On September 1, 2020, NVIDIA presented the RTX 3090 graphics card, the first designed to play in 8K. Despite this pompous announcement, the reality is that 8K monitors hardly exist, they are brutally expensive and, therefore, inaccessible to 99% of users (being generous).
Resolution, refresh rate and the price?
You may not even remember or even find out at the time, but six years ago the first 8K screen was shown. This resolution replaces 4K resolution, which, although it is widespread on televisions, is not the case on monitors.
Steam data shows that the 12% of users make use of the 1440p resolution and little more than 2.5% use the 2160p resolution, wrong call 4K. We take the data from Steam because it is the most used video game platform that provides data. There are not many “trusted” sites that provide us with data.
When the first 8K display, there were several problems. The reason is that still did not exist the standards DisplayPort 2.1 and HDMI 2.1. It caused it to be limited to a 60 Hz refresh rate and required two cables to operate or set image compression.
During CES 2023 they have shown some 8K displays, but it is far from being a trend. Currently they are very expensive products and that, for the vast majority of users, are nonsense.
Has a problem 8K resolution with a 60 Hz refresh rate y is the required bandwidth, which is 50Gbps. To give us an idea, the HDMI 2.1 interface supports up to 45Gbps and the standard Display Port 1.4 is limited to only 26Gbps.
But we have the version Display Port 2.1, launched in October 2022 and supports up to 78 Gbps. The problem with this standard is that it is only present in the AMD RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX. No RTX 40 Series offers support for this version of DisplayPort and only two graphics offer support. Something that indicates the low interest in this standard.
Want to run without knowing how to walk well
Although the most popular resolution is 1080p, it is logical that the user wants a higher image quality. But, the problem is accessing 4K monitors and the hardware that allows you to play at that resolution.
The new PS5 and Xbox Series X make use of the HDMI 2.1 interface and support, in theory, 4K games. The problem is that the few games that run at that resolution are limited to 30 FPS.
On PC the story is not very different, only the NVIDIA RTX 4090 has HDM 2.1 and supports 4K games without problems. But the number of games that support this resolution is not exactly abundant. Although there is a respectable amount, the amount is low and we are far from compensating the user.
Without a doubt, the biggest problem faced by 8K monitors and televisions is consumption. So much so that the European Union has considered banning televisions that use this standard. And it is that a 4K monitor can consume between 30-50W, but an 8K monitor reaches 100-150W.
Will the day come when 8K resolution is a standard? Well yes, but on computers this will take years, probably more than a decade. The key factor is the price of the monitors and the price of the hardware to play at this resolution.
In this Hardzone article, it includes affiliate links for which a commission is received that does not affect the user at all. These purchase recommendations are independent, without an agreement with the brands.
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