High Refresh Rate Panels and Displays - A road-map and round-up

Baddass · 15 Sep 2016 at 16:00

thought this might be of interest to people here as there are lots of questions about high refresh monitors cropping up. let me know if any questions

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/high_refresh_rate.htm

GMac11 · 15 Sep 2016 at 16:44

Some great info there cheers Baddass. It seems that if you want to go 2560x1440 ~144hz the panels that are out now are going to be pretty much around for a while.

I did find something on the Google last night about a mooted Acer 32 inch 1440p high refresh rate monitor, it must be tied in with that 31.5" VA Panel that AUO are working on...

Baddass · 15 Sep 2016 at 17:26

Wouldn't surprise me. Trying to get some more info from Acer on their plans

Vega · 15 Sep 2016 at 17:27

Good stuff!

It's a real shame we are still so hamstrung by DP 1.2. They must be having real problems developing DP 1.3/1.4 TCon's if its taking them this long.

Doogles · 15 Sep 2016 at 17:28

Glad I brought the XF270HU now, should have done it earlier.

whiterabbit · 15 Sep 2016 at 18:25

Vega said:
Good stuff!

It's a real shame we are still so hamstrung by DP 1.2. They must be having real problems developing DP 1.3/1.4 TCon's if its taking them this long.

Didn't realise DP1.2 was a problem for 1440. I thought it only became an issue at 4k if you want more than 60fps?

Armadillo · 15 Sep 2016 at 18:42

Wish someone would make a smaller high refresh 1440p/ips. Limited room where my pc is, so can't really go above 24"

.

Other than that, meh. So still stuck with the same panel,that is a lottery whether you get a good one and still no oled monitors.

Vega · 15 Sep 2016 at 19:08

whiterabbit said:
Didn't realise DP1.2 was a problem for 1440. I thought it only became an issue at 4k if you want more than 60fps?

Yes, that's the problem. 1440p is so 2012.

Orangey · 15 Sep 2016 at 20:47

We don’t expect to see any “4k” resolution IPS panels with high refresh rate until late 2017 at the moment.

ToTheMax · 16 Sep 2016 at 07:24

So disappointing 4K higher refresh rate are so far away. If things stay the way they are I recon 4K TV's with low latency will consume the high end monitor market.

Baddass · 16 Sep 2016 at 09:12

but 4K TV's are still limited to 60Hz max, so you can get that from 4K monitors easily enough now

Vega · 16 Sep 2016 at 10:33

Badass I got in the Dell that uses the new AUOptronics 23.8" TN:

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/news_archive/36.htm#dell_s2417dg

I think it's the first 165 Hz 1440p TN. Took it apart if you want any pics. Hardly any overshoot too, I think this would do real well in your tests as the fastest LCD for gaming.

Baddass · 16 Sep 2016 at 11:45

yeah if you can email me internal pics / panel part confirmation etc that would be useful, thanks

PCM2 · 16 Sep 2016 at 12:00

Baddass said:
yeah if you can email me internal pics / panel part confirmation etc that would be useful, thanks

Vega did a strip-down here - https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=30011830&postcount=8.

RidingTheFlow · 16 Sep 2016 at 14:00

NEC PA322UHD-BK-2 supports refresh up to 120Hz in *lower* resolutions (where bandwidth of DP 1.2 is sufficient). So it could definitely drive its 4K panel at 120Hz at the least - its only the DP interface which appears to be the bottleneck, not the panel tech.

Orangey · 16 Sep 2016 at 14:06

Is there an engineering article anywhere about this 4K120 problem? I would like to know exactly where the roadblock is... we've had DP 1.3 for a year now and GPUs with display controllers supporting 1.4 about half that.

RidingTheFlow · 16 Sep 2016 at 14:24

AFAIK DP 1.3 exists on paper only (and in GPU theoretical "driver support"), and maybe in some prototype lab demos. Nobody managed to mass-produce stable working DP 1.3 controllers and cables yet, not to say 1.4
I don't know much details, but suspect greatly raised bandwidth was made it too susceptible to interference (which was somewhat in issue even in DP 1.2).

Bandwidth required to drive 4K@120Hz is quite massive - to give you idea, it would occupy majority of Thunderbolt 3 connection (and Thunderbolt 2 is not enough). Unlike DP 1.3, mainstream Thunderbolt 3 hardware does exist already and can be used to produce 4K@120Hz display - but monitor manufacturers are probably reluctant because adoption of TB3 ports on PC side is still low...

Another real possibility is to use DP aggregation to use two DP 1.2 connections to drive single monitor. This was actually done by Dell for UP2715K to drive 5K with two DP 1.2 cables & ports. But nobody else did it - again, probably because solution is too non-mainstream and fragile

Orangey · 16 Sep 2016 at 19:33

Doesn't aggregation mean the screen ends up being 2 panels? With each link controlling half the pixels.

RidingTheFlow · 16 Sep 2016 at 23:29

Orangey said:
Doesn't aggregation mean the screen ends up being 2 panels? With each link controlling half the pixels.

Not necessary, it still can be same panel - but yes, each cable will drive half of it. It still could be fully synchronized refresh, when one controller is "slaved" to another.

A lot of even DP 1.2 4K 60Hz panels are currently this way, where they split links from single cable to drive each half - for example M320QAN01 panel used in Acer XB321HK, BenQ BL3201PT and others.

ToTheMax · 17 Sep 2016 at 08:18

Interesting, so you are saying DP1.3/1.4 are effectively DOE at the moment due to interference & engineering issues. That's depressing...