Dell UltraSharp 32 Ultra HD Monitor Review | Hacker News Reader

Dell UltraSharp 32 Ultra HD Monitor Review

techspot.com

37 pointsadamnemecek53 comments

It seems like the reviewer is confused about what the monitor is doing at non-native resolutions. In fact, it sounds like the monitor doesn't have its own hardware scaler at all.

The Windows drivers for both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs have an option that makes the graphics card scale non-native screen resolutions up to the monitor's native resolution using the graphics card's scaling hardware (instead of the monitor's, if the monitor has any). It should be possible to run games at a non-native (lower) resolution and have the GPU scale the image up to native resolution (so it fills the screen) without a noticeable performance hit.

Also, large monitors have used tiled panels internally for a long time, it's just that the recent batches of 4k monitors are the first "mass market" monitors to expose the individual tiles directly to the computer's graphics hardware instead of using a scaler in the monitor to present the tiles to the computer's graphics hardware as what looks like a single monitor.

You can see the two tiles (1280x1600 each) in my Dell 3008WFP when the monitor's scaler manages to get the scanline ordering wrong on one of the tiles, like on this composite signal from an NES:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A-OmoN1CYAAZT7x.jpg:large

As you said, to the video card the monitor basically looks like two separate panels. I think the issue is that the GPU/drivers don't have a scaling mode that spans screens so that, for instance, a 1920x1080 source image is split to two, scaled to 4k, and the halves sent to the monitor separately.

The author is not confused about non-native resolutions; they pointedly mentioned that regardless of settings, they could not get lower screen resolutions to fill the entire panel:

  Regardless of panel scaling options, the UP3214Q would not
  fill the screen at lower resolutions.

Since they were talking about the nVidia card in the context, I assume they're talking about the nVidia control panel settings for this. But it's possible they were referring to some options the display offered.

I don't know, then. The monitor's manual describes an "aspect ratio" setting with "16:9", "auto resize", "4:3", and "1:1" options, which implies the monitor does have a scaler built-in. It sounds like they used the "1:1" setting or did something wacky with the GPU's driver such that it was centering a lower resolution screen image on native resolution output.

It wouldn't have anything to do with panel scaling options if they were doing what your parent suggested. They'd be using the nvidia control panel.

As I said, it's unclear. I could construe "panel scaling" options as the nVidia ones.

nVidia even refers to them in documentation as "panel scaling" options.

I was really excited for 4K, but the more I read about it, the more I'm convinced that for now I'd be better served with a pair of 1440p IPS from Korea, and wait a year or two until the dust settles and 60Hz is cheaper.

What Korean monitors are you referring to?

I got a FSM-270YG for under $400 delivered off of eBay. Controls are in Korean, but it's a monitor so it only has 4 buttons and it's pretty easy to figure out. I love it.

Rocking, thanks!

here's the guys I bought from

http://www.ebay.ca/sch/green-sum/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=...

It seems the display can still only run at 30Hz on OS X: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1692329. However, it does seem you can run two of them off of a 2012 MBPr.

Additionally, you can save $1000 by purchasing through Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824260....

This review [1] on newegg is really discouraging.

[1] http://www.newegg.com/Product/SingleProductReview.aspx?revie...

Later in the thread Einz gives a fix that might work.

Well, that's made my mind up.

I'm actually about to upgrade my monitor setup, and I've been considering the merits of one large 4k monitor vs 3 27" monitors at 1440p.

4k would be lovely. A 4k 39" monitor with decent refresh rate for All Of The Screen Real Estate would be awesome.

But it looks like that ain't happening at a reasonable price, and there are just too many bugs with the early iterations of the hardware.

Time to give it a year and then reconsider.

Plus, all the 4k hype should drive the price of smaller monitors down...

That is a sensible choice if you're in a position to wait. The desktop display industry is finally awakening from a decade-long slumber. This is a very good thing.

We picked up a bunch of the 30Hz Seikis and they are a massive upgrade for us (I blogged about this a few days ago). But the 30Hz lag is the most significant weakness. If you're not at wit's end with your current monitor and can wait for a 60Hz version that's the right price, I think you will be happy.

I am optimistic the industry will not go back to sleep after meeting this demand. I remain optimistic that I will eventually have a ~50-inch high-DPI, high-speed, high-quality display that is within my budget. Maybe in 5 years' time.

I read your post - which was very interesting, thanks.

I'm probably going to avoid the Seikis - I'm a reasonably keen gamer on the same machine I work on, and more significantly, I work on 25fps video as a significant part of my job.

I suspect the clash between a 25fps video source and a 30fps monitor would cause me to become homicidal in time...

(Also, I recall reading on a video forum that the Seikis are never really capable of perfect colour reproduction, which would be another reason to avoid them.)

I too am hoping that we're at the edge of a renaissance in display tech. With any luck, in two years I'll be choosing between multiple 50" displays or multiple arbitrary-sized displays simulated in a virtual workspace with an Oculus Rift...

