Anyone using Asus 4K Display?

[VirtualRain]

Anyone here using the Asus 4K display? Can you provide your thoughts? (and ideally a full 5000 word review!)

The price on this is coming down nicely... now $2700 on Amazon.

 

[MacVidCards]

Pretty sure I wrote a few things when I bought it a couple months back.

Beautiful display, but there really isn't OS support for this size yet.

To make it useable you have to enable HiDP mode then it becomes a 1920x1080....so like a 24".

Windows has a better grip on this but causes certain apps to crash.

The biggest issue I have with the Asus is the INSANE, RIDICULOUS set of button pushing to go from SST to MST.

Whoever came up with the sequence needs to be taken out and shot, now. BEFORE a last meal and/or cigarette. It's like the safeguards you would expect before opening an airlock in a space station. There are 7 buttons down the side which you have to pick out by feel. There is a feeble label you can stick to front of panel, but nearly worthless.

There is no space between groupings of buttons so you need to be very certain.

To switch modes it is (1 on top, 7 on bottom):

6 - selects OSD
5- moves down to "setup"
6 - moves you to options, top one is "language" (can't tell you how many times I've switched into Chinese)
4 - 1 time or 5@5 times to cycle to "DisplayPort Stream"
6 - to select
2 (or 3) to change to MST (or SST if you were in MST)
5 to got to "set"
6 to enter ----this takes you to "To enable, must restart, restart now?"
2 or 3 to switch from default "no" to "yes"
6 - one last time to enter

I am not exaggerating, it is the most insane bunch of invisible button pushing you will ever do. Most people won't do this much, but for testing video cards.....very frustrating.

Sadly, for cMP with cards that support this, boot screens in Windows don't show up in MST, sometimes OSX does on half screen. So if you need to see them, you need to switch to SST. If you then start gaming in Windows and everything is all jerky jerky, you need 60Hz. Decide to go back to OSX, better switch before reboot. Decide to see what OSX cards do 60Hz? repeat the 10 button push tango.

You end up frequently looking at a black display, trying to decide if you are up to the crazy sequence to find out if OS crashed or just in wrong setting.

Why this couldn't have been a 1 or 2 button thing I will never understand.

If you think you will need to switch much, avoid the Asus / Sharp twins. A few OS switch reboots mixed with whiskey and a handgun could lead to tragedy.

 

[VirtualRain]

If you think you will need to switch much, avoid the Asus / Sharp twins. A few OS switch reboots mixed with whiskey and a handgun could lead to tragedy.

LOL... Thanks for sharing your tales of woe with this thing. It truly is insane... You'd think if they can budget for 7 buttons, it wouldn't have been a stretch to add an 8th for toggling SST/MST.

I shall avoid this then. It's probably worth waiting for the next-gen displays that can do 4K at 60Hz with a single display/scalar processor and avoid MST altogether.

 

[MacVidCards]

I should mention, I ended up buggering my Win 8 install due to frequent cord jerks when boot went black.

Issue was actually that I was in SST and Win boot screens would show but then Windows had gotten used to desktop being in MST so it would switch and display in SST would go dark.

I would think it had crashed and shut down. Lather, rinse, repeat. Ended up with severe disk corruption so had to rebuild my Windows install. Once I had it up and running the issue came right back.

Finally realized that Windows was happily putting out MST to a display only looking for SST. So, good half day of my life I will never get back.

Going to be great tech, in 8-10 months I imagine.

My $3,500 Asus should be worth $1K or so by then.

Oh well.

 

[thekev]

Going to be great tech, in 8-10 months I imagine.

My $3,500 Asus should be worth $1K or so by then.

Oh well.

That may not be the case. Display technologies typically change slower than other things. I don't think the transition will be that fast, although I'm not buying another display until 4K is a feasible purchase.

 

[VirtualRain]

That may not be the case. Display technologies typically change slower than other things. I don't think the transition will be that fast, although I'm not buying another display until 4K is a feasible purchase.

I dunno, 4K TVs are already at $400 for 40" so I can't see it taking that long for 4K monitors to become more reasonable. Today's price of $3K for 30" is an order of magnitude more expensive than it will be in 12-18 months I think. Even at CES a few weeks ago, crappy 4K TN panels were announced that will start at $699 with availability in March.

 

[deconstruct60]

I dunno, 4K TVs are already at $400 for 40" so I can't see it taking that long for 4K monitors to become more reasonable.

The price of the TV has little to do with folks getting the firmware right or using more robust components. In fact, super razor thin margins is typically more indicative of poor implementations instead of better ones. If ASUS thought their $3,000 price point was going to hold up for 8-12 months and it doesn't then how likely are they going to increase the R&D budget to clean up the firmware versus some crank another version out with the same quirky OSD.

That's one reason things don't change much in the "race to the bottom" PC components market.

Even at CES a few weeks ago, crappy 4K TN panels were announced that will start at $699 with availability in March.

