Comment by sillysaurus3 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sillysaurus3 | Hacker News Reader

I was curious what the exact resolutions were. A quick google search claims:

"4k monitor": 3824 x 2160

"5k monitor": 5120 x 2880

That's a lot of pixels.

It might be a good idea to be skeptical about spending >$1,500 on a 27-inch monitor in Q4 2014. It's difficult to notice any pixelation on a 27" screen at a resolution of 2560x1440, so clearly the reason to upgrade to 5120x2880 is for the extra screen workspace. But unless you have very good vision, you're probably not going to be able to read text at 5120x2880 without zooming. What's the advantage?

For $1,000 you can buy two 27" 2560x1440 monitors, which is a huge amount of workspace. Also, a single $300 midrange GPU can drive both monitors at full resolution. A couple years ago, that was cutting-edge tech, but it cost ~$2600. Also, two monitors offer a better user experience than one monitor, since window management is a bit easier.

Would anyone mind explaining whether the pros of a 5k monitor outweigh the hefty pricetag?

> It's difficult to notice any pixelation on a 27" screen at a resolution of 2560x1440

Not once you are used to a retina display. I have both a retina Macbook Pro, and a 27" iMac. It is actually really obvious, especially when looking at text.

> you're probably not going to be able to read text at 5120x2880 without zooming

This is correct, unless you use the standard retina resolution which is like 2560x1440 except doubled, so everything is the same size just much nicer looking.

I would say the pros are not there just yet; it would certainly look nicer, but not a whole lot nicer. Moving from 1366x768 on laptops to 2560x1560 (or whatever it is, can't remember off the top of my head) was a great shift. This isn't quite as big a deal.

It would be very nice to be able to display full 4K detail or side-by-side 1080p videos for editing purposes. Photo editing will be great too, though you will have to resort to 'physical zoom' (i.e. moving your head closer) to do serious pixel peeping, rather than the old and probably superior technique of blowing up the pixels to larger than you'd see them normally.

For gaming and such.... I'm not really sure. Downsampling is now the name of the game, i.e. rendering above the display rez and dropping it down, which has nice effects on IQ. Rendering 14.7 million pixels is a hell of a task to start with, and then you start getting all manner of masks, per-pixel effects, etc... the demands really multiply. Plus there's also a focus on high framerates, like 120, which we're not going to see at 4K or 5K for a gooood long while. It'll be years before things catch up at the mid-tier level of processors and GPUs. And 8 GB of RAM, I hardly need add, is entirely insufficient.

tl;dr: for today's flat desktop purposes, probably not necessary but could be nice. for gaming and other purposes, probably reaching too far. but it's still a nice trend.

For $450 you can buy a 28" 4k monitor: http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&c...

Although I'm not sure how the display quality compares, that'll be for e.g. Anandtech to test. And other 5k monitors are in the same price range as the imac (except without the computer part)

>It's difficult to notice any pixelation on a 27" screen at a resolution of 2560x1440, so clearly the reason to upgrade to 5120x2880 is for the extra screen workspace.

On the new 5K iMac you won't perceive a bigger workspace^ than you had on the previous (2560x1440) model, because all UI elements will be scaled up at the factor of two, practically making everything look twice as sharp.

^: Actually, just like with the retina MacBooks, you'll have the option to use alternative resolutions up to 5K with and without scaling, effectively creating a larger virtual workspace.

"It's difficult to notice any pixelation on a 27" screen at a resolution of 2560x1440" - wouldn't say that's true - they screens are good, but when you switch between any phone, any tablet, a rMBP and the current iMacs you really do notice the low resolution.

I never had this problem before getting the rMBP however, so maybe I'm just getting picky!

It might be difficult for you, but it's very clear to me.

But if all you are doing is text editing, you may be right about the value.

On the other hand if you are doing 4K video editing or designing mobile apps, this is a great tool.

I would think for graphic design work the extra resolution would be well worth the extra price.

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