
Dell Previews 27-inch ‘5K’ UltraSharp Monitor: 5120x2880 - ismavis
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8496/dell-previews-27inch-5k-ultrasharp-monitor-5120x2880
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cpks
I'd gladly buy one, or even four, if they just worked.

Unfortunately, high-res multimonitor setups are horrendously unstable, require
specialized graphics cards (which usually sound like rocket jets), and have a
mess of incompatible standards. I'd probably need to spend a week or two
figuring out what graphics cards I need, upgrading my motherboard to have
enough slots to take them, figuring out if there's a way to make it talk to my
laptop, etc. Getting four 1080p displays working was enough work.

Basically, not a project I have time for.

Anytime that hardware becomes a project, it reaches 5% of the market. Most of
the market are people who just want to get work done. That means word
processors, IDEs, spreadsheets, PPT, etc. USB is fine even for multi-monitor
5k for normal work if you update the screen incrementally and
downsample/compress video. Video games aren't necessary. 200 watt graphics
cards aren't desired. Stability and ease-of-use are critical.

The trick would be making it Just Work. That means driver support (Linux,
Vista, XP, MacOS, etc.). That means testing across a range of hardware and
software. That means using a standard cable (USB or similar, not a pair of
DisplayPort 1.3 with dual-link cables and a graphics card capable of
virtual...). It also means performance testing for the stupid stuff (not
issues of 60hz vs 10hz refresh, or 3d gaming, or even video -- just that there
aren't funny issues where you wait 1 second for a screen refresh, or the
system locks up for 30 seconds thinking).

~~~
jrockway
Depends on what OS you use. If you use Linux, yeah, you're screwed. They are
still arguing over how to support monitors that expose themselves to the OS as
two monitors. The current answer is "that's dumb, maybe they'll go away." It
is dumb, but they're not going away.

Over on Windows, Nvidia has some hacks in the driver to work around this. With
a $70 current-gen card, I can drive two 4k monitors at 60Hz. One monitor
connects via two HDMI cables; the other over Displayport MST. (I don't
actually have two 4k monitors, but I did convince my computer that my one
monitor was two to test this.)

You're right about getting 4 monitors working. Probably possible with an SLI
setup, but the current generation of video hardware makes 1-3 monitors easy
and 4+ monitors hard. 3 monitors is better than a few years ago, though.

~~~
jotm
Wait, how is a monitor that appears as two to the OS a problem? We've had
multi monitor support for a long time, this is just the panels/pixels stitched
closer together, isn't it?

~~~
jrockway
The problem is you'll have two copies of your desktop (or whatever you choose
to have 1-per-monitor of) on one physical screen, because the OS thinks it's
two monitors when it's actually one monitor.

To make this go away, all that clever support needs to be disabled, which is
actually currently impossible in Linux!

~~~
jotm
I thought Linux supported extended desktop, but come to think of it, I never
actually tried it. Windows always worked perfectly fine :-)

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pilif
Assuming the signal is transmitted uncompressed, this would be 5120x2880x32
bits per frame, so 5120x2880x32x60 bits per seconds at 60fps.

That's 28GBit/s - more than what a single TB2 port can handle and probably
also more than what a lower-to-mid range GPU is able to produce.

I hope the solution to this will neither be reducing FPS nor adding
compression, so it looks like we need a new display connection standard.

Please tell me that I got my math wrong as I really, really, really want a
display at this resolution for my day-to-day work.

~~~
7952
Could you integrate the graphics card into the moniter? Surely the bandwidth
between the PCI express card and the motherboard will actually be less than
the bandwidth of the cable to the display.

~~~
valarauca1
Heh, you solved one problem by creating another.

It works fine if you only have 1 display, then you can run everything display
side.

But now lets say you have 3 displays. Now each built in GPU has have the
ability to talk to other items on the PCIe bus, not just the controller. This
sounds like a blessing. The host PC would only have to upload the window
contents once, then each display would send the information to each other.
Simple right?

But now we have to deal with hardware latency, and cross vendor
standardization. Which are largely problems then bandwidth.

~~~
kalleboo
I never had any problems running multiple displays on separate PCI graphics
cards on my 2002 PowerMac G4, why would that be a bigger challenge now?

~~~
JohnBooty
Each of the PCI graphics cards in your 2002 PowerMac was using a long-
established standard signal (VGA) to communicate with the monitors, so there
was no problem.

