Contemplating monitor upgrade - advice sought

[wayne_rowley]

Hi,

I have a 2018 Mac Mini i5 with 32GB or RAM and 256GB SSD. My primary use case is music (Logic Pro) and some office. No gaming. Very little/lightweight vide editing.

For a screen I currently have a Dell Ultrawide 34inch 2556x1080. It’s a lovely screen, but due to the pixel size can look pixelated - especially text. The widescreen is great for mixing in Logic though. My eyesight is bad. I’m very short-sighted and I also suffer from dry-eye. That means that text can look blurry or ghosted at times, and I am prone to eye strain issues. On the current monitor when my eyes are bad, I sometimes struggle to read emails and other text.

I am considering the option of upgrading my screen and replacing it with a 27inch 4K monitor. I would run in ’looks like 1080p’ mode. I know I’ll lose some width but the height (resolution) would be the same. Text and UI should be bigger though, which might help my eyes.

My questions:

- Am I right in thinking that in ‘looks like 1080p’ the UI would be rendered to look lime 1080p but would use the full 4K resolution to render, making it look smoother and less pixelated. Images and video would be ‘native’ 4K though. Is that right. I don’t want it to just use 4 pixels for 1 if that makes sense.

- What performance hit should I expect given the extra impact on graphics? I know the Mac Mini graphics is not great. I don’t really want to steal more CPU time from Logic though.

- Is it likely to increase fan speed/noise?

Note: as an alternative I’m also considering a new iMac with the Nano Texture Screen, but am concerned that my eyes may still struggle with the 2556x1440 scaled resolution when reading text.

Many thanks,
Wayne

 

[deksawyer]

I'm not is this answers any of your questions, but when I was recently looking for a 4k monitor, the advice was heavily in favour of 32" being the preferred size, due to pixel density.

I eventually went for a 27" QHD Dell monitor as I didn't want any scaling issues and almost instantly regretted that I didn't go with 32. The pixel density on the 27 is great (exactly the same as my old iMac 27) but the screen could be bigger. Maybe a QHD 32 would be fine?

I also use mine primarily for Logic Pro.

 

[Boyd01]

All I can say is that I'm delighted with my BenQ PD3200Q 32" QHD (2560x1440) monitor, running at native resolution on my 2018 Mini. I don't notice any "pixellation" on text, but some people seem to be more sensitive about that kind of issue.

 

[getrealbro]

I’m running a BenQ 3270ZL (2560x1440) and DELL 2407WFP (1920x1200) on my 2018 i7 32GB Mini. These monitors are both roughly 92ppi. I would not trade a square inch of that screen real estate for increased resolution. I use the BenQ as my main monitor for interactive apps. I use the Dell for 24/7 network/system monitors (PeakHour 4, Intel Power Gadget, Activity Monitor CPU History) AND two VLC windows with real time video streams of wildlife cameras. The much maligned 2018 Mini's internal GPU handles both monitors just fine.

FWIW I recently helped a friend set up a 2020 27” i7 iMac and was very disappointed in the 5K 27” screen. At native resolution (5120 x 2880) images were gorgeous but the text was just too small. And using scaled resolution to make the text readable, reduced the screen real estate too much. For my old eyes, a 5K 27” monitor is simply too small. And 5K 32” monitors are too expensive.

GetRealBro

Edit: fixed PPI error. They aren't exactly the same ppi. But I almost never span windows across both monitors. So I don't notice the small difference. FWIW I would have bought a matching 32" BenQ but the DELL we purchased back in 2006 was still working fine

 

[Boyd01]

I’m running a BenQ 3270ZL (2560x1440) and DELL 2407WFP (1920x1200) on my 2018 i7 32GB Mini. These monitors are both roughly 140 ppi.

According to the specs, the 3270ZL is 92 ppi (like my 32" BenQ). Couldn't find a spec on the Dell monitor, but would expect it to be about the same. Or maybe I'm not understanding your post? A 140 ppi screen would display very small text at native resolution. The tiny text on my 11" MacBook Air is even larger than that, it has a 135 ppi screen (smaller ppi = larger text).

 

[getrealbro]

According to the specs, the 3270ZL is 92 ppi (like my 32" BenQ). Couldn't find a spec on the Dell monitor, but would expect it to be about the same. Or maybe I'm not understanding your post? A 140 ppi screen would display very small text at native resolution. The tiny text on my 11" MacBook Air is even larger than that, it has a 135 ppi screen (smaller ppi = larger text).

My Bad. You're right. I remembered the ppi wrong. The Dell is so old they were quoting resolution in pixel pitch = .27mm (approx 94ppi) which is pretty close to the same PPI as the 92ppi BenQ 3270ZL

GetRealBro

 

[wayne_rowley]

Thanks for the updates.

I can’t fit a 32 inch monitor (16:9) on my desk due to height restrictions. 27inch 16:9 is about as large as I can go.

A 27inch QHD will give me the same width in pixels and more height in pixels. It will have a higher PPI than my 34inch 2560 x 1080. I am concerned though that the text will be smaller, hindering my eyesight further.

I’m wondering if the 4K - bigger text but higher DPI - is what I need.

 

[Jerion]

My questions:

- Am I right in thinking that in ‘looks like 1080p’ the UI would be rendered to look lime 1080p but would use the full 4K resolution to render, making it look smoother and less pixelated. Images and video would be ‘native’ 4K though. Is that right. I don’t want it to just use 4 pixels for 1 if that makes sense.

- What performance hit should I expect given the extra impact on graphics? I know the Mac Mini graphics is not great. I don’t really want to steal more CPU time from Logic though.

- Is it likely to increase fan speed/noise?

Note: as an alternative I’m also considering a new iMac with the Nano Texture Screen, but am concerned that my eyes may still struggle with the 2556x1440 scaled resolution when reading text.

Many thanks,
Wayne

Retina rendering on Macs works like this, yes. "Looks like 1080" gives you the working real estate (and overall UI sizing) of 1080p with the substantially enhanced sharpness of 4K - UI elements are smoother, text is massively clearer, and you get the full benefit of the extra pixel count when viewing images and video. You get a great-looking UI at a usable physical size.

You will also be able to go with higher "looks like" settings, where the computer actually renders to a higher-than-4K resolution and scales down the output to your actual 4K screen, giving you more real estate to work with. On old displays you'd never want to do this, but as long as the pixel density is high enough (>150 PPI at ≥2 feet away), this trick can actually look quite good. I do this frequently - my 2014 MacBook Pro has a 2880x1800 display, so the 'native' setting is "looks like 1440x900", but I run it at "looks like 1680x1050" and it's quite nice. Ever-so-slightly soft, but still pretty.

I'm sure the integrated GPU in the 2018 model can handle it. The more modern iGPUs are excellent for 2D needs these days, like quite-high-res desktops - just don't throw a hefty 3D task at it and you'll be more than fine.