Dell's New 5K Monitor is a 27 inch Monster

[Blackwell Stith]

Dell's New 5K Monitor is a 27 inch Monster

Who wants a 4K display when you can have a 5K monitor with twice as many pixels?

Dell's new UltraSharp 5K monitor is certainly a sight to behold. With a screen size of 27 inches and a resolution of 5120x2880, it has two times the amount of pixels as a 4K display, and seven times as many pixels as a vanilla 1080p monitor. At the time of its release, it will finally overtake IBM's 2003 T220/T221 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221_LCD_monitors] as the highest-res desktop monitor.

The Dell UltraSharp 27 Ultra HD 5K monitor (quite a few "ultra"s in there) has a total pixel count of 14.7 million. By comparison, a 4K monitor or television has 8.3 million pixels. A 1080p monitor or smartphone has only 2 million pixels. Its size and resolution combined translates to 218 pixels per inch- comparable to laptops like the Asus Zenbook or the Apple Retina Macbook Pro with high resolution display. 218 PPI is also more than double the current 22- or 24-inch display, which sits somewhere in the vicinity of 100 PPI

The UltraSharp also boosts several useful features besides its resolution. For its use in the workplace, the monitor is armed with Dell PremierColor calibration and an anti-smudge/anti-reflective coating. It has six USB ports, a media card reader, and two integrated 16W Harmon Kardon speakers.

When speculating as to how Dell designed the monitor to achieve 5K, one theory stands above everything else. Since no manufacturer is making 5120x2880 panels at 27 inches for consumer products, the likely explanation is that the UltraSharp is sporting two 2560x2880 panels overlaid as a "tiled display". Some 4K use this method with two 1920x2160 panels as an alternative to a single 3840x2160 panel. The 5K monitor is most likely driven by two DisplayPort 1.2 connectors with Multi-Stream Transport [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#Multiple_displays_on_single_DisplayPort_connector].

The Dell UltraSharp 27 Ultra HD 5K monitor will be available sometime before Christmas and have the snuggly price tag of $2500.

Source: ExtremeTech [http://www.extremetech.com/computing/189342-dell-unveils-5k-desktop-monitor-with-almost-2x-the-pixels-of-your-puny-4k-display]

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Permalink

 

[SUPA FRANKY]

I think I'll just stick with a 1080p monitor thanks...

 

[razer17]

Why? Like, is their any point? You can't play games at that resolution, there'll be no video at that resolution, few will even hit 4k for a while.

 

[yamy]

Why do you need 6 USB slots for a monitor?

 

[seris]

anti aliasing is now obsolete

 

[dragongit]

Next year they will reveal their all new 6k monitors for the low low price of your arm, leg, and left testicle. I'm still got this 1080 monitor and TV, and so far I'm just fine. They hardly make anything for that resolution anyway. My brain still registers the images as clear enough that I doubt I'll need this "upgrade" for a while. besides higher resolutions over 1080 will chug graphics cards. I'd rather have 60 frames then more dots per inch.

 

[youji itami]

Why? Like, is their any point? You can't play games at that resolution, there'll be no video at that resolution, few will even hit 4k for a while.

Yes because computers are only for watching films and playing games. /s

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

Why? Like, is their any point? You can't play games at that resolution, there'll be no video at that resolution, few will even hit 4k for a while.

Yes because computers are only for watching films and playing games. /s

I was thinking that, too. Hi-Rez monitors, while fun to throw HD wallpapers on, are best for doing things like making said wallpapers. Most digitally created concept art, posters, and marketing material is incredibly high detail because it has to look good when blown up onto things like convention banners and billboards. They are also great for video editing, again because theatre movie projectors are going to spread images as well.

While gaming is fun and PC gaming "uses PC components to their fullest," the vast majority of PC intensive work is involved in multimedia design and rendering it is much more intensive, requiring not only graphics cards but displays to render it to. Gaming is not the center of the technology world. Sorry to make someone out there cry

 

[Litwin]

Why? Like, is their any point? You can't play games at that resolution, there'll be no video at that resolution, few will even hit 4k for a while.

The tape on which movies are shot are basically 8k as far as I remember... The main issue lies in encoding and delivering that. Good luck streaming a movie that takes somewhere around 40GB in 4k or 160GB in 8k.

