
Dell’s 32-inch 8K UP3218K Display Now for Sale - DiabloD3
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11220/dells-32-inch-8k-up3218k-display-now-for-sale
======
Xcelerate
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who is really excited about these
resolution improvements. When the MacBook Pro Retina came out in 2012, the
_only_ reason I bought it was because of the display. I had never used a Mac
before then.

Going from 4K to 8K for a 32" monitor may seem like a small improvement, but
it is a subtle sensory improvement that just makes using a computer more
_pleasant_. Until displays reach 1/60th of an arc minute from standard viewing
distances (roughly the discerning power of the human eye under assumptions on
contrast), I will always want higher resolution.

Other than resolution improvements, it would be nice if someone would attempt
an HDR light field display. This would ultimately lead to a monitor that is
indistinguishable from a window.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Frankly, a 4K 32" monitor is quite crappy...4K works at 24" or so, but above
that you begin to see pixels if you use it as a standard monitor (arms length)
rather than a TV (a few feet away). 8K is fairly reasonable for 32", putting
it in 200+ PPI area (279.73 to be precise), meaning it could be used as a real
monitor...but...it's a bit big for me (27" is kind of a stretch already).

I would like to see OLED's at this size/resolution, which would accomplish
something similar.

~~~
acchow

      Frankly, a 4K 32" monitor is quite crappy..
    

The Apple Cinema display is 2560×1440 (1440p) at 27" and plenty of people use
that. That was a pretty standard resolution for 27-30" screens before 4K
became popular. Most people would find 2160p (i.e. 4k) at this screen size to
be really nice.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Apple no longer makes or sales that, it is outdated tech. I'm so used to 200+
PPI now that when I had a 4K 28" monitor at work, I thought it was just not
that good.

~~~
skwirl
I just bought a P2715Q (27", 163ppi) and I really haven't noticed the
difference from my 220ppi 15" MacBook Pro. I'm sure if I put them side by side
and shoved my face into them I would notice, but practically speaking, 163ppi
is pretty great.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
If you are using Mac OS, font smoothing makes it really hard to tell. If you
are using Windows, the difference is more apparent given a more sharp font
rendering.

~~~
atonse
This makes sense. I've also had a P2715Q for more than a year and it looks
retina to me, but I'm mostly looking at the (anti-aliased) text when
determining that.

------
metaphor
Any engineers familiar with DSC 1.2 care to comment on how the required
compression to support 8K@60Hz over DP 1.4 could presumably manifest
undesirable artifacts (for lack of a better analogy) which would run counter
to the reasons that would make this high-end display attractive from a
productivity perspective? I initially thought this would be a vanilla lossless
frame transaction, but that's apparently not the case. If imperfections aren't
perceivable at 32", I'm curious how they'll visually manifest (if at all) as
display size scales up.

Wiki[1] notes that DSC is _visually lossless_ per ISO/IEC 29170-2 test method,
but I'm neither familiar with DSC nor the ISO/IEC standard. What are the
practical implications of calibrating against a $200+ colorimeter accessory
that Dell is so intent on adding to your cart?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#Display_Stream_Com...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#Display_Stream_Compression)

------
metaphor
Dell specifies[1] 87W (typical) to 125W (max), with 89.5W in Energy Star mode.
Has anyone ballpark-estimated power requirement to _generate_ the video
signals driving such a monitor?

Also, any idea what DP cable lengths will be pragmatically limited to at such
a resolution?

P.S. The naivete of this type[2] of marketing tactic never fails to blow my
mind away...as perceived from an _inferior_ Dell U2415.

[1] [http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-
ultrasharp-32-8k-monitor...](http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-
ultrasharp-32-8k-monitor-up3218k/apd/210-alez/monitors-monitor-accessories)

[2] [http://i.dell.com/das/xa.ashx/global-site-
design%20WEB/2a9f3...](http://i.dell.com/das/xa.ashx/global-site-
design%20WEB/2a9f39a0-0d5c-0c11-0730-f51153f16311/1/OriginalPng?id=Dell/Product_Images/Peripherals/Output_Devices/Dell/Monitors/UP_Series/UP3218K/pdp/dell-
monitor-up3218k-pdp-03.jpg)

~~~
rsync
"Dell specifies[1] 87W (typical) to 125W (max), with 89.5W in Energy Star
mode. Has anyone ballpark-estimated power requirement to generate the video
signals driving such a monitor?"

I've never looked at LCD panel power usage before ... are those numbers high
or low or ... ?

If I go to best buy and buy a 50" samsung 4k TV, what would that power usage
be, roughly ?

