AMD 7970 supports DisplayPort 1.2 which is capable of 4K, so why were two DPs needed? Firmware limitation? I know AMD states 2560x1600 as the max resolution, but DP 1.2 spec is capable of more.
From the article: "Most 4K displays require multiple inputs, which was the case in AMD's demo"
Translate: a single TV input does not support 4K (which means it is not a displayport 1.2), regardless whether the 7970 can, or cannot support 4K on one output.
Yeah, but why make a new display that doesn't support the newest DisplayPort standard? I would understand if DVI was used. I just find this to be a bit weird because the technology for 4K over one cable exists.
Only improved ROP efficiency, granted, by the time 4K and higher displays become common place the 7970 will be ancient history, but still, can't help but be disappointed by the 7970's conservative design, although I'm sure that helped it in actually making it out to market while we're still such a long ways off before we get Kepler.
Can't have our cake and eat it too I guess, GLaDOS was on to something.
What workload do you find bottlenecked by ROPs? AMD said improved efficiency was enough as current applications don't max out ROPs. And yes, of course by the time 4k becomes common this will be history, as that's still years down the line. Graphics cards have a pretty high performance turnover rate, that's nothing new.
Digital Signage displays that are really thick (about four inches) and cost a truckload of money. I think AMD may have said something about them running in the neighborhood of $10K or more each. Also note that because they're digital signage, they have to put out a lot more light than normal displays, so they can probably output 1000 nits or something -- which would also explain the extra thickness on the back, as it looked like the power delivery and backlighting was about 3x as large as, e.g. a 30" 2560x1600 display.
Assuming we are talking about the 5x1 configuration, those displays are not $10K each. I can't say definitively what the make or model is, but my guess would be a Samsung UX or UB series display - they are commercial screens designed for video walls, hence the super slim bezels. Those look like 46" displays - the 46" 460UX-3 can be easily had for $1800 or less. Also, unless you want to shine a spot light on the screen, 1000nits is way overkill for an indoor screen. The extra thickness on the back is part the result of these being back light (CCFL lighting, combined with the fact that even if it were LED there is no room in the bezel) and other part increased air flow design for 24x7/close quarter operation. There are outdoor displays that offer 1500+ nits, such as Sunbrite TV's or the DR series from Samsung), but their bezels are much thicker and are definitely not those models.
Hi, all. My name's Robert, and I'm in the GPU division at AMD.
Two DisplayPort cables were used for this demo because the connected displays do not use the 3GHz HDMI or DisplayPort 1.2 HBR2 standards.
Any product with Graphics Core Next (including the Radeon HD 7970) support 4096x2160 over a single HDMI or DP cable. Of course the TV/monitor needs to support that as well, and these displays simply didn't. :)
Did they have any actual games running in 4K/2K? If 2 outputs were required I would guess they would have to do some manipulation on the driver side to basically halve the the resolution for each output and allow the display to recombine them. This would probably cause some issues on the game client side in terms of selecting resolution as you'd basically need either side-by-side 2K/2K images or top bottom 4K/1K images.
I'm definitely interested in where this goes though with 3GHz HDMI, as it should open the doors for a lot of currently unsupported 2D and 3D modes.
4K/2K would be amazing though, its basically 2x2 supersample AA when compared to a 1080p panel over the same screen size without any of the blurring issues you might see with downsampled methods.
Assuming you are right and it was simply presented as two separate displays and later stitched together into one panel, AMD will have simply enabled Eyefinity to have it appear as one single large display making it agnostic to the applications running on it.
Yet another way for AMD to sell Eyefinity as a great piece of tech (which it is), is that display manufacturers can sell panels like this that don't support the new DP standard to allow one display input to drive the entire panel.
I REALLY want a ~24" 4k display. I've been wanting higher dpi displays since like 17" CRT days but for years it's been essentially the same pixels per inch and just larger displays.
I hope 4096x2160 isn't going to be the new standard. It's annoying enough to have 1.77:1 monitors instead of 1.6, and now 1.9? They should go for 3840x2400. Both integer scaling, and 1.6.
Look, guys, the porn producers are all starting to shoot in 1.9:1, and the panel manufacturers KNOW who the early adopters are for large screen hi-res displays...
It will mainly be used in film production and medical imaging any way. It's where you find those multi-input high-res displays, or maybe in a air-tower (ATC) for radar display. Professional applications that aren't all that ordinary. Neither is there anything new about the displays until we get displays supporting DP 1.2 4k or HDMI 3GHz. The resolution is just that because of bandwidth limitations. You can get 3840x2400 out of it and there is already multi-dvi displays with that resolution. Since like more then ten years back.
