Monitor advice

[Mikethompson]

Hi Gang, looking to get a new monitor for editing/compositing etc that isnt silly expensive. I havent a clue what to look for when it comes to monitors. Is it wise to go for 4k? or is that overkill?

any recommendations?

[Farmfield]

4k is really nice but I would prioritize something with 10 bit color panel, like the Philips BDM3270QP2 - two of those side by side would be an amazing workspace for a pretty low amount of cash.

[Mikethompson]

thanks, will check that monitor out. I'm thinking around the £300-£400 mark for a monitor so understand I'll never get the best of the best. i guess £400 would get you a really good 1440 monitor rather than a mediocre 4k monitor

[Farmfield]

There's really few monitors with 10 bit panel for reasonable money, the Philips is a great buy - and personally I think 4k is still kinda risky in regard to application support, 1440p is a good middle ground. I run dual 27" 1440p's only because I couldn't fit 2x 32" in the corner I'm in, else I would have bought 32"...

[Faust]

You can get an Hp zr2740w for around $200-$300. I use two of them and they're great monitors. 27" 2560x1440 IPS display with great color. It's a few years old, which is why you can get them so cheap if you buy refurbished. But always keep in mind that used things can sometimes have problems.

The display is 10bit, but unless you have a workstation graphics card like a quadro, firepro etc. you're not going to see it.

[Farmfield]

Is that really a 10 bit panel in the HP? Hard to find info on it online.

[Faust]

Yes, the HP is 10bit. But again, unless you're sporting a $4k GPU you won't see it (but you wouldn't see it anyway, as the human eye can distinguish about 10-12 million colors, and 8bit alone contains over 16 million, so I don't know what benefit you get from seeing 990 million indistinguishable colors)

[Farmfield]

Nvidia 10 series all output 10 bit now, same with the latest AMD GPU's I believe, before, yes, you had to run a Quadro or Fire Pro - though way cheaper Quadro's than $4K as well...

[Faust]

10 series outputs fake 10 bit. To have true 10 bit in a desktop environment and not just DX11 exclusive fullscreen you need a quadro or similar

[Farmfield]

As far as I know the 10 series outputs real 10 bit over DP and you can run it in the desktop.

[Faust]

Unfortunately Nvidia has blocked that functionality. You can use this tool to test if your GPU supports 10 bit
http://www.necdisplay.com/documents/Sof ... s_demo.zip

[Farmfield]

There's just a ton of stuff like this out there, so I really don't know where you're coming from...

https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topi ... 3/#5078463