(just trying to get a sense of comparison)

~~~
aschampion
For comparison, my 10 year old Dell 3007WFP (30" 16:10 1600p monitor for
similar market segment) is 147W typical 177W max. So 8x the pixels for ~60% of
the power consumption after a decade of improvement sounds good. Shame it's
16:9.

------
nickparker
>It’s worth noting that Raja Koduri, SVP of AMD’s Radeon Technology Group, has
stated that VR needs 16K per-eye at 144 Hz to emulate the human experience

This is tangential to this thread, but can anyone in here explain the state of
the art in eye tracking? Actually rendering 16k quality for my peripheral
vision seems insane to me, so I'm really interested in the barriers between
today's tech and a good foveated headset.

~~~
chairmanwow
I cannot possible believe that rendering at this resolution is necessary. Most
VR users don't turn their eyeballs while wearing headsets, but opt to use
controls to adjust their perspective. I've read several accounts of hacks
developers have taken when rendering VR games, but one that has kept cropping
up is reducing resolution of areas in the periphery.

While you certainly could use 16K displays for VR, I think it would be
entirely unnecessary.

~~~
drewrv
Most VR users don't turn their eyeballs right now because the field of view is
pretty small.

------
mixmastamyk
16:9 is suboptimal for me. I usually like one extra display in portrait
orientation for code and web pages.

My current 16:9 24" 4k display in portrait is too tall---have to move my head
up and down a lot, and too skinny---hard to put two windows side by side
comfortably. Have to fiddle with overlapping windows a lot. In landscape it
would be too short, and I rarely watch movies on my desktop. One movie trailer
a quarter approximately, so optimizing for that use case is absurd.

I would prefer a fatter 16:10 instead, and was happy with the 22" 1920x1200
that was replaced, though I love the increased resolution of the new monitor.

~~~
portugee
This is the single reason why I have not made the switch to 4k displays. I
simply cannot give up my existing 24" 16:10 monitors.

~~~
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
I use two 24" 4K displays and scale the image to look like 2560x1440 per
monitor (macOS). It took a while to get used to the smaller UI, but I love the
amount of space I get.

Edit: The rendered viewport per monitor is 5120x2880 (=2560x1440 Retina), so
everything is sharp.

------
nwah1
8K doesn't excite me. I want a monitor with 4K, FreeSync, over 144hz, running
on Displayport-over-USB type C... and ideally powered only by USB.

This seems like it will be possible one day.

------
bhauer
Give me a 50+ inch 8K concave OLED desktop display with a matte surface and I
will pay a _huge_ premium.

My predictions aren't holding up [1]. I feel too many customers are satisfied
with small form-factor and/or are tolerant of using multiple displays and
suffering the inconvenience of bezels.

[1] [http://tiamat.tsotech.com/ideal-desktop-
displays](http://tiamat.tsotech.com/ideal-desktop-displays)

~~~
peeters
What's the use case where bezels are inconvenient? For me I want natural
delineation of workspace. Being able to snap applications to 3 physical
boundaries makes it easier for me to organize my work, vs one massive display
where every window is floating arbitrarily.

I'm not saying those are the only two options, I'm just curious what the
downside is, specifically with productivity use. I feel like if I had a 50"
concave display, I'd want my window manager to have some kind of logical
organization similar to what I'd have with multiple monitors anyway.

~~~
RussianCow
For one, you can't actually expand something across multiple screens.
Depending on the kind of work you do (especially anything visual like
graphics), the bezels may be a deal-breaker. Personally, I also just prefer
having one large monitor because my head doesn't need to move.

------
usaphp
> "Linus from LinusTechTips should be happy, as they just invested in a pair
> of 8K video cameras. Time to submit my own acquisition request"

I have never understood what's the point of investing in such an expensive and
new tech for videos for YouTube, most of the tech channel videos on YouTube
will be non relevant really fast so it's not like you are future proofing...in
two years from now still very few people will have 8k screens, and cameras
will cost at least 50% less. Storing 8k videos will increase storage costs and
processing bandwidth too.

~~~
iamacynic
> _I have never understood what 's the point of investing in such an expensive
> and new tech for videos for YouTube_

these people are professional content makers. they make their living from
buying/receiving gear and reviewing it on youtube. this isn't a hobby. youtube
is big media now. very, very big. "just because you don't use it doesn't mean
nobody else does."

if a film editor, or professional photographer, or rich guy, or web developer,
or options trader, or magazine designer, or whoever is in the market for an 8k
display and/or camera rig, they go to youtube and watch the reviews.

but in general... you know we used to have 640x480 screens and 20MB hard
drives, right? that was 'normal', and 1024x768 seemed excessive. welcome to
the forever now.

~~~
pisarzp
I believe a lot of people shoot in higher resolution than intended output
because they want to be able to crop the video and still have desired
resolution.

