U4021QW, two U2412M, minimum required GPU?

Question

Greetings, I just upgraded from a S2817Q to a U4021QW as the center monitor of a 3-screen setup. My 28" 4k in landscape was flanked by 2 each Ultrasharp U2412M 24" 1920x1200 screens in portrait mode. Now I have a 40" 5120x2160 flanked by the same 1920x1200 screens. I'm considering upgrading those screens as well, but more on that later.

My usage is normal productivity apps, web browsing, email, and lots of open windows for my job trading cryptocurrency. I like to do some light gaming, but nothing awfully demanding (as you can tell by my video card listed below, as I mainly enjoy some older racing and FPS games).

During the day, I use a recent ASUS laptop with a 4C/8T AMD CPU and a GTX 1660 TI GPU. At other times I toggle over to my home PC, a tower with a recent 16C/32T AMD CPU and an older Radeon R9 390X GPU.

The 1660 TI in my work laptop supports the 5120x2160 native resolution of the U4021QW over USB-C just fine, and the monitor is great. However, my personal PC with the R9 390X will only drive this monitor to a 4K resolution of 3840x2160.

Despite 8 GB of RAM, the Radeon R9 390X only supports a maximum resolution of 4096x2160. I've delayed upgrading my GPU because of the GPU shortage and radically inflated prices, but now I'm forced to make a decision.

I believe that I need a monitor that will support Displayport 1.4, and am wondering what the least expensive card is that I need to run the U4021QW at the native 5120x2160 resolution.

Additionally, I'm thinking of upgrading my U2412M 24" screens in portrait mode on the side to newer 27" or 28" screens.

I was thinking of 4K resolution for some uniformity of resolution, but am wondering if I'm forcing myself into RTX 3080 territory if I move to a 4K Ultrawide (5120x2160) and 2 each 4K displays. Would I be able to get away with a less powerful card if I stick with QHD (2560x1440) screens on the side? Are there any other considerations I need to be aware of?

Thanks in advance for your recommendations and insight, it's appreciated.

jphughan · Accepted Answer

@Grateful_Guy  You said, 'I believe that I need a monitor that will support Displayport 1.4.'  Was that supposed to say 'GPU'?  If so, you're correct.  The U4021QW's resolution requires DisplayPort 1.4 to drive at the standard 60 Hz refresh rate.  The amount of GPU memory you have isn't the issue here; it's the bandwidth that it can push out of its outputs, which may have been limited by the standards available at the time.  Alternatively, it would have been nice if the U4021QW supported being driven at its native resolution and refresh rate by dual DP 1.2 connections, as Dell's early 5K display did (since it predated a DP revision that could run it over a single connection), but the U4021QW doesn't appear to support that option.  Fortunately, DP 1.4 support isn't too difficult to find these days.  In terms of adding two additional 4K displays, as long as you will have DP 1.2 or HDMI 2.0 outputs available to drive them, I don't think that will be an issue.  However, you might want to see whether there is a maximum total desktop area limitation.  If so, make sure the total pixels of that spec doesn't exceed the total pixels of the entire display setup you would be running.  But I doubt that the 3080 would have a different maximum total desktop area compared to lower end 30 Series GPUs, so as long as you wouldn't need its additional performance to run GPU-intensive workloads at the higher resolutions you'd be running, then I doubt you'd have a need to go quite that high on the GPU food chain.

Grateful_Guy · Answer

@jphughan - You’re absolutely correct, I meant to say GPU, not monitor. Thanks for taking the time to reply. Your response is reassuring, as it’s confirming what I’m starting to realize; that most modern GPUs released within the past few years will probably do what I want to do.

So, my search continues....

Monitors

U4021QW, two U2412M, minimum required GPU?

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