Digital cinema is around 4096 x 2160 (at what the projector can output) usually shot or scanned to 4096 x 2304, 2160, 2048, 3112 (1.32 35mm film full frame, can still be 2.39:1 lenses or whatever) or 1714 for 2:39:1. So of course about useful resolution for about 4k DI online editing and mastering, color correction, preparing for digital cinema or simply editing 4k digital video and playback of said type of material. Video/Cinema is why they mention and support that typical res as it's full res digital cinema 4k. As said it doesn't mean that they don't support other resolutions. Internally I think they raised the resolution to about 8kx8k in GCN. Not enough bandwidth over a single link for that though.
The display at AMD was a 4096x2104 resolution, and there were quite a few 4K displays being demoed around CES. Honestly, 4K was one of the highlights of CES this year. I doubt it will be affordable for most of us for at least five years, but we will absolutely see 4K HDTVs start hitting retail in the next year. They might start at $15K or $20K, just like the HD plasma displays from 10 years back, but in a decade I imagine we'll have a follow up to Blu-ray (with more DRM!) and the home theaters will all be 4K or better. I say bring it on!
Incidentally, with a 4K resolution, the 46" (it looked about that) panel at the AMD booth has roughly the same DPI as the 30" 2560x1600 display I'm currently using. I'm not sure about trying to put a 46" display on my desk, though! LOL
It's not really consumer tech yet as you say. Ones we start to see some 4k Blu-ray variant I can see they selling and producing some high-end premium 4k displays for movie consumers.
It's great that we get to see DP 1.2 (and maybe more proper daisy chaining support) as well as HDMI 3GHz more though, ones we have that in most devices you will never be limited to the 1920x1200 60Hz on HDMI of older gpus and displays, but it's a while for that to really happen if you don't have Displayport at least. But it is at least progressing.
But I guess there is a while before we see 4k digital cinema quality and mastering in our living room :) Not even all films hit that kind of cinema quality and high-quality mastering. We would be lucky just to get better mastered blu-rays for most of the time I guess. It's hardly equal or close to a proper mastered 2k cinema movie even. AMD would probably even have passed that 8k x 8k limit by then.
We will see allot of professional applications before they get ordinary consumer goods with 4k support so we will probably see it moving along there as well.
Still just a 13-14" 1600x900 laptops for consumers is just starting to show up and I don't expect any miracles with what consumers get and what they expect from that industry even if it's pushed quite hard for those smaller LPTS TFT/LCD mobile and tablet displays. I don't expect and see the proposed resolution race by people expecting miracles as unreasonable when we pretty much have had the same resolutions for 25 years and just went from workstations running 1120x832, 1120x900 or 1024x864, or 1280x1024 from 23-25 years ago or 1 M to about 2 M displays of today. We haven't really seen the tech, or LCD and AMOLED panel manufacturers or even GPU companies approaching the print resolution so many would wish to have replicated.
4k would pretty much be the limit for non IMAX or 70mm or really high-end digital cameras any way so I don't expect much of a resolution race from the companies behind the tech, even if I do expect to see more displays in the ordinary high-res range in stead of standard low res panels being thrown out at people. A revolution hasn't really happened, but we will at least see those 4k displays and consumer home-theater projectors eventually. Considering of how the distribution is handled in the cinema business I wouldn't really hope for that push to happen soon though. Outside US people can't even get digital distribution of movies and tv other then ordinary broadcast, dvd, bluray and useless services that don't have those tens and tens of thousands of titles for streaming.
IF it does happen I hope someone will at least launch a 2160x1215 monitor with a non-TN panel. PLP rocks for multi display use; but needs same height/DPI side screens to work well.
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Kristian Vättö - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
AMD 7970 supports DisplayPort 1.2 which is capable of 4K, so why were two DPs needed? Firmware limitation? I know AMD states 2560x1600 as the max resolution, but DP 1.2 spec is capable of more.yankeeDDL - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
From the article: "Most 4K displays require multiple inputs, which was the case in AMD's demo"Translate: a single TV input does not support 4K (which means it is not a displayport 1.2), regardless whether the 7970 can, or cannot support 4K on one output.