The weren't crappy for more general usage. TN panels tend to switch faster. The gamer crowd will be happy. They tend to sit exactly in front of the display so off-angles don't matter. Most of these new 4K TN panels have broader color gamut that TN panels have had in the past. Again similar issues. The margins are less razor thin so they are putting more money into the "back end"/infrastructure behind these panels. They aren't 'better' than IPS panels but they are 'better' than the rut than mainstream TN panels had fallen into over last several years.

----------

....
6 - selects OSD
5- moves down to "setup"
6 - moves you to options, top one is "language" (can't tell you how many times I've switched into Chinese)
...

The development and/or tester in ASUS labs probably see that as a feature. Fastest button sequence to Chinese... check done.

 

[thekev]

I dunno, 4K TVs are already at $400 for 40" so I can't see it taking that long for 4K monitors to become more reasonable. Today's price of $3K for 30" is an order of magnitude more expensive than it will be in 12-18 months I think. Even at CES a few weeks ago, crappy 4K TN panels were announced that will start at $699 with availability in March.

Looking specifically at displays, the higher end options haven't fallen as quickly. Some of the mid range ones take a large dip maybe halfway through a long refresh cycle. In some cases a real hardware generation in terms of upgraded panel tech can be 3 or so years, and it can fall off around 1.5. I just don't see Asus as aiming at the same crowd as the sub $1000 Dell options. Even dell has a somewhat stratified pricing schedule on 4K displays. Of course I could always be wrong.

 

[VirtualRain]

Looking specifically at displays, the higher end options haven't fallen as quickly. Some of the mid range ones take a large dip maybe halfway through a long refresh cycle. In some cases a real hardware generation in terms of upgraded panel tech can be 3 or so years, and it can fall off around 1.5. I just don't see Asus as aiming at the same crowd as the sub $1000 Dell options. Even dell has a somewhat stratified pricing schedule on 4K displays. Of course I could always be wrong.

I'm not sure what you're basing your statements on but the Sharp and Asus displays were announced in the summer at a starting price of $5K and the Asus is now close to half that after just 6 months.

We haven't seen any products yet from Samsung and LG which will increase downward price pressure, and then there's the Chinese who are starting to have a real impact in the large display space who might get involved in this segment as well.

This market is just getting underway and I think prices will come down very quickly.

Here's a snippet from NPD...

“During CES Lenovo, LGE, and Samsung all made 4K monitor announcements, and we can expect several more from other brands this year, as well,” Himuro said. “Sharp, Innolux, LGD, AUO, and Samsung will be the leading 4K monitor panel suppliers in 2014.”

 

[thekev]

I'm not sure what you're basing your statements on but the Sharp and Asus displays were announced in the summer at a starting price of $5K and the Asus is now close to half that after just 6 months.

I thought it was around $3500? I must have been mistaken. I was considering 4K against the overall display market. Restricted to the higher quality units, Dell recently came out with a 24" for $1300. The Asus is a 31.5" if I'm not mistaken. 24" has been one of the cheaper sizes for some time now. 30" in non-4K versions remained quite high even relative to 27" displays presumably due to niche status and low shipping volume.

 

[VirtualRain]

I thought it was around $3500? I must have been mistaken. I was considering 4K against the overall display market. Restricted to the higher quality units, Dell recently came out with a 24" for $1300. The Asus is a 31.5" if I'm not mistaken. 24" has been one of the cheaper sizes for some time now. 30" in non-4K versions remained quite high even relative to 27" displays presumably due to niche status and low shipping volume.

All the displays announced recently are indeed getting more into the affordable category. Some are based on cheaper TN panels though. What I haven't seen (and I'm waiting for) are some IPS displays from Samsung/LG.

The Dell, Sharp and Asus 31.5" 4K displays all use the same Sharp IGZO panel and the price has gone from $5K at launch to $3500 in December, to $3000, $3200, and $2700 respectively...

 

[thekev]

All the displays announced recently are indeed getting more into the affordable category. Some are based on cheaper TN panels though. What I haven't seen (and I'm waiting for) are some IPS displays from Samsung/LG.

The Dell, Sharp and Asus 31.5" 4K displays all use the same Sharp IGZO panel and the price has gone from $5K at launch to $3500 in December, to $3000, $3200, and $2700 respectively...

Yeah I wasn't trying to refer to the cheap TN versions. I meant the UP2414Q. It's 24" for around $1300, and it came out recently. If the IGZO one is indeed of higher quality, I suspect it'll remain a bit higher. I'm curious what Sharp's production costs are like. Years ago we had a few brands where hitachi and mitsubishi panels would show up. They were always more expensive than anything that used the typical LG IPS versions. I suspect we'll see something from Samsung, but they've never really done much specifically with IPS in desktop displays.

Even with everything I've mentioned, that price drop was faster than I realized.