Workstation monitor

[Mark Hennebury]

Anyone have a recommendation for a decent $500 range, 4k monitor 27"-32" for CAD work.?
Anyone have one of these BenQ monitors?
This one is $599. Cdn
Any opinions?

BenQ DesignVue 27" 4K UHD 60Hz 5ms GTG IPS LCD Monitor (PD2700U) - Black

[Frank Pratt]

Mark, I don't, but I currently have a 30" & 2, 19" monitors because I work with large plans. But the 30" isn't really big enough, so I'm considering something larger. The problem with 4K monitors is that the pixel pitch is so small that text becomes unreadable & Windows' scaling solution is far from perfect. There are always programs that don't play nice with anything other than the native setting.

I believe that 42" 4K will be just right for me. There are now a few on the market somewhere around the $1000 mark, some less.

My 80" TV has a home theater PC connected to it & it's a great monitor, which TVs generally aren't. That's a little ridiculous though. Or is it...

[Bill Dufour]

A little late but check black friday sales for tv's.
Bil lD

[Mark Hennebury]

Frank, Thanks, i will look into the pixel pitch problem.
Bill, i have been looking for a few days, and have seen lots of great deals, just not sure what to choose. Hoping that someone might point me to a particular one that they are happy with.

[Frank Pratt]

Do a search for large 4K monitor reviews and you'll find lots of good info. They will also explain the pitfalls of using a 4K TV as a monitor. Depending on your needs, a TV may or may not be satisfactory.

[Lee DeRaud]

I've had the 32" Benq for a couple of years now, not the 4K but whatever the 2560x1440 (double 720P both ways) is called. Very happy with it.

EDIT: just did the math, that resolution works out to about 2.25X the pixel count of full HD...dunno if "2.25K" is a thing or not. :)

[Jim Becker]

Lee, that's UHD ("ultra high definition")....both of my Dell monitors support that. (27" here in my office and 25" in the shop on my CNC control machine)

[Derek Meyer]

Look at the Dell Ultrasharp series. They're around your budget and have a fantastic picture. I have a 30" that I bought about 10 years ago that is still going strong. It is 2550 x 1600 resolution. The newer model is a 32" 4K monitor. They also have 25" and 27" models.

[Mark Hennebury]

Thanks for the help. I am leaning towards a 32" Benq 4K designer , its a bit more money, but i think its worth it,BenQ PD3200U PD Series 32-Inch Screen, LED-Lit Monitor

100-Percent rec. 709 and sRGB color space with IPS technology: brilliant colors and wide viewing angle
Dualview function: work in two modes such as sRGB and darkroom mode without the need for two screens
Darkroom, cad/cam, and animation display mode: revolutionary modes bring out the details of intricate designs into view
Keyboard video mouse (KVM) switch: display contents from two pc systems using one set of keyboard and mouse
Eye-Care technology: low blue light and flicker-free technology reduce eye discomfort
Brightness: 350 cd/㎡, Native Contrast(typ.): 1000:1, Refresh Rate: 60Hz


420841

[Tom M King]

Refresh rate seems a little slow???

[Mark Hennebury]

Hi Tom, am certainly am no expert, but it seems that this is okay for CAD work, its not going to be used for games, which i understand need a higher refresh rate. I really don't know much about them, just from a little reading recently; but this monitor seems to be recommended for Cad work by Solidworks. All a can go on is reading reviews online or recommendations from people who have experience, which is why i posted here.


Refresh rate seems a little slow???

[Kev Williams]

A year ago I bought this 32" Dell for my office, paid a whole $140 for it-
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it sits about 5" behind the keyboard, so from my point of view it's HUGE, the pics and graphics are great IMO...
I run Corel, some autocad files, QB, work with photos and the occasional video, but no gaming...

So, what exactly does an additional $620 for the same size monitor buy?