Kristian Vättö - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
Yeah, but why make a new display that doesn't support the newest DisplayPort standard? I would understand if DVI was used. I just find this to be a bit weird because the technology for 4K over one cable exists.JarredWalton - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
I think it might have simply been an early prototype display and that when they're ready to start shipping it will only need a single connector.euler007 - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
I'm pretty sure AMD was promoting their graphic cards as a source for these display.As far as I know they're not selling or making any displays.
bunnyfubbles - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
Only improved ROP efficiency, granted, by the time 4K and higher displays become common place the 7970 will be ancient history, but still, can't help but be disappointed by the 7970's conservative design, although I'm sure that helped it in actually making it out to market while we're still such a long ways off before we get Kepler.Can't have our cake and eat it too I guess, GLaDOS was on to something.
tipoo - Saturday, January 14, 2012 - link
What workload do you find bottlenecked by ROPs? AMD said improved efficiency was enough as current applications don't max out ROPs. And yes, of course by the time 4k becomes common this will be history, as that's still years down the line. Graphics cards have a pretty high performance turnover rate, that's nothing new.Assimilator87 - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
Wow, those are some of the thinnest bezels I've seen yet. What's the make and model?JarredWalton - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
Digital Signage displays that are really thick (about four inches) and cost a truckload of money. I think AMD may have said something about them running in the neighborhood of $10K or more each. Also note that because they're digital signage, they have to put out a lot more light than normal displays, so they can probably output 1000 nits or something -- which would also explain the extra thickness on the back, as it looked like the power delivery and backlighting was about 3x as large as, e.g. a 30" 2560x1600 display.HammerStrike - Tuesday, January 17, 2012 - link
Assuming we are talking about the 5x1 configuration, those displays are not $10K each. I can't say definitively what the make or model is, but my guess would be a Samsung UX or UB series display - they are commercial screens designed for video walls, hence the super slim bezels. Those look like 46" displays - the 46" 460UX-3 can be easily had for $1800 or less. Also, unless you want to shine a spot light on the screen, 1000nits is way overkill for an indoor screen. The extra thickness on the back is part the result of these being back light (CCFL lighting, combined with the fact that even if it were LED there is no room in the bezel) and other part increased air flow design for 24x7/close quarter operation. There are outdoor displays that offer 1500+ nits, such as Sunbrite TV's or the DR series from Samsung), but their bezels are much thicker and are definitely not those models.AMD-Robert - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
Hi, all. My name's Robert, and I'm in the GPU division at AMD.Two DisplayPort cables were used for this demo because the connected displays do not use the 3GHz HDMI or DisplayPort 1.2 HBR2 standards.
Any product with Graphics Core Next (including the Radeon HD 7970) support 4096x2160 over a single HDMI or DP cable. Of course the TV/monitor needs to support that as well, and these displays simply didn't. :)
B3an - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
As i suspected. Nice to see someone from AMD on here.french toast - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
Hi there. Robert, if you sum up Nvidia in one word, any word you can think of, what would it be??Come on dont be shy now ;)
mmatis - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
Thank you!tipoo - Saturday, January 14, 2012 - link
Nice to see someone from AMD, hope you stick around to fill in the blanks from time to timebego - Sunday, January 15, 2012 - link
that was stupid idea...chizow - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
Did they have any actual games running in 4K/2K? If 2 outputs were required I would guess they would have to do some manipulation on the driver side to basically halve the the resolution for each output and allow the display to recombine them. This would probably cause some issues on the game client side in terms of selecting resolution as you'd basically need either side-by-side 2K/2K images or top bottom 4K/1K images.I'm definitely interested in where this goes though with 3GHz HDMI, as it should open the doors for a lot of currently unsupported 2D and 3D modes.
4K/2K would be amazing though, its basically 2x2 supersample AA when compared to a 1080p panel over the same screen size without any of the blurring issues you might see with downsampled methods.
Omoronovo - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
Assuming you are right and it was simply presented as two separate displays and later stitched together into one panel, AMD will have simply enabled Eyefinity to have it appear as one single large display making it agnostic to the applications running on it.Yet another way for AMD to sell Eyefinity as a great piece of tech (which it is), is that display manufacturers can sell panels like this that don't support the new DP standard to allow one display input to drive the entire panel.
Concillian - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
I REALLY want a ~24" 4k display. I've been wanting higher dpi displays since like 17" CRT days but for years it's been essentially the same pixels per inch and just larger displays.Bring on the high resolution.
sheh - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
Actually usually lower DPI on LCDs vs. CRTs.I hope 4096x2160 isn't going to be the new standard. It's annoying enough to have 1.77:1 monitors instead of 1.6, and now 1.9? They should go for 3840x2400. Both integer scaling, and 1.6.
Concillian - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
movie industry will drive this, we're just along for the ride, forced to take what we can get.Marketing buzz is 4k, and 3840 is not technically 4k, so it won't happen. We can hope, but I doubt it.
