fps with the right hardware, but at the same time you will be held back by the lack of a greater than 60hz refresh rate.

I have an RX5700 XT and two 27” 4k displays, and games are usually fast enough at 4k for my taste. Not super high FPS, but I can play Overwatch on high settings in 4k at 50fps, and some other newer games as well.

I honestly can’t go back to a lower DPI; it’s so much easier to read text compared to lower res monitors.

I've used it for gaming and it's great! I have a separate dedicated gaming PC I just built, and I can just unplug from my Mac and plug right into the Thunderbolt 3 port on the gaming PC (which, in case anyone cares or is interested, just requires a daisy chain TB3 cable to the Nvidia card - happy to give details if anyone is building a similar setup.)

I haven't played much beyond 4K resolution but it works and works well.

The LG UltraFine is not a hardcore dedicated gaming monitor (eg not 144hz and I couldn't tell you what ms the response time is), but I am not a competitive gamer and honestly 60hz/60fps @ 4K is absolutely gorgeous to my eyes and I am not wanting for more.

I would really like to know how you connected the monitor. I’m looking at a Bridgestone titan ridge controller to connect an Nvidia card to a Pro Display XDR - is that the route you took?

Gigabyte you mean? It should work, but note that you really want a GPU that supports DSC (RTX 20-series or newer)

The two paths for 10bit 6k60 are either HBR2 + DSC, or 2x HBR3 streams. The 2x HBR3 streams have several gotchas - not daisy-chainable, limits the XDR USB-C ports to 2.0 speeds, requires a TB3 controller with 2 displayport inputs, and I'm not certain it even works with non-Apple TB3 firmware.

Roughly the same approach. I ended up getting a Gigabyte Z490 Vision D motherboard specifically because it was the only one of the new Z490s that had an onboard Thunderbolt 3 controller AND a DP1.2 input (which negated the need for the titan ridge controller).

So I just run a short DP1.2 cable from the Nvidia card output to the DP1.2 input on the motherboard, then plug my LG monitor into the Thunderbolt 3 output on the motherboard, and it all works like magic.

I'm assuming it would work exactly the same way on the Pro Display XDR. The only caveat is that I think this setup is limited to 4K. I didn't dig too deeply since there's not enough of a difference between 4K and 5K IMHO to make the effort worthwhile. 6K might be worth figuring it out though :)

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