Maximum PC - USA (2022-06)

high frame rates. More pixels would

deliver greater detail but at the cost of

zingy frame rates and low input latency.

We wouldn’t disagree. But we’d also

point out that there’s much more to PC

usage than gaming. For almost everything

else, more pixels is usually a good thing.

While high-resolution mainstream OLED

monitors will likely come on stream in

the next few years, we’re not expecting

anything affordable in 2022. Of course,

right now, you can now get a 4K 27-inch

monitor with around 160 pixels per inch

for little more than $200. With that 160dpi,

you get crisper fonts and more image

detail than a 110dpi panel such as the

Alienware OLED.

Of course, by today’s standards

27-inches is relatively puny. Which is

where one of the big trends of 2022 steps

in. This year, 32-inch 4K monitors with

high refresh are going to be a thing.

Until the latter half of 2021, 4K with

high refresh was limited to 27-inches.

But this year, the market is going to be

flooded with monitors like the Gigabyte

M32U. That’s a 4K, 32-inch IPS model

with 144Hz refresh support.

The M32U can currently be had for

around $600. So, it’s actually relatively

affordable, which isn’t something you

can say of most things in 2022. What’s

most promising about the Gigabyte M32U

and competing monitors like the ASUS

ROG Swift PG32UQ is that they make for

outstanding all-rounders. You get all that

144Hz gaming goodness, plus a fantastic

4K pixel grid for epic productivity, plus

nice, sharp fonts.

To put this appealing 32-inch IPS

monitor class into context, the only

comparable and currently available 32-

inch OLED monitor is the LG UltraFine

32EP950, which is limited to 60Hz and

costs $4,000. LG has said it plans to

release a high-refresh 32-inch 4K OLED

model in the future. But there’s no date,

no price, no nothing. We don’t expect

anything soon and predict that when it

does arrive, it won’t be cheap.

Perhaps more promising is similar

news from AU Optronics, the Taiwanese

manufacturer of LCD and OLED panels

used by a wide range of TV and monitor

makers. AU doesn’t produce actual TVs

and monitors, just the panels that go

into them. AU tends to price its panels

aggressively, allowing monitor makers to

hit lower price points than they otherwise

would buying panels from some of the

other big suppliers, such as LG and

Samsung. And AU has plans for a 32-inch,

CONNECT FOUR

DISPLAYPORT AND USB UPS THE ANTE

As resolutions and

refresh rates climb

ever higher, display

interfaces are becoming

more critical than

ever. Already, it’s only

the very latest AMD

and Nvidia graphics

cards that can drive

a 4K display at 120Hz

over HDMI. At full

4:4:4 chroma and 8-bit

color, that requires

fully 32Gbps of raw

bandwidth.

Now imagine what’s

required for 8K and the

usual 60Hz. Then double

that for 8K 120Hz.

Now we’re talking

crazy numbers. As it

happens, both HDMI

2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4

have the bandwidth

minerals, so to speak,

for 4K at 120Hz,

but compression is

required for 8K@60Hz.

HDMI 2.1 can actually

go as high as 10K

(10,420x4,320 pixels)

with compression.

Anyway, once you

also factor in the

bandwidth requirement

of HDR, it’s clear that

new interfaces are

going to be required

soon enough.

For the PC, that

means DisplayPort

2.0. It increases

bandwidth over the

existing DisplayPort 1.4

standard from 32.4Gbps

raw and 25.92Gbps

effective to fully 80Gbps

raw and 77.37Gbps

effective.

So, it can go beyond

60Hz at 8K without

compression, along with

supporting 8K at 60Hz

with HDR and 144Hz

4K with HDR. As for

what it can achieve with

compression, how about

a 16K panel? Nice.

The other critical

piece of the connectivity

puzzle is USB. Already,

USB-C with DisplayPort

alt mode is becoming

extremely popular

thanks to its ease

4K, 144Hz OLED panel. Again, there’s no

date or further information. So, it seems

unlikely that we’ll see a high fresh 4K

OLED monitor this year. But it’s coming.

As it happens, AU also says it is tooling

up for something even more spectacular,

namely an 8K, 32-inch, 120Hz OLED

monitor. Again, don’t expect to be buying

a monitor based on this panel anytime

soon, but it is a thoroughly tantalizing

prospect. It also brings us neatly to the

next big trend for 2022. Yep, 8K.

8K, ON THE WAY?

Now, an entirely justified immediate

reaction to the notion of 8K would

question the point of it. After all, there’s

virtually no existing 8K content when it

comes to movies and TV shows. There’s

barely any streaming content available

in 8K, beyond demo reels. Likewise,

although most games can render at

8K, it generates literally four times

the load of 4K. And only the most

powerful current GPUs can kick out

decent frame rates at 4K, let alone 8K.

It is true that both AMD and Nvidia’s

next-gen GPUs, due later this year, are

expected to be a huge leap forward in

terms of performance. But even if they

do deliver the rumored 2-2.5x boost in

performance, that’s not enough to offset

the huge additional rendering load 8K

generates over 4K.

So, 8K isn’t about watching movies. It’s

not about playing games. What it is about,

however, is pixel density. It’s debatable

exactly how many pixels you need per

inch before each individual pixel becomes

invisible to the human eye and further

density becomes redundant. Visual

acuity varies from person to person.

Much depends on the device being used,

Dead end display: Dell’s UltraSharp

UP3218K of 2017 is still the only vaguely

mainstream 8K monitor... for now.

screen tech

52 MAXIMU MPC JUN 2022

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