Dual monitors w/ Logic - 1080p or 2k?

[hulotings]

Just set up my new Mac Studio which has 12 core cpu, 64gb ram and 30 core GPU. 

I’m used to using two monitors side by side of the same size, and trying to figure out whether to go for 2 x FHD (1080p) or 2 x QHD (1440p)?

1. Since my GPU is fairly standard and I’m using this primarily for music production, would the 1080p suffice? 
2. Does using a 2k screen use a lot more CPU than a 1080p? Obviously I want to save as much processor for audio as I can. I won’t be playing any video games or editing video.

Thanks for your advice!

[David Nahmani]

I wouldn't worry about the extra strain on the GPU. Your machine is more than capable of handling two 2k monitors, especially if all it's doing is displaying Logic windows, and not movies or video games.

Unless they're 20" monitors I would definitely recommend you go for 2k monitors which will put less strain on your eyes. 

[des99]

1 hour ago, hulotings said:

Does using a 2k screen use a lot more CPU than a 1080p? Obviously I want to save as much processor for audio as I can.

This is not a thing you need to worry about. Monitors don't use CPU in the way you are concerned about, and your Mac Studio can handle multiple 6K monitors without breaking a sweat.

[hulotings]

Thanks for your comments guys. 

Do you think for 2 x 27inch screen, 4k would be overkill when using Logic? 

I read in various forums that because of the resolution, everything on the desktop would be very small?

[des99]

8 minutes ago, hulotings said:

Do you think for 2 x 27inch screen, 4k would be overkill when using Logic? 

I read in various forums that because of the resolution, everything on the desktop would be very small?

If you're running 4K at native resolution, everything is indeed too small (unusably small, imo), and you end up in a mess of trying to individually resize things up, and it's generally a bad experience.

I have a 27" 4K for my MBP, and I run generally at 2560x1440, which I think is optimal in terms of screen real estate and interface size for a monitor that's fairly close to you.

(With a 5K monitor, you can run 2560x1440 at 2x, so the quality is better, but 5K screens are still expensive, and it's not really necessary, imo.)

If it's a TV on the wall six feet back or so, you generally want something more like 1080p, unless the TV is massive.

Edited August 10 by des99

[David Nahmani]

6 minutes ago, hulotings said:

I read in various forums that because of the resolution, everything on the desktop would be very small?

I have a 4K 28.5" monitor and I've scaled it so it looks exactly like the built-in 5K on the 27" intel iMac, and it's fine. Most monitors allow you to scale the display so things are the size you want. 

[hulotings]

Nice, I won’t necessarily avoid 4k then, just the price is a little off putting since I’m getting two and I don’t do gaming (plus I watch films etc on a bigger tv screen in another room).

Any brands you recommend/avoid? What are you guys using? Opinions on curved?

Been seeing quite a few second hand AOC but to be honest I’m a big sceptical. I know Dell are decent for this kind of size

[des99]

10 minutes ago, hulotings said:

Nice, I won’t necessarily avoid 4k then, just the price is a little off putting since I’m getting two and I don’t do gaming (plus I watch films etc on a bigger tv screen in another room).

My 4K wasn't that expensive, I can't remember but about $250ish I think. It's an LG.

10 minutes ago, hulotings said:

Any brands you recommend/avoid? What are you guys using? Opinions on curved?

I'm not a big fan of curved monitors. LG or Samsung are usually good for me...

Edited August 10 by des99

[David Nahmani]

I don't mind curved monitors, I've worked with them and while they're odd at first, you get used to them. Then everything on large flat monitors looks odd. 

My biggest challenge with curved monitors is that they're so wide, I don't really know where to position the speaker monitors. 

There are a lot of great monitors out there today. I wouldn't recommend a specific brand as there are many good ones as well. Samsung, LG, Dell, but also other lesser known brands that are coming in. I ended up with a Huawei monitor and I love it: 

[Scriabin rocks]

I use a Mac as well, and attached two BenQ 32 inch Monitors placed side by side and angled slightly. BenQ works closely with apple, that's what attracted me.  After all, your viewing distance is crucial too, I have a very large desk and have both attached to monitor mounts.

[David Nahmani]

9 hours ago, Scriabin rocks said:

I use a Mac as well, and attached two BenQ 32 inch Monitors placed side by side and angled slightly. BenQ works closely with apple, that's what attracted me.  After all, your viewing distance is crucial too, I have a very large desk and have both attached to monitor mounts.

I've heard great things about BenQ, I didn't know that they worked closely with Apple. I see now that they have a dedicated page on their website: https://www.benq.com/en-us/campaign/monitor-for-mac.html

Which model are you using @Scriabin rocks? What resolution? 

[Scriabin rocks]

Hi David, 

nothing special, I used to do professional  landscape photography and large format printing, from that time I know them because they do good color calibrated monitors, but I used NEC Spectraview reference instead.

Now for Logic, I do not need such fanciness at all, and I shot two used 4K monitors from their consumer multimedia line, the EW3270U https://www.benq.com/en-us/monitor/home/ew3270u.html for a total of 500 Euro, giving me round about 62 inch screen estate. They have good  contrast due to their VA Panel, and I use them for other stuff like the occasional game or watching a video as well. Resolution wise in Logic I use them at 2560 x 1440.

They are around quite some time, and got great reviews concerning bang for buck, without massive compromises on quality, and I can agree to that. 

Edited August 12 by Scriabin rocks

[Scriabin rocks]

P.S. Another consideration for me was the energy consumption, I run them in energy saving mode most of the time, HDR and stuff is rather a gimmick at the nits value they can deliver, they also have a eye care mode, filtering blue light, but as I said, I run them most of the time on energy efficient mode and I am quite happy with that, sitting long hours in front of them. 