1920x1200 user here, so I agree with you, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
mmatis - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
Look, guys, the porn producers are all starting to shoot in 1.9:1, and the panel manufacturers KNOW who the early adopters are for large screen hi-res displays...Penti - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
It will mainly be used in film production and medical imaging any way. It's where you find those multi-input high-res displays, or maybe in a air-tower (ATC) for radar display. Professional applications that aren't all that ordinary. Neither is there anything new about the displays until we get displays supporting DP 1.2 4k or HDMI 3GHz. The resolution is just that because of bandwidth limitations. You can get 3840x2400 out of it and there is already multi-dvi displays with that resolution. Since like more then ten years back.Digital cinema is around 4096 x 2160 (at what the projector can output) usually shot or scanned to 4096 x 2304, 2160, 2048, 3112 (1.32 35mm film full frame, can still be 2.39:1 lenses or whatever) or 1714 for 2:39:1. So of course about useful resolution for about 4k DI online editing and mastering, color correction, preparing for digital cinema or simply editing 4k digital video and playback of said type of material. Video/Cinema is why they mention and support that typical res as it's full res digital cinema 4k. As said it doesn't mean that they don't support other resolutions. Internally I think they raised the resolution to about 8kx8k in GCN. Not enough bandwidth over a single link for that though.
JarredWalton - Sunday, January 15, 2012 - link
The display at AMD was a 4096x2104 resolution, and there were quite a few 4K displays being demoed around CES. Honestly, 4K was one of the highlights of CES this year. I doubt it will be affordable for most of us for at least five years, but we will absolutely see 4K HDTVs start hitting retail in the next year. They might start at $15K or $20K, just like the HD plasma displays from 10 years back, but in a decade I imagine we'll have a follow up to Blu-ray (with more DRM!) and the home theaters will all be 4K or better. I say bring it on!Incidentally, with a 4K resolution, the 46" (it looked about that) panel at the AMD booth has roughly the same DPI as the 30" 2560x1600 display I'm currently using. I'm not sure about trying to put a 46" display on my desk, though! LOL
Penti - Monday, January 16, 2012 - link
It's not really consumer tech yet as you say. Ones we start to see some 4k Blu-ray variant I can see they selling and producing some high-end premium 4k displays for movie consumers.It's great that we get to see DP 1.2 (and maybe more proper daisy chaining support) as well as HDMI 3GHz more though, ones we have that in most devices you will never be limited to the 1920x1200 60Hz on HDMI of older gpus and displays, but it's a while for that to really happen if you don't have Displayport at least. But it is at least progressing.
But I guess there is a while before we see 4k digital cinema quality and mastering in our living room :) Not even all films hit that kind of cinema quality and high-quality mastering. We would be lucky just to get better mastered blu-rays for most of the time I guess. It's hardly equal or close to a proper mastered 2k cinema movie even. AMD would probably even have passed that 8k x 8k limit by then.
We will see allot of professional applications before they get ordinary consumer goods with 4k support so we will probably see it moving along there as well.
Still just a 13-14" 1600x900 laptops for consumers is just starting to show up and I don't expect any miracles with what consumers get and what they expect from that industry even if it's pushed quite hard for those smaller LPTS TFT/LCD mobile and tablet displays. I don't expect and see the proposed resolution race by people expecting miracles as unreasonable when we pretty much have had the same resolutions for 25 years and just went from workstations running 1120x832, 1120x900 or 1024x864, or 1280x1024 from 23-25 years ago or 1 M to about 2 M displays of today. We haven't really seen the tech, or LCD and AMOLED panel manufacturers or even GPU companies approaching the print resolution so many would wish to have replicated.
4k would pretty much be the limit for non IMAX or 70mm or really high-end digital cameras any way so I don't expect much of a resolution race from the companies behind the tech, even if I do expect to see more displays in the ordinary high-res range in stead of standard low res panels being thrown out at people. A revolution hasn't really happened, but we will at least see those 4k displays and consumer home-theater projectors eventually. Considering of how the distribution is handled in the cinema business I wouldn't really hope for that push to happen soon though. Outside US people can't even get digital distribution of movies and tv other then ordinary broadcast, dvd, bluray and useless services that don't have those tens and tens of thousands of titles for streaming.
DanNeely - Saturday, January 14, 2012 - link
IF it does happen I hope someone will at least launch a 2160x1215 monitor with a non-TN panel. PLP rocks for multi display use; but needs same height/DPI side screens to work well.Alchemy69 - Sunday, January 15, 2012 - link
Oh great, now I'll be able to play console ports on a 4k monitor instead.mariush - Monday, January 16, 2012 - link
Yeah, 720p of washed out textures upscaled to 4k .... it will look so cool... can't wait.mmatis - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - link
Ooooh! I wonder how long before they make these work with active 3D glasses! I can't wait to play Pong 3D on one of them...}:-]