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Absolutely, hell no, if you are talking about the screen itself. The difference in crispness between the Dell UP321K (~280ppi at 7680x64280 at 31.5 inches) and

by veidr 3y ago

Absolutely, hell no, if you are talking about the screen itself. The difference in crispness between the Dell UP321K (~280ppi at 7680x64280 at 31.5 inches) and this new U3224KBA (~220ppi at 6144 x 3456 at 32") is dramatic. The new Dell 6K is about the same as the Apple 6K (the XDR Pro Display). I had that 6K Apple and the 8K Dell side-by-side on my desk for a few months (until I could find a buyer for the dramatically inferior Apple). During that time, I asked anybody who happened to stop by to look at the screens and compare them. Almost everybody could see the difference immediately. A few people, admittedly, said they looked pretty much the same. I think there's a certain level of eyesight required to discern the difference. Having said that, I got my first prescription glasses 2 years ago, and I can easily see the difference with glasses on or off. I cannot see pixels on either one. But what I can see is a slight fuzz at the edges of letters on the lower res display. Moreover, I need my glasses to use the 6K for long stretches and I don't even really need to wear them with the 8K. That's what made me so attached to this monitor. I was therefore bummed to see Dell release this 6K. I want a modern version of the 8K! Two cables sucks, it's quite a compatibility nightmare to get configured properly on Linux if you want to use cheaper monitors alongside it (because the software support for multiple displays at different scaling factors is pretty bad still on most Linux). On Mac it never worked at all, until they released the M2 chip(!). (It has always worked fine on Windows, just plug it in.) Having used this for a few years, I don't ever want to go back to 6K, or 5K, or 4K. I just want 8K to get cheaper so that I can rock 3 8K displays, instead of the 4K-8K-4K I suffer today.... also, 120Hz please.

afterburner 3y ago
Are you sure you're not just experiencing some other difference in manufacturing, like a difference in the matte finish?
- veidr 3y ago
  That's a good question, but yes, I am very sure. I have compared them with magnifying glasses, and really tried to get into why such a (seemingly, at first) small increase in resolution made such a huge difference. I've compared standard 27" 4K, the LG and Apple 27" 5K ), the Apple 6K and the Dell 8K. It really is just a lot more pixels. The fuzz is definitely small, but there. Another good test is open VS Code full screen, divide it up into panes, and make the text as small as you can read it. I mean really small. The text on the 6K just looks awful while the 8K still looks good. Sometimes I do actually do this and put on my glasses (the text is too small for me to read without assistance, but it is still pretty crisp). It feels like a nerd superpower. There are actually a bunch of us 8K superfans out here on the internet, but it's been a lonely party, because the Dell UP3218K seems to be still the only 8K computer monitor you can buy. (As in a roughly 32" desktop monitor, not a TV.)
LeafItAlone 3y ago
> I need my glasses to use the 6K for long stretches and I don't even really need to wear them with the 8K It’s not obvious to me why this would happen. Can you share why this is?
- veidr 3y ago
  No, I found it really surprising myself. With my glasses on, though, the 6K (or 27" 5K) look less crisp but somehow not fuzzy. Like I can see the antialiasing at the edges, but this doesn't look blurry to me. (It just looks more like a 4K display, where the antialiasing isn't great, you can see the pixels.) With my glasses off, I cannot make out the antialiasing or pixels the 220ppi screens, but it looks fuzzy/blurry. Like its right at the edge of what my unaided eye can resolve. After a while (hours), looking at the blurry text has me rubbing my eyes or starting to squint. The 8K screen doesn't look blurry at the edges of letters. It just looks sharp. I have wondered if this is something specific to exactly how much my eyesight has deteriorated with age, and maybe when it gets a little bit worse, it won't bother me as much. (?)
senttoschool 3y ago
>The new Dell 6K is about the same as the Apple 6K (the XDR Pro Display). I don't think they're in the same class. Spec shows Apple's Pro XDR is 2.5x brighter and have a much better contrast ratio along with 10bit and P3.
- veidr 3y ago
  Sorry, I meant about the same resolution. But in that case I'd expect the Dell 6K to fare even worse than the Apple 6K in a head-to-head comparison with the Dell 8K.
debug-desperado 3y ago
Did Apple slip some better scaling in with the M2 chips? Or maybe with the OS update? Or perhaps you're referring to HDMI 2.1 support?
- veidr 3y ago
  No, HDMI 2.1 doesn't matter (yet) because there are no 8K desktop monitors (meaning 32-inch size or similar) on the market that use HDMI. The only 8K monitor has for years been the Dell UP3218K, which uses DisplayPort -- and requires two DisplayPort cables, actually, to get 7680 × 4320 at 60Hz. Apple has never supported this on any of their machines -- they just couldn't drive the monitor. (It worked, but only in 4K mode.) They quietly changed this with the M2 machines. I had a MacBook Pro M1 Max that couldn't drive this monitor at 8K. Then I found this GitHub thread[1] where it was revealed that M2 Pro can drive up to one of these 8K displays over Thunderbolt (to DisplayPort). And the M2 Ultra on a Mac Pro or Mac Studio can drive 3 of them. I don't think it is scaling, per se, but rather that Apple has never supported the full DisplayPort spec. That 8K monitor apparently needs support for something called "dual SST" and Apple never supported that in their software. More details are in the linked GitHub discussion. So, I don't know why they didn't make this work on the M1 Ultra, too, but Apple gonna Apple. So I went down to the Apple Store and bought a Mac Studio M2 Ultra the day I read that. Now I can plug my Mac into my KVM switch and use this monitor on Mac just like I always could with Linux and Windows. [1]: https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay/discussions/199#discussioncomment-6163551 https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay/discussions/199#d...
  - debug-desperado 3y ago
    Very awesome. Thanks for sharing these little known M2 updates!