You're making the right choice for certain then. Even a casual gamer should not consider the current batch of Seiki 4Ks unless you're okay not using the 4K resolution for gaming. But as you point out, even the colors are not as good as the name brands. They are solid for text editing. :)

I see your optimism is even greater than my own! I hope you're right!

Curious why you would want a 50" over 3+ monitors that can "wrap" around your field of vision so more of the screen area is equidistant to your eyes? You can move the monitor further back so more area remains in your FOV but then you are having to increase sizing so it remains readable

This is my biggest problem with extra large monitors

Ideally, the 50-inch display would be concave OLED. (Earlier I made a jab at the industry about televisions becoming concave when their use-case hardly warrants it; meanwhile monitors really should become concave at larger sizes and show no signs of doing so.)

But I currently use multiple monitors and it's acceptable. Perhaps some very trim bezels will eventually arrive on desktop monitors in the near future?

I agree completely. I have been programming on the 54inch 4k samsung tv for the last two weeks and while its been fun. I think I like my old 3 27 inch hd monitor setup better. It is very difficult for me to make out details at the corners of the display. However I agree with the other child post that a curved 50in 4k would be ideal.

I think the effect on lower resolution monitors is already being seen. I just picked up three Benq BL2710PTs, which are fantastic monitors, for $600 each in Canada. (And that's only around $550 in USD.) A month ago they were $750 up here.

Personally I prefer the large horizontal span of multiple monitors to a single large one, so I'm pretty happy with the choice. Plus, $1800 for three monitors vs $3500+ for one, even if it is an awesome one.

If you do decide to go with the 27s, I can't recommend the Benq strongly enough. I tried the Dell U3014 and the Asus PB278Q before this one, and it wasn't even close. (Brutal overshoot on the U3014, plus I found 3x30" a bit much, and I definitely found the PWM of the Asus fatiguing - although apparently many don't notice it.)

Eeeeexcelllent... That's great to know, thanks.

My gf has just aquired a lower-res BenQ 27", and it's a great monitor - good to know that their 1440p models are as good.

I think Dell also released a TN $700 4k monitor alongside the Ultrasharp. Might want to look at that. Not sure how many 1440p monitors on the budget side are IPS. Though it might be 30hz, which is right out.

If it were between 2 28" TN 2160p 60hz screens and 3 27" TN 1440p 60hz screens, I'd go with the UHD ones just because of pixel density.

The only stipulation seems to be you need to be using displayport 1.3 because any of these gerryrigged hdmi implementations suck.

Well, sure; if both displays are TN screens, the pixel count wins. What about 2x4K/2160p TN vs 3x1440p IPS? The latter is what I'm considering right now (3x 2560x1440 in portrait).

I guess if they are $500 or less it would work. Otherwise you are spending a lot for lower pixel density, and I'd probably just use some commodity $120 1080p IPS panels until 4k ones came into a reasonable price range with IPS 60hz 2160p panels between 24 - 28".

The panels I'm specifically looking at are < $400/per on Monoprice, so yeah.

The problem is Dell's cheap 4k monitor is also 30Hz, so you're not much better off than the Seikis there.

That sucks, I'd def go 1440p screens then. Though if all you are doing is development, does framerate matter?

Some people don't mind it, but others (myself included) find it annoying even for things like scrolling, moving the mouse, etc. Also I suspect many (most?) of us at least occasionally game on our development machines...

I really enjoyed the writing style. I found I got a lot of information from the review*. Are Techspot reviews always this good? If so, I'll keep an eye on them.

With respect to 4K monitors it seems that given my income bracket (working class, ahem) it'll be a few years away before I will be able to afford one. But I don't feel too bad as they don't seem quite "there" yet. I'm noticing that even scaling Ubuntu to suit my laptop's 1080p panel results in yukkiness sometimes. Also, I haven't adjusted my wed dev workflow to accommodate hidpi yet - I just threw Bootstrap at my site and crossed my fingers.

edit: and I learnt about the world's most disgusting liquor which I have now gotta try - Malört

This review references the cheaper 28" 4k dell monitor, that is supposed to be released later this month. It says that the significantly cheaper 28" 4k at $699 is limited to 30hz, unlike its UltraSharp counterparts. This is the first I've heard of this. Does anybody have real technical specs on the 28"? I've been holding out on getting a 4k until they fulfill two conditions: sub $1,000 and 60hz @4k.

I'd be perfectly ok with programming at 30hz. Playing a game, not so much, but it would be great for work where the screen isn't changing much at all.

There was at least one discussion of it here a few days ago based on one of the first actual reports[0].

[0]: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2084966/dells-28-inch-4k-desk...

Thanks, I found this[1] 4k 28" Asus that does 60hz natively for $799. Lenovo seems to be releasing one in the second quarter too. Seems like Dell is really shooting themselves in the foot by limiting their monitor to 30hz.

