Dell's $5000 8K monitor looks incredible, but it's not for gamers

midian182

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Back at CES in January, the world got its first look at Dell’s UltraSharp UP3218K, a 32-inch monitor that boasts an IPS display with an amazing 8K (7680 x 4320) resolution. Now, thanks to YouTube channels Linus Tech Tips and Marques Brownlee, as well as Ars Technica UK, we have a better idea of how it functions in the real world.

The UP3218K can display a 33-megapixel image pixel-for-pixel at 280ppi, and has a 10-bit panel that covers 100 percent of the Adobe RGB color space. As you can imagine, the image quality is breathtakingly sharp, “like looking through a window,” said Brownlee.

The monitor can refresh 8K images at 60Hz, but that requires a lot of bandwidth: two DisplayPort 1.4 cables, to be precise. It will work with just one, but you’ll be limited to a 30Hz refresh rate. And after paying five grand, you’re unlikely to settle for anything but the best it has to offer.

Before shipping the monitors out to customers, Dell tunes each one to ensure the best color accuracy and it includes an individual calibration report in each box. In addition to covering 100 percent of the sRGB color space, the monitor also covers 100 percent of Rec 709, and 98 percent of DCI-P3. Plus, it’s factory calibrated to a Delta E of less than 2. All of which make it an amazing product for content creation. Dell is particularly interested in the monitor’s potential applications in the field of medicine, where the extra details it provides when viewing images could aid scientists in their research.

But how does it handle games, you may ask. Well, considering that even the mighty GTX 1080 Ti can only just run titles at 60 fps in 4K, the answer is: not that well. The games may look incredible, but Ars found that Nvidia’s card often hit minimum fps in the single figures when at 7680 x 4320. And Linus, who was using two of the GPUs in a water-cooled SLI setup, found the games constantly crashed.

With a sparsity of 8K content available, and the numerous issues when it comes to gaming, who is this monitor aimed at? Certainly not the majority of the general public, it seems. But professionals that can take advantage of its high resolution will no doubt be blown away by the bleeding edge tech. And perhaps in five years’ time, 8K will be what everyone is chasing, much like 4K is today.

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Well, to be fair: the monitor isn't struggling with games (as if having ghosting or a long input lag); GPUs struggle with games at 8K, which is different.
I agree. How could the wording be so wrong when the description of the test clearly shows the GPU can't handle it. I was quick to judge the monitor prior to reading the article but after reading it, it seems to be an awesome monitor.
 
Good. When this takes off, it brings the price of 4K stuff down. Just what the doctor ordered. Anybody who throws 5 G's around on a monitor needs their head read as far as I'm concerned... or they've just robbed a bank.
 
Good. When this takes off, it brings the price of 4K stuff down. Just what the doctor ordered. Anybody who throws 5 G's around on a monitor needs their head read as far as I'm concerned... or they've just robbed a bank.

If I made $5,000 a day...

I'd probably build a full system and spend the rest on a Lamborghini.
 
Open your eyes and look around. There's more "K" out there right in front of your eyes, than spending obscene amount of money to fix your eyes on a square plate of glass and plastic.
 
32" is way too small. You'd need a powerful magnifying glass to examine medical scans at 8K resolution in a 32" form factor.

Pretty monitor. Pretty useless, too.
 
32" is way too small. You'd need a powerful magnifying glass to examine medical scans at 8K resolution in a 32" form factor.

Pretty monitor. Pretty useless, too.
It is less than 300ppi so unless you have vision problems you should have no problem seeing all the detail (normal eyesight can see at least 600ppi detail unaided).
 
It is less than 300ppi so unless you have vision problems you should have no problem seeing all the detail (normal eyesight can see at least 600ppi detail unaided).
I may have exaggerated slightly.
Here's the truth: at 32", the proper viewing distance for an 8K monitor is 12". Any further and detail is lost.
One foot from a 32" display means that you can only see clearly the detail in parts of the screen, and must move your head around to see all of the detail.
https://www.extremetech.com/computi...new-8k-32-inch-monitor-ces-2017-shipping-year
 
I may have exaggerated slightly.
Here's the truth: at 32", the proper viewing distance for an 8K monitor is 12". Any further and detail is lost.
One foot from a 32" display means that you can only see clearly the detail in parts of the screen, and must move your head around to see all of the detail.
https://www.extremetech.com/computi...new-8k-32-inch-monitor-ces-2017-shipping-year
You may also want to note that these 'proper viewing distances' are a scam made up by Apple to promote their 'Retina' displays, they only take into account the horizontal/vertical resolution, not the diagonal, a square pixel has a longer diagonal than either of its sides (credit: Pythagoras).
 
I have a hard enough time pushing games I like at 4K. With the LG27UD69PW display I just picked up recently, even GTX 970's in SLI have a hard time maintaining that magical 60fps in games like GTA V running at 4K with high graphics settings.

Gaming aside, there are also some scaling issues with older programs that don't support Windows 10 DPI scaling properly. The creator's update really helped with this by giving some new scaling compatibility modes that actually work with any GDI based apps, which are plentiful. Also, even some of Microsoft's own utilities like device manager finally look right when the DPI is scaled on a 4K screen.

So while the creators update is a step in the right direction, we still have some issues with 4K support, let alone 8K. This monitor is amazing but it's ahead of the software right now and I only see it being useful with niche software suites that support Window's DPI scaling. But overall it's a waste of money for most power users. They are better off sticking with multiple 4K or 1440p screens at this point.

I really hope to see some progress here in the near future with the DPI scaling issues. Android's scaling works fantastic as 1440p on a 5.7 inch screen is crisp and detailed no matter what app you're using.
 
You may also want to note that these 'proper viewing distances' are a scam made up by Apple to promote their 'Retina' displays, they only take into account the horizontal/vertical resolution, not the diagonal, a square pixel has a longer diagonal than either of its sides (credit: Pythagoras).
Scam! Did you just say scam? Do you think viewing distances is a joke?
 
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