[Jim Becker]

Kev, that monitor is "HD" resolution (1920x1080) or the same as a regular HD TV. The setup that the OP wants is 4K resolution which is as much as 4096x2160 pixels.

[Matt Schrum]

...So, what exactly does an additional $620 for the same size monitor buy?

Screen real estate. I bought a 1440p monitor (so 2560 x 1440 pixels = 3,608,640 pixels) for about $300 if I recall. Compare that to a full HD monitor (1920 x 1080 pixels = 2,073,600) and I have about 75% more pixels on my screen. Sure, that's great for super crisp pictures, but it also makes a big difference when work on my CAD files. I have more room to drag things around, don't have to constantly scroll as I work on things, and even the menus take up less valuable work space on the screen (maybe not great for those who's eyes aren't quite what they used to be). There are cheaper options out there now, but you get the idea.

That being said, for running my CNC, I have a run-of-the-mill Full HD monitor that I got for dirt cheap. That computer is running a program and displaying a DRO and I don't need a high end monitor for that.

[Kev Williams]

even tho my 32" is "only" a 1920, I have the res set for 1600x900! - because at 1920 everything "Windows" is so dinky, even at 24" from my eyes, that I can't read half of what's on the screen. "Pixel Pitch" is mentioned above, and that's the problem; While you can fit a lot of stuff you're working on on-screen, and you can zoom in on what you're working on, you can't zoom on anything Windows displays... You CAN adjust Windows text size, but it also enlarges everything ELSE- however, what it doesn't enlarge is your working program's places & spaces where text and graphics fits, so while you can maybe read the enlarged text, you'll find much of it missing. The only way to enlarge EVERYTHING is to reduce the screen resolution.

As to how much real estate would be gained using Corel, if I went from 1920 to 4K,
here is a shot of my full screen as-is (reduced to 70% of original so as to hopefully avoid the Creek's resizing, at least somewhat)-
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now, there's a lot of working area there, yes?

So if I went to 4K, I'd pick up some sharpness maybe, but as to the working area size, all I would gain would be 50% of the height and width of the perimeter menu area...
To demonstrate, I simply boxed the 4 edges of menu area individually, and just smushed their short sides to roughly half of original, otherwise pics are identical
looks funky but it does show the basic gain in working area:
420870
toggle between them --there's some improvement to be sure, but worth the price? And remember, most everything in the menu area's will be half-sized in all directions, not just the direction I squashed them, which for my old eyes, would be very counterproductive...

As I said, my 32" monitor in the office is HUGE from my point of view, yet I have the resolution lowered just so I can read all the tiny print. If I needed more real estate as working area, it would make more sense for ME to just by a bigger monitor, regardless of it's native resolution...

[Lee DeRaud]

even tho my 32" is "only" a 1920, I have the res set for 1600x900! - because at 1920 everything "Windows" is so dinky, even at 24" from my eyes, that I can't read half of what's on the screen. "Pixel Pitch" is mentioned above, and that's the problem; While you can fit a lot of stuff you're working on on-screen, and you can zoom in on what you're working on, you can't zoom on anything Windows displays... You CAN adjust Windows text size, but it also enlarges everything ELSE- however, what it doesn't enlarge is your working program's places & spaces where text and graphics fits, so while you can maybe read the enlarged text, you'll find much of it missing. The only way to enlarge EVERYTHING is to reduce the screen resolution.First, I agree that "vector" work, such as Corel or CAD, isn't helped all that much by the higher resolution, although as Matt mentions, fine line and text work is quite a bit crisper. But for "analog" stuff like photos and video, it certainly helps a lot to be able to see more (or all) of the image without subsampling.

(As I recall, you're still using Win7 (or older) for pretty much all of your machines...if that's not true for the one this monitor is attached to, stop reading now.)

