Reviews - Asus PQ321Q 4K Gaming Tried and Tested: Titan, 780 and 7970

[Zanny]

I'm still waiting for a decent 2,560x1,440 screen (pref IPS, a reasonable refresh rate and not too much lag) that doesn't break the bank.

The price won't drop much, since 1440p is a niche product. The economies of scale of mass deployment 4k screens will probably obsolete 1440p screen production the same way 1080p killed 16:10 displays.

[Defiant]

No one else find the use of 4K branding as annoying? Its a 2160P screen, its not even 4000 pixels wide either!!!

In my view its the companies again trying to take the **** when selling these items to the general public.

[kalniel]

No one else find the use of 4K branding as annoying?

Not really. Pixels doesn't mean anything to most people. This is 4 full HD screens worth though, so it's something people can relate to their existing sets.

[Pleiades]

Waiting for the 39" and 50" inch models (or the Chinese equivalents at 1/3rd the price, with concomitant drop in build quality of course)...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

My minor investigations into 4K and VRAM FWIW:
http://forums.aria.co.uk/showthread....=1#post2371801

So you got a 4K screen and a Geforce Titan now?? You actually spent nearly £4000!!

You need to update your signature!!

So basically you need at least a doubling of GPU processing power to run something like Crysis3 at even 30FPS. What framerates do you get without FXAA though? Would you even need to run any sort of AA at such a high resolution??

However unless the Crysis3 results are much higher without AA it does not bode well in the longterm as I can see more graphically intensive titles coming out in the next year or so,and the performance increases are slowing down and price is increasing. With Apple taking up 20NM capacity at TSMC,it looks like AMD and Nvidia might be affected by this.

Even if £500 4K screens were released in the next year,its going to be a while until we can have 1.5X or 2X Geforce Titan performance at say under £300. If anything it looks like these monitors better have decent scaling built into them.

[NLPsajeeth]

NVIDIA has released a new driver (326.19 BETA) that should support the ASUS PQ321Q on Windows 7.

Please note the claim they make in the release notes "Adds support for tiled 4K displays." is false. While they have added a driver hack that allows the ASUS PQ321Q to work, the driver does not work with the Sharp PN-K321 which uses the exact same panel.

The NVIDIA Suits need to allow support 2x1 and 2x2 Surround on Windows if they want to claim "Adds support for tiled 4K displays.". NVIDIA Engineering has done a great job in putting this functionality on all GeForce cards for years. Heck it is even present on GeForce cards in Linux. It is time to set it free on Windows.

[Terbinator]

So you got a 4K screen and a Geforce Titan now?? You actually spent nearly £4000!!

You need to update your signature!!

4K resolution was achieved through the Nvidia driver. The game is rendered at that then downsampled to 1440p, in my case.

So basically you need at least a doubling of GPU processing power to run something like Crysis3 at even 30FPS. What framerates do you get without FXAA though? Would you even need to run any sort of AA at such a high resolution??

Pretty much. I swapped from V.High to High settings in Crysis 3 last night and net the same results as Hexus did wit a native 4K panel. I didn't bother without as running FXAA is quite inexpensive. As for aliasing, it depends. It's noticeable if you go looking for it - in some games more than others.

However unless the Crysis3 results are much higher without AA it does not bode well in the longterm as I can see more graphically intensive titles coming out in the next year or so,and the performance increases are slowing down and price is increasing. With Apple taking up 20NM capacity at TSMC,it looks like AMD and Nvidia might be affected by this.

I'm not too sure what you mean here, but there is negligable difference in performance going from 4xMSAA down to 2 or even FXAA compared to the 15FPS boost dropping from V.High to High in Crysis 3. 8xMSAA @ 4K on V.High hits 5GB VRAM FWIW.

Even if £500 4K screens were released in the next year,its going to be a while until we can have 1.5X or 2X Geforce Titan performance at say under £300. If anything it looks like these monitors better have decent scaling built into them.

Yep, but OTOH, anyone looking at a 4K screen really should have 2+ Titans. In that regard, the performance figures aren't that ludicrous IMO.

[robert3892]

The price of a $K monitor will have to come down to present IPS LCD levels before I could commit, unless I happen to win the lottery some time soon.

[aberkae]

my 1 year gtx 690 1150/6500 mhz can handle any games today max settings in 4k @ 60 fps no anti aliasing. PC.per website claims the 690 is the single best graphics card to handle 4k. i believe the gtx 770 4 gig flavor in sli is a better value for high/ultra resolution gaming.

[shaithis]

my 1 year gtx 690 1150/6500 mhz can handle any games today max settings in 4k @ 60 fps no anti aliasing.

Of course it can.....

[tealsuki]

Wait until we see 3x1 4k screens in surround mode

[ThermalDroid]

With 4k coming down in price pretty swiftly maybe we can hope that we'll get IPS 1440p panels for £200 within a year or two. Lot's of 1080p IPS panels for < £200 right now! Can but hope.

[loyal986]

I am cheering the radeon 9000 series from AMD, they will bring the game back.

[deejayburnout]

Would love to having one of those but it would probably melt my 7850.

At £3000 for a monitor I would rather buy a couple of decent GPUs and 3 decent monitors and get a better gaming experience.

[Whami]

I feel like this review was biased in favor of Nvidea.
Largest monitor but don't try the best graphics card?
I want to know how the HD7990 does.
Should have been in the review.

[[-Stash-]]

I'm still waiting for a decent 2,560x1,440 screen (pref IPS, a reasonable refresh rate and not too much lag) that doesn't break the bank.

OCUK have an AOC for £320 currently. I've got one of the older versions (same panel) with fewer inputs and a horrid case, but gaming on it is lovely. LoL on that screen with 32×AA is wonderful, and Borderlands 2 with a slightly more sane 8×QCSAA is also spectacular. It has the same IPS panel that goes in the £900 Apple Thunderbolt screen, so the colour is okay, certainly much better than TN panels.

Regarding the tests, it looks like no single graphics card is currently up to a decent gaming experience on a 4k monitor. And although 3GB might be enough for these current games, what about 12 months down the line when the new consoles are out and through at least 4GB memory at graphics textures and the like? Food for thought.