Undecided on 4k flat vs 1440p curved ultrawide - Productivity with some gaming

Hades · 20 May 2019 at 00:49

I'm undecided between a flat 4k screen or a curved 34" ultrawide 1440p. I would place my usage as:

30% general browsing, email, etc
30% programming
20% watching video content
20% gaming but I want to get back into gaming so increase this

On my current 30" 2560x1600 screen I tend to browse or program on one side of the screen and have media opened on the other side. Initially I was leaning towards a 34" 1400p ultrawide but as my use case is more productivity I am also considering a 4k flat screen. I have a Vega 64.

Any opinions appreciated. Thank you.

Hades · 20 May 2019 at 09:41

Thanks. I currently have a 30" 2560x1600 16:10 aspect ratio and the height is indeed useful.

Hades · 21 May 2019 at 22:34

Thanks for the feedback.

Hades · 23 May 2019 at 10:20

Legend said:
It REALLY depends what you value most. 4K trumps UW for productivity every day... there's more pixels, a lot more, so there's no contest here. If it's gaming, and you want more than 60Hz and really do feel those higher frame rates are necessary, then UW (100Hz+) would be the way forward.

I went from UW to 4K, and for productivity I couldn't be happier. It's very obviously superior in this regard. For gaming... I'm less than 20%, so it's not that big a deal for me. I have G-Sync, so that helps. I don't play fast twitch shooters so don't need fast refresh.

Good points. I'd put my current gaming at 10% to 20% so that's not quite as important.

EsaT said:
Those aren't ultrawides, but ultra low with less vertical image size while consuming more desk space.
That 34 marketing inch ultra low has same height as 27" 16:9, which is small compared to 30" 16:10.
http://www.displaywars.com/27-inch-16x9-vs-30-inch-16x10
http://www.displaywars.com/27-inch-16x9-vs-34-inch-21x9
http://www.displaywars.com/34-inch-21x9-vs-30-inch-16x10
(not forgetting lower resolution)

32" 4K would be only one with no major drawbacks in something.
Monitors have simply more devolved than evolved, with all this marketing BS for western consumers with NOT APPROPRIATE!
(+no progress for getting rid of all contrast/response time/viewing angle problems of LCD)

AU Optronics was supposed to start making higher refresh rate capable 32" 4K IPS panels during winter, so maybe Computex or E3 comes with release or two.
Samsung's 31.5" curved VA panel again was apparently delayed to summer. (but VA has black crush...)

Myself would have hell of time in choosing new monitor, if current Dell U3014 broke.

The loss of vertical height does concern me, which is why I also started to look at 4k screens. I currently have a Dell 3007 and even 12 year later am struggling to find anything to beat it significantly. I'm in no rush so may see what comes out this year.

Hades · 23 May 2019 at 12:42

Quartz said:
I think you would benefit from having two monitors: one for productivity and one for miscellaneous and gaming. So turn your current monitor into a portrait-mode monitor for productivity and get the monitor that best runs your games.

I have both 4K and 1440pUW gaming monitors (Acer Nitro and Asus PG348Q) and games like RTS work best on the 4K and games like racing games work best on the UW. But my work monitor is a 4k monitor in portrait mode.

If you want the simplicity of only one monitor, consider the mega-wide 32:9 Samsung CRG9

Also a good idea but it just takes me back to a similar situation to what I have now. I currently just use the single Dell 3007 16:10 2560x1600. But I also have two spare Dell 2007's with 1900x1600 resolution. My original plan was to put these either side using a triple mount when I finally finish the office. They would be in rotated in PLP orientation so matching the vertical size and resolution of the central 3007 perfectly. But after thinking a while I thought this would be overkill and look very cluttered. It also presents problems if I just want to dock my laptop instead of my desktop. So I started looking at 34" 21:9 ultrawides and then the 4K 16:9's.

...If I keep my current screen then I may as well stay with the original triple screen setup.

But all opinions are very much appreciated and are getting me thinking about what I really want. So thanks.

Legend said:
The loss of vertical height IS significant too. A 1440p ultrawide is, duh, 1440 pixels high... 4K is 2160 pixels. That's 720 pixels difference, which is 50% of a 1440p screen you've just lost. When it comes to productivity, that's MASSIVE! Width wise, there's not so much of a noticeable difference, but it was the height where I really noticed it myself. However, because of that, all those extra pixels are what makes the GPU demand in gaming that much higher on 4K vs 1440p UW.

I am annoyed at the lack of progress with 32" 4K... it's a great size, yet to this day there is only one single 32" 4K G-Sync monitor available (the Acer XB321HK), but there are a few Freesync ones though (all still 60Hz). I have my eye on the 43" 4K 144Hz offerings from Acer and Asus due later this year, although the PPI of those will be equivalent to 1440p, so you lose the sharpness benefit which you get at 32", but retain the significant GPU demands of 4K of course. There is also the LG 38GL950G which is a tad closer to 4K resolution (3840x1600) and again the same PPI as 1440p. If I had my choice though, I think I'd rather have a high refresh 32" 4K monitor... but none exist, yet.

I think I'd prefer Freesync. but would want more than just 60hz, which is a problem.

Hades · 23 May 2019 at 13:03

Quartz said:
I had that problem too. But I couldn't find a triple mount that would work for me. So I used separate mounts to keep the monitors on the edge:

That's a very nice setup.

The triple monitor stand I have is this one, which will fit the screens.

https://www.eteknix.com/neptune-triple-32-ocuk-monitor-stand-review/

But I find it takes up a huge amount of desk space. So stands on the edge of the desk might work better.

Hades · 23 May 2019 at 18:11

Presumably if my GPU struggles to drive a 4K monitor for the latest games then I could drop the resolution to 1920x1080? I appreciate it's not ideal but I don't game much but for FPS games back in my Quake days I always valued framerate over visual quality.