~~~
purerandomness
I just want to have nicer text.

------
JohnTHaller
tl;dr: US$4999, 7680 × 4320 resolution, 1300:1 contrast, 31.5" IPS, 60Hz
refresh, 2 × DisplayPort 1.4 to handle the bandwidth

~~~
rsync
One last spec: it is indeed 16:9.

Which is unfortunate.

------
ChuckMcM
That is a lot of pixels. And quite an improvement over the 16 lines of 64
characters on a converted television that the first computers had.

The article points out the challenge though, all that memory that needs to
from where it is into the pixels on the screen at a rate fast enough to not
annoy you with repaint lag. Which reminds me that the real 'winner' in this
space will be if someone can put 300 ppi where ever you are looking in a
larger field of view and leave the rest at 100ppi and 50ppi.

~~~
angus-prune
That'd be a fascinating piece of tech.

I'd bet against it being achieved before GPU's have caught up with the
requirements though.

~~~
Grimes23
Foveated rendering has already been demonstrated at GDC this year, it's
expected to be included in the next generation of vr headsets, and there are
already some attachments for your monitor you can buy now.

[http://www.tobii.com/](http://www.tobii.com/)

------
bitL
I have 3x 4k monitors, one 31.5" DCI 4k, one 28" UHD 4k and a 55" UHD TV (that
also reports itself as DCI capable).

Frankly, 8k at 31.5" is kinda pointless unless you have eyes of an eagle or
are working glued to your monitor. As a tech demo from Dell, it's cool!

~~~
0xCMP
I agree. I couldn't use my 4k Dell monitor with anything but my mbp on OS X
because I couldn't read much on Windows. Windows does not do display scaling
very well.

I imagine 8k is not the easiest to use on Windows and there do not seem to be
any Apple products with the right amount of power to use a display like this
correctly (i.e. With the same power you'd put on a custom machine running
Windows.).

~~~
lucaspiller
Windows 10 works mostly ok for me (27" UHD), I just set the scaling to 175%
and everything scales nicely (if a program doesn't fully support scaling then,
it's usually scaled up but blurry). It's supposedly a per-monitor setting, but
I haven't tried it.

Linux is the real pain - most things only support integer scaling for UI
elements and 200%/2x makes it feel a bit big to me.

~~~
kuschku
> Linux is the real pain - most things only support integer scaling for UI
> elements and 200%/2x makes it feel a bit big to me.

That’s actually only the fault of Gnome.

All KDE and Qt programs support fractional DPI scaling – with a different
ratio per screen.

Don’t blame all Linux programs if it’s only Gnome that’s broken.

The environment variable used is

    
    
        QT_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTORS=DisplayPort-2=1.75;HDMI-A-0=1.08;

------
Keyframe
280 ppi! At around 800 ppi you don't need to do AA anymore. So, around 32k at
same size.

~~~
dpark
Why would you need AA at 280ppi? At sane viewing distances, I would imagine
that 99% (maybe 100%) of the population lacks the visual acuity to benefit
from >280ppi.

Where does your 800ppi claim come from?

~~~
Keyframe
Yeah, it depends on viewing distance, of course. there was a calculation which
from 800 came out as a number, which I forgot and can't produce atm. I
remember the output. Same as in print when printing fine detail, such as maps,
no less than 800 dpi ever (not related, but there was also a calculation which
I forgot, but remember the output).

~~~
dpark
Print and monitors aren't directly comparable. Print needs higher DPI because
people will literally hold a map up to their face to look at fine detail. You
just zoom a digital map instead.

If you aren't holding your face up to your monitor, you don't need 800dpi. The
original iPhone "retina" display was 326ppi and that was assuming a 12 inch
viewing distance. For monitor viewing distance, you'll be 20 or more inches
away, making 280ppi plenty for the vast majority of people.

------
Tepix
Do you think that the market will sooner or later move to 8K monitors? I'm not
so sure.

At a normal viewing distance a 100dpi monitor is already decent. A UHD monitor
is just great. You have to get very close to see individual pixels. I'd say
doing AA is no longer required even then.

8K seems overkill for most purposes. Sure, there is a niche that can take
advantage of it, but I don't see advantages for the mass market.

Same as with SACD, CD tech is simply good enough for pretty much everyone so
SACD never took off.

I write this despite being a high dpi junkie, I bought a ViewSonic VP2290b
(IBM T221 clone, 3840x2400 22") back in 2006 and dealt with a huge hassle of 4
DPI inputs for years.