Second, Win7 sucks at scaling, a situation unlikely to change since it's firmly mired in no-meanigful-update purgatory. My previous monitor was a 22" 1600x1050, and yes, it was borderline on Win7, even with the "large fonts" option. Win10 OTOH is much better at handling high-res displays, using fractional scaling rather than the old small/normal/large deal. The laptop I'm using to type this has a 13" 3000x2000 screen, and everything is perfectly readable, including Corel and Photoshop icons/toolbars/etc. Admittedly I had one app (Quicken) that was horrible to use for a long while, but even it finally caught up.

[Mark Hennebury]

All interesting to me.
For reference my new computer is a dell precision workstation I7-9700K With windows 10 pro for workstations

[Frank Pratt]

There are some issues with high resolution that are not clearly understood by all. Any setting in Windows other than the monitor's native resolution will result in a degraded image. Edges are just a little (or a lot) fuzzier. But an HD monitor (not even 4K) at native resolution can mean that text is so small that it's difficult to read. I have a 30" that is 2560 x 1600, and I have to scale it to 125% to avoid eye strain. A 4K monitor that size would be unusable to be at native resolution & no scaling.

But one of the dirty little secrets of Windows is that it still handles scaling very imperfectly. Text & images don't always fit properly in the window. I don't do Apple, but I'm told that it handles scaling much better and has for decades.

[Lee DeRaud]

There are some issues with high resolution that are not clearly understood by all. Any setting in Windows other than the monitor's native resolution will result in a degraded image. Edges are just a little (or a lot) fuzzier. But an HD monitor (not even 4K) at native resolution can mean that text is so small that it's difficult to read. I have a 30" that is 2560 x 1600, and I have to scale it to 125% to avoid eye strain. A 4K monitor that size would be unusable to be at native resolution & no scaling.That sounds like you think applying scaling within Windows sets the monitor to something besides its native resolution. It doesn't: the screen resolution setting and the scaling setting are independent. The scaling setting changes the pixel dimensions of everything to enlarge or reduce the visual size of the GUI elements. (I admit it's confusing that Windows even allows you to set the screen resolution on a modern display...that's a relic from the CRT days.)

I'm also a bit confused why you seem to think that having to set the scaling is a bad thing: that "100%" default number is completely arbitrary and always has been.

[Frank Pratt]

That sounds like you think applying scaling within Windows sets the monitor to something besides its native resolution. It doesn't: the screen resolution setting and the scaling setting are independent. The scaling setting changes the pixel dimensions of everything to enlarge or reduce the visual size of the GUI elements. (I admit it's confusing that Windows even allows you to set the screen resolution on a modern display...that's a relic from the CRT days.)

I'm also a bit confused why you seem to think that having to set the scaling is a bad thing: that "100%" default number is completely arbitrary and always has been.

No, I was referring to setting the monitor resolution. Yes, scaling is a different matter. My point was that setting the monitor resolution at anything other than native is a bad idea & shouldn't be done.

Scaling, as you say, does change the pixel dimension of everything, or almost everything. Some graphic elements do not scale, or scale differently than others. Websites are particularly bad at being scaled, with text not fitting into it's box etc. Some programs also have issues with labels not fitting properly inside their buttons.

100% scaling, I would argue, is not completely arbitrary. At 100% everything fits as it should. Not so at say 125%, or 150% (which is what I run some of my monitors at) That's when things can get goofy. Each newer version of Windows has gotten better at it, but it is still far from perfect. And older programs seem to suffer more from this issue.

I have run 3 monitors; a 30" & 2, 19" for about the last 15 years & have studied and screwed around with this for a long time.

[Myk Rian]

You may want to look into 4k graphics cards. Here's a rundown of some.
https://graphicscardhub.com/best-workstation-graphics-cards/

[Lee DeRaud]

You may want to look into 4k graphics cards.Shouldn't need one for his usage: his new machine has a 9th-gen i7, which does 4K with the built-in graphics. Not great for gaming, but CAD should be fine.

[Mark Hennebury]

Graphics card is the nvidia Quadro P400