by veidr 3y ago

afterburner 3y ago

Are you sure you're not just experiencing some other difference in manufacturing, like a difference in the matte finish?

veidr 3y ago
That's a good question, but yes, I am very sure. I have compared them with magnifying glasses, and really tried to get into why such a (seemingly, at first) small increase in resolution made such a huge difference. I've compared standard 27" 4K, the LG and Apple 27" 5K ), the Apple 6K and the Dell 8K. It really is just a lot more pixels. The fuzz is definitely small, but there. Another good test is open VS Code full screen, divide it up into panes, and make the text as small as you can read it. I mean really small. The text on the 6K just looks awful while the 8K still looks good. Sometimes I do actually do this and put on my glasses (the text is too small for me to read without assistance, but it is still pretty crisp). It feels like a nerd superpower. There are actually a bunch of us 8K superfans out here on the internet, but it's been a lonely party, because the Dell UP3218K seems to be still the only 8K computer monitor you can buy. (As in a roughly 32" desktop monitor, not a TV.)

LeafItAlone 3y ago

> I need my glasses to use the 6K for long stretches and I don't even really need to wear them with the 8K It’s not obvious to me why this would happen. Can you share why this is?

veidr 3y ago
No, I found it really surprising myself. With my glasses on, though, the 6K (or 27" 5K) look less crisp but somehow not fuzzy. Like I can see the antialiasing at the edges, but this doesn't look blurry to me. (It just looks more like a 4K display, where the antialiasing isn't great, you can see the pixels.) With my glasses off, I cannot make out the antialiasing or pixels the 220ppi screens, but it looks fuzzy/blurry. Like its right at the edge of what my unaided eye can resolve. After a while (hours), looking at the blurry text has me rubbing my eyes or starting to squint. The 8K screen doesn't look blurry at the edges of letters. It just looks sharp. I have wondered if this is something specific to exactly how much my eyesight has deteriorated with age, and maybe when it gets a little bit worse, it won't bother me as much. (?)

senttoschool 3y ago

>The new Dell 6K is about the same as the Apple 6K (the XDR Pro Display). I don't think they're in the same class. Spec shows Apple's Pro XDR is 2.5x brighter and have a much better contrast ratio along with 10bit and P3.

veidr 3y ago
Sorry, I meant about the same resolution. But in that case I'd expect the Dell 6K to fare even worse than the Apple 6K in a head-to-head comparison with the Dell 8K.

debug-desperado 3y ago

Did Apple slip some better scaling in with the M2 chips? Or maybe with the OS update? Or perhaps you're referring to HDMI 2.1 support?

veidr 3y ago
No, HDMI 2.1 doesn't matter (yet) because there are no 8K desktop monitors (meaning 32-inch size or similar) on the market that use HDMI. The only 8K monitor has for years been the Dell UP3218K, which uses DisplayPort -- and requires two DisplayPort cables, actually, to get 7680 × 4320 at 60Hz. Apple has never supported this on any of their machines -- they just couldn't drive the monitor. (It worked, but only in 4K mode.) They quietly changed this with the M2 machines. I had a MacBook Pro M1 Max that couldn't drive this monitor at 8K. Then I found this GitHub thread[1] where it was revealed that M2 Pro can drive up to one of these 8K displays over Thunderbolt (to DisplayPort). And the M2 Ultra on a Mac Pro or Mac Studio can drive 3 of them. I don't think it is scaling, per se, but rather that Apple has never supported the full DisplayPort spec. That 8K monitor apparently needs support for something called "dual SST" and Apple never supported that in their software. More details are in the linked GitHub discussion. So, I don't know why they didn't make this work on the M1 Ultra, too, but Apple gonna Apple. So I went down to the Apple Store and bought a Mac Studio M2 Ultra the day I read that. Now I can plug my Mac into my KVM switch and use this monitor on Mac just like I always could with Linux and Windows. [1]: https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay/discussions/199#discussioncomment-6163551 https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay/discussions/199#d...
- debug-desperado 3y ago
  Very awesome. Thanks for sharing these little known M2 updates!