~~~
exprA
>At a normal viewing distance a 100dpi monitor is already decent.

No it isn't.

~~~
wazoox
You'll see, it'll do perfectly in a couple of decades. Most people wear
glasses nowadays, and those who don't will at some point in the future.

~~~
dpark
Wearing glasses doesn't reduce the need or desire for higher resolution
monitors. Maybe _uncorrectable_ vision problems do, but if your glasses get
your eyes close to 20/20, you'll benefit from higher resolution just like
people with natural 20/20 vision.

And as another poster pointed out, the blurriness of the screen may compound
with the natural blurriness of uncorrectable vision loss.

------
erickhill
From our human eyeball's perspective, aren't we getting to a point of
diminishing returns?

I just wish Apple had made a retina Cinema display and left it at that (they
have the tech, it's in the 5K iMac).

~~~
orbitur
Until the last year Apple didn't make any devices that could actually
reasonably drive a 5k monitor (save the iMac of course), and that's ignoring
the connectivity problem.

------
sarreph
> "By then, 16K might exist, back at the $5000 price point. Maybe."

I appreciate the author saying 'maybe' because I can't, off the top of my
head, understand why 16K would add any benefit over 8K... Aren't we at
'retina' with 4/8K anyway?

EDIT: at a 32" resolution...

~~~
zanny
Retina is determined by view distance and visual acuity. You can get retina on
any 4k tv right now at several meters of view distance (hell, you can get
"retina" on old 1080p tvs when you are sufficiently far enough away), but if
you stood right in front of it it would be obviously pixilated anywhere from
30"\+ resolution.

Same applies to desktop monitors and phones. The reason phone screens pushed
high DPI first was because you were much closer to the screen to make it fill
your view.

------
intrasight
The image on the screen in that article certainly looks better than the
monitor I' using ;)

~~~
bo1024
Right? And I also don't understand this side-by-side comparison. If I'm
viewing the image on a 1080p screen (say), then why can I tell the difference
between these images? What is the comparison supposed to be showing?

~~~
tgb
The comparison images are zoomed in, though they should specify how much.
Presumably by a factor of four.

------
ryanmarsh
So can I drive this from a 15" touchbar MBP?

------
eugenekolo2
Personally don't see the point. I was disappointed w/ 4K monitors when half of
my applications didn't scale well for them. I imagine even less things will
scale well for an even less popular resolution.

------
ezoe
I brought 27 inch 4K display recently and instantly regret I hadn't purchased
4K display 3 years ago.

Back then, 4K display was still way too expensive. Although I could buy one, I
didn't think spending half the price of good laptop computer for a 4K display
doesn't worth the money. I was wrong.

4K display greatly improved my productivity. I should have purchased a few of
them already.

------
gurkendoktor
I don't need a super-high DPI display, but 3440x1440 @2x is almost 7K, and
that sounds like a natural upgrade from the existing 21:9 34" displays.

It's a pity that most operating systems aren't designed for huge screens -
Windows' start menu is always in the bottom-left corner, for example.

------
vinayan3
Hopefully, they drop the price on the 32'' 4K monitor to under $1,000. That'd
be a great deal.

~~~
ReverseCold
There are 32" 4k monitors (IPS, 60Hz, 4ms response) for $600 or less from LG
already.

~~~
stagger87
Can you please provide a link? They are not showing up on the LG website or
Amazon. If anyone else knows of a 32" 4k monitor for 500 USD or less, share a
link. For me 32" is smallest size I can get away with 100% scaling at 4k.

~~~
rini17
I have bought this one in December, there's 1 bad pixel but otherwise am
satisfied. [http://www.ebay.com/itm/QNIX-
NEW-32-UHD3216R-REAL-4K-MINE-38...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/QNIX-
NEW-32-UHD3216R-REAL-4K-MINE-3840X2160-60Hz-IPS-UHD-Monitor-AMD-
FreeSync-/131906201627?hash=item1eb638e81b)

------
HurrdurrHodor
That article says I can get 4K for 350. More interested in that than the 8K,
anybody got a link in Europe?

~~~
anoother
2-3 years ago I got a 28" 4k TN panel for ~£280. Then a 24" 4k IPS for ~£200.

This year 2 27" 4k IPSs for ~£350 each (both LGs, the first one a better model
but cheaper because pre-Brexit-vote).

Prices have gone up from my POV.

