3x Monitor, 4k, or ultrawide?

[ayyyyZJ]

hey, guys. I'm working on a new setup, and I'm wondering, what kind of monitor setup should I get? 3x monitors would be awesome for multiple things open, ultrawide for the same plus being one monitor and possibly curved. with 4k I feel that it has more media than 21:9. what do you guys think? thanks and have a great day!

[Xanthe_2871]

Just now, ayyyyZJ said:

[W]hat kind of monitor setup should I get?

What will you be doing with it?

[suchamoneypit]

Are you just gaming? Especially being a student, having multiple monitors, I'd never go back. If I could have 1 4K display vs 2 1080p ones, I'd go with the 2 displays every time. Being able to multitask that efficiently is inexpressibly useful.

[ayyyyZJ]

1 hour ago, Xanthe_2871 said:

What will you be doing with it?

 

1 hour ago, suchamoneypit said:

Are you just gaming? Especially being a student, having multiple monitors, I'd never go back. If I could have 1 4K display vs 2 1080p ones, I'd go with the 2 displays every time. Being able to multitask that efficiently is inexpressibly useful.

 

sorry, forgot what to say. this is just for media. i already have a gaming setup, and this will be just for media consumption . i dont do any media creation. just consumption

[Xanthe_2871]

4 minutes ago, ayyyyZJ said:

 

sorry, forgot what to say. this is just for media. i already have a gaming setup, and this will be just for media consumption . i dont do any media creation. just consumption

Well in that case I'd say go with 4K. It will work well for videos and you can use the virtual desktop feature in Windows 10 is you like to keep lots of things open at once. 

[Mick Naughty]

The 4k would be nice but as I like multi tasking as much as I like gaming id prolly go with 2 monitors. Having used surround gaming for years I love it and wanted to try an ultra wide. Even if I got an ultra wide I would still need a second monitor. I will always need two which is why I have 5 monitors for my 2 rigs. 

[suchamoneypit]

19 hours ago, Xanthe_2871 said:

Well in that case I'd say go with 4K. It will work well for videos and you can use the virtual desktop feature in Windows 10 is you like to keep lots of things open at once. 

I disagree, your still stuck with the same screen size; Boxes will just be smaller, and harder to read. Try using virtual desktop with multi-monitors, the room for activities in insane.

19 hours ago, ayyyyZJ said:

 

sorry, forgot what to say. this is just for media. i already have a gaming setup, and this will be just for media consumption . i dont do any media creation. just consumption

then the multi monitors is still a good idea imo

[GamerDude]

Well, I was among the first in my neck of the woods to go EyeFinity with 2x HD5870 back in the old days. Kept my tri-monitor setup from then on with 2x HD6970, 3x HD7970 to my present 2x R9 290X, recently bought an AOC Q2963PM and was pretty pleased with UW gaming and movie watching....and general media usage. Bought an Acer XR341CK to pair with my 290X and I'd not be going back to plain 16:9 format anymore. And I don't miss my tri-monitor setup as well....true, gaming on an UW is not as immersive as when I was playing on three monitors, but it's still more immersive than gaming on a 16:9 monitor, even if the latter is 4k.

 

Many games run just fine on 21:9, I've tried BF3, BF4, UT3, BFBC2, Deadspace 1-3, Shadow Warrior, Metro 2033 and Last Light, heck even an old game like Enclave (circa 2002) ran just fine. Yes, some games don't scale well on 21:9, games like CoD (zoomed in look) but by and large, most games scale very well. But IF one's primary usage is gaming on fast paced game where framerate means all (like CS GO and the like), then yeah, a 16:9 monitor with >100Hz refreshrate would be better.

[Xanthe_2871]

4 hours ago, suchamoneypit said:

I disagree, your still stuck with the same screen size; Boxes will just be smaller, and harder to read. Try using virtual desktop with multi-monitors, the room for activities in insane.

then the multi monitors is still a good idea imo

That's a good point, but I still think 4K is best for media consumption.  

[Zulkkis]

A big thing about ultrawide which often goes unnoticed is that if you're going to upgrade from 1080p 16:9 to 1080p 21:9 or 1440p 16:9 to 1440p 21:9 monitor, then yes, ultrawide is going to be "wider" and you gain more space in the horizontal direction. But that's not all there is to it.

 

The comparison is a little disingenuous when it comes to the talks with ultrawide 21:9 1440p / 1600p to a proper 4k display. Yes, the 34" 21:9 are going to be "larger" in horizontal direction if you compare it to 27" 4K display, but the PPI is completely different. If you compared to monitors at equal PPI, the 4K display is a ~40" display. And at that point the display is larger in both vertical and horizontal direction. Hell, even the resolution says it, 3840 x 2160 display is larger in all directions than a 3440 x 1440 display. That's why I'm sort of disappointed with how i.e HardwareCanucks put it in their "comparison video"... it was essentially a comparison between two different monitors, not an accurate explanation between a 4K 16:9 and 1440p 21:9 monitor.

 

You can also run 16:9 and letterbox it as a 21:9 display. The borders are usually annoying but at such display sizes, when you are using a single monitor, it doesn't really have the same impact when you're looking at an already-small display and then having to put black borders on it. You'll forget the borders are even there when running a custom resolution. The viewable area after letterboxing a 40" 4K is still larger than letterboxing a 34" 3440 x 1440 ultrawide.

 

Really the key advantage to ultrawides is that the display selection right now is more rich. If you're not going to need adaptive sync and higher refresh rates, you're more than likely to actually favor picking a larger 4K display over a 21:9 display, it'll be equally expensive and you get more versatility out of the 4K display, as you can run it in a custom resolution anyway. And for desktop use, even if the display was too large, you can still tile a display appropriately to make the most use out of the space that you have.

 

For actual, competitive gaming you're still just going to want a16:9  24" display with ULMB and any sync will not matter. Sync will not matter because you're always going to run the games at maximum framerates. 24" display is ideal because the larger the display gets, the less you can actually see at a glance, and most competitive titles limit the amount of viewable surface to a standardized maxmium, 4k etc. displays only get a sharper image, not more of it.

 

So for entertainment purposes or as a "gaming" display ultrawide is alright, for productivity a similar PPI 4K display is going to beat it. For movies, it depends, though I would take the 4K because letterboxing to 21:9 is much better than occasionally having black bars to watch 16:9 content on a 21:9 display.

 

Your display should always cater to your needs. Entertainment gaming competently, but not competitively? Ultrawide. Productivity? 40" 4K. Competitive gaming? 24" 120Hz++ ULMB display. Professional color? Save for HP DreamColor display or something.