39 inch 4k monitor

I mentioned awhile back the Seiki 50 inch 4k monitor. It was the first affordable 4k monitor i’d come across on the market at it’s original price of $1499. It looks like the 50 inch model is now available on Amazon for just $1100. This brings the price into the range of your average 55 inch 1080p TV.

A 5o inch 4k display might be a bit oversized for a desktop monitor and there aren’t many home theater devices on the market that support 4k. Really, the only way to take advantage of the resolution would be to connect it to a HTPC or mount it to a wall in front of your desk.

Thankfully the popularity of the Seiki 50 inch 4k monitor has spired the release of a 39″ inch model. That’s still a little large for a small desktop, but it’s much closer in size to my current 30 inch display and only weighs 8 more pounds. The price of the new Seiki 39 inch 4k monitor is also in a nice spot (for a 4k monitor), coming in at $699. Having 3840 by 2160 is basically 4 1080p monitors in a single screen. That’s a very nice chunk of screen real estate to work with for the price.

There are a few disadvantage to both of these monitors. First is that neither support refresh rates higher than 30 Hz at 4k. This is because both monitors are limited by the HDMI 1.4 standard which only allows for 3840 × 2160p (Quad HD) at 24 Hz/25 Hz/30 Hz or 4096 × 2160p at 24 Hz.  That should be fine for normal desktop work, editing, production, and so on, but if you plan to use this for gaming 30 Hz might be disappointing. The second disadvantage is that both of these monitors require a pretty hefty graphics card with a decent amount of memory.

From what I’ve read so far a GTX 660 ti with 3GB of GDDR5 is about as low as you’d want to go. Most are recommending at least a GTX 670 or higher. If you’d like to find out more about the Seiki 4k monitors, I recommend checking out this write up at PC perspective. The videos a little long, but they do a pretty good job of showing the 50 inch version running as a desktop display. I’m not sure if i’m personally ready to drop $700 on a 4k display, but it certainly is tempting.

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