Edit: Also 14745600 pixels is way less than 2x8294400 pixels...

 

[Artemicion]

It is very, very unlikely that the human eye will be able to resolve a 5K image on a 27". The observable differences between 4k and 5k on a screen of that size would be so minimal they'd likely go unnoticed.

Never mind that there is no media that plays in 5k (and very few in 4k) and you wouldn't be able to play games at that resolution unless the game was really old (and therefore would look crap anyway) or you enjoyed slide show gaming. This is a waste of money targeted at the unenlightened.

The tape on which movies are shot are basically 8k as far as I remember...

35mm film = 4k.

 

[Callate]

Aside from chiming in with the "Why?!" crowd, isn't 27 inches actually kind of small for this high a resolution? At that resolution, a 640 x 480 image is going to be about the size of a couple of postage stamps, if I'm doing my math correctly. Maybe if you do a lot of extremely high resolution photo work, such a purchase might be justified- but even then, color fidelity becomes a more important factor than sheer resolution (let alone number of USB ports), and you would probably be best waiting until there was a wider field of competitors available.

For multimedia work or video editing, you could get three or four monitors for that price and arrange your work across them, assuming your video card would support 'em. Actually, you could get three 4k monitors for that price and have change left over, from a quick glance at Amazon.

 

[Alpha Maeko]

"Don't worry, we've already got the 24k monitor prepped and ready to go."
"... er, what? We haven't invented that, yet."
"No, no, I mean, we're selling a 4k monitor covered in 24k gold."

 

[the December King]

Whaaaa? Dammit, I just got my 4k monitor last month!

Jeez... obsolete and dead of old age before I even unwrapped it, I guess.

My graphics card can't even fully use the res, so I'll be needing a new card to boot- heck, might just get a new comp, and save myself the hassle of finding out that there are other things that need optimization. There was a thread about mid-range PCs here a while ago...

 

[Saulkar]

This would be nice for previewing high-res renders before I composite them then drop resolution to actually fit on-screen.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Why? Like, is their any point? You can't play games at that resolution, there'll be no video at that resolution, few will even hit 4k for a while.

This is for video and photo editing, this price fits with the sort of people whom can afford it too. I'm thinking as a monitor for a mac pro.

 

[eBusiness]

It is clearly for programming, flip it to vertical position and you have got 300 lines of code in a single screen. And if you can limit yourself to 80 160 character wide lines you can still do side-by-side comparison without word-wrap or having to flip the monitor.

 

[Strazdas]

Who wants a 4K display when you can have a 5K monitor with twice as many pixels?

1. Its only 70% more pixels. and yes 30% is significant.

2. people that want normal scalability for 1080p video input will always choose 4k because proper UHD video is still nowhere to be seen.

Why? Like, is their any point? You can't play games at that resolution, there'll be no video at that resolution, few will even hit 4k for a while.

Of course you can play games at that resolution. what makes you think you cant?

anti aliasing is now obsolete

Hardly. Just because you got a monitor with 5k resolution does not mean there will be no aliasing. for one, even at good textures that still create visible aliasing if ler untouched, and for two games still ahve a tendency to have poor textures and unless you want to redo textures yourself your going to be using AA.

The tape on which movies are shot are basically 8k as far as I remember... The main issue lies in encoding and delivering that. Good luck streaming a movie that takes somewhere around 40GB in 4k or 160GB in 8k.

the issue lies in not having a choice to stream it. I could easily take 100mbps stream. heck, i am begging for a "normal quality" 30mbps stream of 1080p for years. yet there is no place i can buy this. Only Blue Rays can do this so far. Also damn you have to compress a movie to shit to take 40k in 4k resolution.

It is very, very unlikely that the human eye will be able to resolve a 5K image on a 27". The observable differences between 4k and 5k on a screen of that size would be so minimal they'd likely go unnoticed.

The tape on which movies are shot are basically 8k as far as I remember...

35mm film = 4k.

1. Its not unlikely. Human eye resolves far higher resolution images. this is a false myth that at this size you will not see a difference.

35mm is 4k, however most movies are now show digitally with 8K resolution cameras.