If you build the graphics card into the monitor, you'd need a new (non-
existant) standard to pipe graphics bitmaps and draw instructions between the
PC and the monitor. (Unless X is up to the task... hahah)

OR, you could just extend PCI express over cables to the monitors. Which would
work (you can already buy PCI express breakout boxes) but then you have much
greater latency between the card and the system, etc etc etc.

~~~
kalleboo
> OR, you could just extend PCI express over cables to the monitors

We already have this

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_\(interface\))

Thunderbolt combines PCI Express (PCIe) and DisplayPort (DP) into one serial
signal alongside a DC connection for electric power, transmitted over one
cable. Up to six peripherals may be supported by one connector through various
topologies.

Not enough PCIe lanes to get enough performance for games but it should be
fine for desktop applications.

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shmerl
Why not 5120x3200? 16:9 trend is really annoying.

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zuck9
Why a non-standard ratio like 8:5?

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kevhsu
16:10 is a standard ratio. 1680x1050, 1280x800, 1920x1200...

~~~
zuck9
Looks like I got my math wrong. I just noticed that 8:5 is the same as 16:10
=p

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mjsweet
So according to [https://www.sven.de/dpi/](https://www.sven.de/dpi/) it will
be 217.57 PPI.. similar to the Mac Book Pro retina 15 which is 220 PPI. See
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina_Display](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina_Display)
for the list.

~~~
vidarh
There's a list to compare against in the article itself.

~~~
lsaferite
Which is sadly missing the Nexus 5 @ 445ppi

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shurcooL
This is the same size/resolution as what a 27" Retina Thunderbolt Display
would be.

~~~
erik
My thoughts exactly. I could see Apple using a similar panel for the next 27"
iMac and Thunderbold Display, while using a 4k panel for the smaller iMac.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
At $2500 a pop now, I doubt they would use this for another couple of years.
Perhaps better to go with a UHD display now and deal with the the non-whole
number multiple.

~~~
leoc
I imagine they'll at least have to support other people's 5K monitors on the
Mac Pro, and maybe sell one themselves as a high-end display option. (I assume
that 5K will appeal to professionals working on 4K video.)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Right. They can already support UHD, so I think a UHD iMac is imminent.
However, I see us quickly moving to QUHD after a bit of time in UHD.

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antirez
Just to put this in historical context: 14745600 pixels are enough to display
230 CGA (320x200) screenshots simultaneously.

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mpg33
Is it just me or are displays starting to have their own "moores law" in how
fast the resolutions/technology is increasing. I wouldn't know were to predict
what the max resolution of a commercially available display will be in 2-3
years. It's seems like it took a decade for 1080p to become "standard" and now
I can buy decent 4K TV for the price a 1080p TV was just 5-6 years ago.

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osmala
I'd pass this one. Resolution is nice. However its surface area doesn't do
justice for that number of pixels. I'm having 30" 2560x1600 monitor, and any
upgrade from that needs have both bigger physical size AND more pixels.
Improving one without the other isn't good enough. Yes more pixels give nicer
fonts and better image quality, but bigger area is needed to actually use it
effectively. When considering down sides of showing it as two separate
displays on Linux I'd say "These are not the monitors you are looking for."

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rwallace
Looks good except for the stand height, which would actually be a dealbreaker
for me - a high stand is fine for the living room floor, but there's no point
putting a great monitor on your desk that you can't look at without tilting
your head back and giving yourself chronic neck strain. Are there any similar
monitors with lower stands?

~~~
Gracana
Looks like Dell's typical adjustable stand, which allows you to slide the
monitor almost all the way down to the desk. If not that, then surely it has a
VESA mount that you could use with your own stand.

~~~
rwallace
Ah, Dell monitor stands are height adjustable these days? Good. Looks worth
going for, then.

~~~
JohnBooty
I have a 2011 30" Dell Ultrasharp and a 2014 27" Dell Ultrasharp and they both
have excellent height adjustable stands. I don't know if they reserve the nice
stands for their Ultrasharps or what.

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bausson
What do we do for a commercial stunt. We had 720p for 720x1280 We had 1080p
fir 1080x1920

And now "5K" for 5120x2880? Is the screen supposed to be used in a "portrait"
setting?

It's fine if you work in IT, you see what it does, but for most people those
commercial designations are getting confused.