[1]http://pcdiy.asus.com/2014/01/pb287q-4k-for-the-masses/

the cheap 4k monitors @60hz are all (all the currently announced ones at least) TN panels though, so sure you get a cheap 4k monitor but color quality/viewing angles suffer as a result. coming from a IPS/PLS 1440p panel which i use now, im not sure if i would be ok with that trade off. what i truly want/am waiting for is a 4k IPS or PLS panel capable of 60hz at the sub/near $1k mark

Maybe it will be possible to unlock the Dell 28" 4k to do 60hz on displayport. The panel should be capable of supporting it, it might be a firmware restriction. edit: Looks like the Dell 28" is a TN as well, that's unfortunate.

I don't understand why no-one talks about 1440p. It's all 720, 1080 and now 4k.

I don't talk about it much because it never entered my world of monitor purchasing. When 30-inch LCD monitors hit 2560x1600 in ~2005, the market had become ~720 (768), ~1080 (1024), some 1200, and 1600. My recollection is that 2560x1440 didn't arrive until much later. By that point, I had already set up both my home and office workstations with multiple 30-inch monitors.

I feel like 1440 was an oddball late arrival that didn't move displays forward. To catch my eye, I wanted to see something greater than 1600. When talk of "4K" arrived, my interest was piqued and now with 4K reaching consumer pricing, it won't be long before everything before 4K seems passe.

What's to talk about? 1440p or 1600p monitors have been out for a long while. You can get an amazing QNIX2710LED for just $400 on Amazon.

I will say gaming grade 1440p/1600p monitors still aren't available, or some combination of gaming grade and high color reproduction (IPS). Some people have had luck overclocking Korean monitors to 120Hz. I don't know if we'll ever see a native 120Hz 2560x1440/1600 IPS monitor (w/Nvidia G-SYNC to boot).

I'm just gonna ask this as someone whose mind begins to waver when all the numbers are thrown out.

If I have a desktop (macmini running Ubuntu, custom build running Ubuntu) and all I do is program and watch some videos (netflix, amazon, ripped), what is the best option when taking in consideration price?

I don't game and I don't do precise color stuffs, so I think the Seiki 4k would do just nicely, but I'm just plain confused, tbh.

As a side note, I have all Dells right now. I love the build quality of the Dell monitors, though I feel I am paying a premium for the brand name.

The Seiki 4K is only 30Hz. As said in this article, 30Hz refresh is quite horrible for anything but watching films. The Seiki definitely is a very poor desktop monitor: too large, too slow.

Futhermore, you'll absolutely need a 4K capable graphic card. I'm pretty sure that the Mac Mini doesn't fit the bill. Then will the Linux drivers work properly in 4K? I don't know. So far I've only seen very high end setups running Linux and 4K displays (professional cinema post-production workstations, with extremely high-end Quadro cards).

30Hz is workable for programming. Don't get me wrong, if you can wait longer for 60Hz, do so. But if you need a monitor now and want lots of pixels, a 30Hz 4K can help you get work done.

I don't know anything about the Mac Mini. I only ever work with assembled computers. I do know that all you need is a modest GPU such as a GTX760 [1] to do 60Hz 4K with DisplayPort. That's about $250. A low-end GPU such as a GTX650 [2] can be used with HDMI to do 30Hz 4K. That's about $125. We're using the GTX650 in our Windows, Linux, and Hackintosh boxes.

[1] http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-760...

[2] http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-650...

Acked.

I don't need a monitor right now so I'll sit back and wait for the 60Hz to come along.

I don't think 4k is a good option for you, since anything much smaller than 35" will display text too small to use the native resolution. You'll have to scale up, stuff will look sharper but you won't have more real estate. (think retina macbook pro)

Videos won't look better unless they are actually in 4k too.

I'd go for 27-30" 2560x1440 or 2560x1600 display.

Nice! I'll have one of these for living room. 32 inch is certainly big enough for TV. I'll just need to pair it with Sonos play bar for sound and music.

Seems kind of overkill if you're just using it for TV. Most consumer content these days isn't over 30hz, so a Seiki 4k should be fine for your purposes. No need to pay a premium for something you wont need.

Based on what has been reported, the color quality between the Seiki and the Dell are worlds apart. As someone who does color-sensitive work often (and as someone who just enjoys good color reproduction) I'd take this over the Seiki any day of the week.

> As someone who does color-sensitive work often ..

On a TV? Because that's what this thread was about, using that thing in the living room as a TV?

Yeah. Once you get used to working on a lot of media and paying attention to color accuracy, using a poor panel even just for consumption is like a red hot poker in the eye.

I use IPS panels exclusively for coding now. Looking at a TN panel makes me actively want to ragequit whatever I'm doing.

Which isn't to say every panel has to be IPS and be 100% AdobeRGB or such silliness, but blacks have to be black, whites have to be white, and there can't be blindingly obvious color shift. From what I've seen the Seiki comes well short of this bar.

Yeah, a Seiki 4k is fine if you don't care about image quality.

Where will you find video equipment with DisplayPort? Or do plan on watching really-bad 30Hz video using HDMI?

Didn't really think about the refresh rate part. But as counter argument, I think I'll need high refresh rate for console games.

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