Display 27' and up : 4K TN or WQHD IPS ?

[Fumomono]

Hi,
I need to change my monitor (currently iMac Late 2009 27' in target mode) and I plan to go into the 400-600€ range. I'm mostly doing photo editing/3D, only game I play is WoW (on ultra, yippie, but that's not the most demanding game in the world), and I can hardly decide between going 4K TN or WQHD IPS (and then hop on 32' ?).


4K TN (prolly Samsung U28E509D or Acer B276HK) : the increase sharpness and native resolution for vids is nice, but isn't is too small on a 28' ? And I'm very concerned about viewing angles (monitor is also living room TV so I won't always be right in front of it).

IPS WQHD (I was thinking Samsung S32D850, Acer CB270HUBMIDPR, Phillips BDM3270QP/00, AOC Q3277PQU) : I don't think latency will be an issue (no shoot them up) and I could go up to 32 inch with that techno, but is WQHD high enough to work comfortably on a 32inch ? And is IPS worth sacrificing 4K (or the opposite) ?


I'm using a gtx 760 so far and I'll upgrade to a 970 when it shows its limits. Softs I use : Pixelmator, Aperture (->C1 incoming I guess), Blender, Wow. I don't need any fancy options aside from HDCP compliance but an adjustable height would be a bonus. And lastly I would like something at least equal in quality to the display of the iMac (nearly 7 years old so I guess that won't be hard).

I also wonder is some brands/monitor just don't do well with Hackintosh in general ?

I'd appreciate any advice, feedback on personal experience or input on anything I may have overlooked !

Thanks a lot !

 

[Fl0r!an]

I don't think anyone doing photo editing will be happy with a TN panel in 2015. IMO 4K isn't necessary for what you do (at least not at 27"), but a good panel (=> IPS) is.
If I were you I'd either go for a 27" IPS panel with WQHD resolution or >=27" IPS with 4K. In my opinion WQHD is too little for more than 27" (for 27" it's fine), and TN is bad choice for someone who does photo editing and cares about the viewing angle.

 

[Fumomono]

Thanks for your answer, I was also inclined to think that way. Here it's difficult to find monitors on display in stores (and even more difficult to find someone not off ) therefore I'm a bit stuck with what I read on websites doing reviews and forums with evangelists of both TN and IPS who aren't very objective.

I checked 32' IPS 4K, that's definitely out of my budget for now. But I just realized that 27' IPS 4K are just a bit higher, I gotta see if I can find a good deal or extend a bit my budget.

Just out of curiosity, what is the use of 4k currently in your opinion (aside from the best resolution over 27 inch) ? I read here and there that you get less ocular fatigue even on uses like Excel/Word, that the level of details is a life changer in photo editing... But I can hardly find anyone who is actually using those displays

 

[Going Bald]

Just out of curiosity, what is the use of 4k currently in your opinion (aside from the best resolution over 27 inch) ? I read here and there that you get less ocular fatigue even on uses like Excel/Word, that the level of details is a life changer in photo editing... But I can hardly find anyone who is actually using those displays

I use a 4k screen for close-up detail work. On a 27" or smaller panel, 4k for normal OS use is not such a good idea unless your eyes are really good. Fonts are way too small IMO. I use a pair of 1080P screens as main screens and the 4k, like I said, for close-up detail work. OTOH, at my age, my eyes are not what they used to be, so a younger person may not be bothered by what I consider to be eye-straining.

 

[Fl0r!an]

4K screens usually need some kind of "Retina"/HiDPI scaling unless they're really huge or you have eyes like a hawk.
It's nice to have but in most cases not necessary. I'd get one if it's in your budget without going for a TN panel.

 

[Fumomono]

Some feedback since you kindly gave me some advices !

I went for the Dell P2715Q (rev A03), 27 inch IPS 4K (around 550€ here). Received it today, and testing it.
I don't use it at max res, as you said it's much too small to be usable aside from very specific work. However I like the 3008x1692, gives me more space while being readable. I don't really get why I can't tweak the UI size of each program though (like I never use the finder top bar so it's ok for it to be small, but I'd like my favorite bar in Safari to be a bit bigger. Mail let me specify a nice size for messages, but not for the mailboxes on the left panel and so on...).

Now I've only had it for a couple of hours but text looks amazing (I was really surprised by that), pictures too. Viewing angles are good as is calibration, the whole is definitely well built, I particularly like all the ergonomic adjustments available. There's a very slight buzzing depending on your brightness/contrast settings, so far it doesn't disturb me particularly.
Absolutely no defect pixel wise, let's hope it stays that way !

For the bad part : not HDCP compliant, I even took the trouble to check with Dell customer service as I couldn't believe it I don't have any TARDIS, so yes, in 2015 companies simply don't bother much about this on monitors, which means you can't watch iTunes purchases on it (so ironic from Apple to call their DRM Fairplay...). So much for a 4K monitor, but I'm more angry that HDCP simply exists. So I'm off to try and find an HDMI splitter that doesn't bother forwarding the HDCP to the monitor (who doesn't like strippers after all ? ).

Also, 4K does stress the graphic card, even on Wow (not very demanding) the Gtx 760 can't run on ultra at a decent FPS rate. Still, I gave up on one setting to get back to 30-60 fps depending on the situation and the image looks so much better that the trade-off is worth it. I guess the 970 is the bare minimum for anyone playing recent games though.

That's it for now, thanks again for those who gave my their opinion, it was really helpful !

 

[Fl0r!an]

Thanks for your feedback! Yes, 4K currently needs as much GPU power as you can possibly get.

Regarding resolution, you might want to try out some HiDPI resolutions. This will give you readable texts while maintaining the full 4K resolution.

 

[Fumomono]

Regarding resolution, you might want to try out some HiDPI resolutions. This will give you readable texts while maintaining the full 4K resolution.

I'm not sure what you mean here. In the pref pane > monitor > scale I get different resolutions like 3840*2160 (native for this monitor but text is too small) / 3200*1800 / 3008*1692 (this one is small but readable, I'm currently using it / 2560*1440 and so on.

Basically what I would want is to stay in 3840*2160 but get a bigger UI, a bit like you get your webpage bigger with cmd+. (or the way I scaled my icons up on the desktop using the finder options). Is this what HiDPI is supposed to do ?

At 3008*1692 I get some HD videos on Safari that don't play well, looks like it's skipping frames (no issue on chrome strangely). When I switch to native (3840*2160) the video goes back to being played smoothly.

 

[walker4]

Monitor buying guide: http://thedigitalcamera.net/best-gaming-monitor/

 

[Fl0r!an]

Basically what I would want is to stay in 3840*2160 but get a bigger UI, a bit like you get your webpage bigger with cmd+. (or the way I scaled my icons up on the desktop using the finder options). Is this what HiDPI is supposed to do ?

Exactly. For example, the big Retina iMac will (at stock settings) drive its screen @ full 5K resolution and scale everything up by factor 2. This will get you the same screen real estate as a usual non-retina 1440p iMac will retaining full 5K sharpness.
In your case you'd have to look for a setting called "1920 x 1080 (HiDPI)".

I think there are also some hacks to introduce non-x2 resolutions, but I never tried that myself.