In answer to your question: [https://www.overclockers.co.uk/monitors/by-
type/4k-ultra-hd?...](https://www.overclockers.co.uk/monitors/by-
type/4k-ultra-hd?sSort=3) \-- under £300 for 24" 4k IPS. OCUK is a UK
subsidiary of Caseking (de), so I'd be surprised if similar prices weren't
available across Europe.

In all the above experience, I've found Acer to be very good (3 monitors, 2
excellent and 1 with pixel defects), Benq to be poor (multiple returns before
I gave up and bought something cheaper) and LG to be absolutely flawless.

------
mark_l_watson
I might be tempted if it used a USB-C input and was compatible with my
MacBook. I recently bought from Apply the LG ultradef monitor they recommend
for the MacBook, and while the LG + MacBook combination is great, even a
larger higher resolution screen would be great.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Interesting that it uses two DisplayPort 1.4 inputs. I guess HDMI 2.1 isn't
ready yet?

~~~
riobard
Any current gfx cards featuring HDMI 2.1?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Oh, right, there's a chicken-and-egg problem there.

------
redm
I'm using multiple 32" 4K monitors, and while the additional definition might
be "nice," I certainly can't work with any "smaller" text.

I wish Dell would produce 8K monitors in a much larger format, like 48".

~~~
seanalltogether
Forgive my ignorance since I've been on Mac for so long, but does windows
still not do UI scaling?

~~~
mi100hael
Windows has HiDPI support pretty well nailed down AFAIK. Laptops like the Dell
XPS have been shipping with HiDPI screens for a while.

Linux support is spottier, especially when using multiple displays of varying
DPIs, but even Gnome works pretty well on a HiDPI laptop these days.

~~~
Tepix
I'm using Ubuntu 16.04 on a Dell XPS 13 (3200x1800) and it works well as long
as I use 2.0 as the magnification value. Other values such as 1.83 are broken.

~~~
mnw21cam
I'm using XFCE (Debian unstable) on a Zenbook (3200x1800) and that works
really well too. There isn't a magnification value to set - rather you set the
display DPI.

------
j_s
Per HN's own doctorpangloss 1 week ago: _The Dell P2715Q is the best deal_ on
a high DPI display
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13901752#13902158](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13901752#13902158)

HN's skwirl, right as I posted this: _(27 ", 163ppi)_
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13949827](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13949827)

I don't think anyone is beating
[https://amzn.com/dp/B00PC9HFO8](https://amzn.com/dp/B00PC9HFO8) at $540.

If you found this info useful, this is a referral link you could choose of
your own free will (no pressure from me!):
[http://amzn.to/2nvx9XP](http://amzn.to/2nvx9XP)

------
TheRealPomax
8k but no Rec.2020 gamut support... that's actually incredibly disappointing.

------
mpg33
holy shit...look at the size of the taskbar

------
ww520
Now if only Microsoft could fix that Remote Desktop resolution scaling
problem, things would be so much better. Remote Desktop to a hi-res machine
shrinks everything to unviewable level.

------
eveningcoffee
Is it with matte finish?

------
adamnemecek
Can't wait for AR/VR to make monitors obsolete.

~~~
thinkmassive
FTA: "It’s worth noting that Raja Koduri, SVP of AMD’s Radeon Technology
Group, has stated that VR needs 16K per-eye at 144 Hz to emulate the human
experience, so we're still a way off in the display technology reaching
consumer price points at least."

Dual 16k @ 144Hz

Granted, phones are ahead of desktop displays in pixel density, and that seems
more applicable to VR displays.

~~~
dx034
I still can't imagine that they would replace displays at work for anyone who
regularly interacts with a team. VR is not good for collaboration. Just as an
extension if you need to shut out the world around you. But it'll be hard to
tell your company that you suddenly need 8K displays and VR.

~~~
mikeash
Project your teammates into a shared VR world. Just think, finally you can
gesture wildly at the whiteboard without whacking people in the head.

~~~
Koshkin
> _whacking people in the head_

Which, incidentally, you could do now that you are in a VR, whenever you feel
like.

------
qntty
4k is 4096p, I would expect 8k to be 8192p, but it's only 7680p.

~~~
simonh
4k refers to approximately four thousand horizontal pixels. 1080p refers to
1080 vertical pixels. So how many 'k' and how many 'p' a display is/has aren't
comparable figures.

~~~
theandrewbailey
The 'p' stands for progressive scan, not the dimension being measured (neither
does 'k').

~~~
simonh
I know that and 'k' just means thousands, but in context they still indicate
which dimension is being referred to. 'p' is never used to refer to horizontal
dimension metrics and I've never seen 'k' on it's own with a number used to
indicate vertical resolution. Not without that being explicitly stated anyway.

------
modzu
meanwhile, 60hz...