Sadly there is no way from  Mac to send one alone to sleep mode afaik, hence, when I read here for example, and do not need the other screen for a longer time, I just switch it off, would be nice if that could be done from Ventura, but I don't think that is possible. 

Edited August 12 by Scriabin rocks

[hulotings]

Thanks guys, really appreciate all the comments.

I settled for a 2k 27 inch, so far it’s been great. Wanted to get two to dual monitor it, wifey putting it alongside the 31.5” I already have would suffice!

Cheers again!

[David Nahmani]

Great! Good to hear. Can you share which model/brand you ended up getting?

[lagerfeldt]

On 8/10/2023 at 2:39 PM, David Nahmani said:

I have a 4K 28.5" monitor and I've scaled it so it looks exactly like the built-in 5K on the 27" intel iMac, and it's fine. Most monitors allow you to scale the display so things are the size you want. 

Except you can't get the same clarity, so it's not exactly the same look. Around 154 PPI vs 218 PPI native Retina.

The Apple GUI/text will be a bit more blurry, or quite a bit more blurry, depending on your personal sensitivity to this.

Once scaled, Moiré patterns and other types of blurring can occur as well.

Not a big issue for music production, perhaps.

It got a lot worse some years ago when Apple ditched subpixel anti-aliasing for non-Retina displays.

I'm sure there was some processing optimization behind this thinking, but it's also a big and typical Apple middle finger to non-Retina displays.

Let me explain:

The 27" Apple Display and the Intel iMac 27" 5K mentioned have 5120 × 2880 pixels at 218 PPI - the PPI that macOS is designed for.

The 32" Apple Pro Display XDR is 6K with 6016 x 3384 pixels, again matching 218 PPI.

That's why the newest 24" iMac (23,5" actually) came with the slightly odd 4.5K resolution of 4480×2520, because this provides it with a GUI matching 218 PPI.

The Mac laptops get more usable screen size at the expense of some clarity, with an overshot PPI of 227 or 254 PPI, but the relatively smaller screen size masks the blur somewhat.

This means we can only get:

· Apple 27" Studio Display
· Apple 32" Pro Display XDR
· LG's 27" 5K UltraFine

Apple's 5K Studio Display is better quality than the 5K UltraFine (still LG inside though): higher nits, better speakers, better stand, better build quality, but crappy fixed power cable... and a lot more expensive than the LG.

In other words Apple users have a limited and expensive choice when it comes to getting a sharp external monitor.

Of course we can compromise on clarity in the GUI, which is what many do. But once you get used to a 218 PPI Retina display it's very hard going back.

When compromising with a non-Retina display, some feel a 27" monitor at 2560 x 1440 with a 109 PPI (a pretty clean halving of 218) is the better option for non-Retina, some feel it's better to go up to 4K and spread the blur, if you will.

In the studio I live with a non-Retina display for practical size reasons, but it does occasionally annoy my eyes.

This guide goes into detail with the challenges:
https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays2/

Once my 27" 5K iMac dies I'll get the 27" Apple Studio Display and yet a Mac mini - probably the best VFM Mac ever.

 

On 8/10/2023 at 11:29 AM, hulotings said:

2. Does using a 2k screen use a lot more CPU than a 1080p? Obviously I want to save as much processor for audio as I can. I won’t be playing any video games or editing video.

Maybe not answering your exact question, but scaling does use a tiny bit of additional power and memory buffer.

That's why Apple writes "Using a scaled display may affect performance" in the System Preferences.

Nothing to justify going out of your way to avoid a specific size and resolution combination you want to use, but it does affect performance a tiny bit.

Edited August 30 by lagerfeldt

[lagerfeldt]

On a newer Mac with an external non-Retina screen of e.g. 1440p you can install the BetterDisplay app and enable HiDPI. You can also enable HiDPI yourself in the Terminal.

I've measured no performance hit with macOS' supersampling enabled via BetterDisplay. Measured with Geekbench 6: Identical single core, multicore and GPU performance.

With my 1920 x 1200 monitor in the studio, this illustrates the difference in Logic Pro with and without HiDPI, based on a framebuffer grab and with the lower res matched in size.

HiDPI on (with a non-Retina screen) followed by HiDPI off (normal):

 

I think this is the best way of getting around the above problem, at least on newer Macs.

 

Edited August 31 by lagerfeldt

[David Nahmani]

Here's what that looks like on my scaled 4K display: 

[lagerfeldt]

Unfortunately we can't capture how the raw data sent to the screen is or how it actually looks on screen, we get to see the framebuffer. Unless we have a HDMI grabber of course.

4K won't work with this HiDPI trick as it's too high a resolution for supersampling, and at 4K it's not as bad in any case.

EDIT: Actually BetterDisplay says 

Maximum native smooth scaling resolutions depend on the GPU capabilities and the display's resolution (horizontal width limit is 6144 pixels for M1/M2, 7680 pixels for M1/M2 Pro/Max/Ultra).

Edited August 31 by lagerfeldt

[rAC]

I’ll just chirp in with the main thing that means when I need need a new monitor I likely won’t consider Apple’s Studio monitor as currently sold - one TB port isn’t enough - you can’t daisy chain it.

[rAC]

I’ll also add that Samsung is making a 27” 5K display which is slightly cheaper than the LG one. I’ve just ordered one to go with my just ordered refurbished M1 Ultra with 128 Gb Ram 1 Tb SSD.

[David Nahmani]

On 9/17/2023 at 10:22 AM, rAC said:

I’ll also add that Samsung is making a 27” 5K display which is slightly cheaper than the LG one. I’ve just ordered one to go with my just ordered refurbished M1 Ultra with 128 Gb Ram 1 Tb SSD.

Have you tried it yet? It looks great on paper but I see mixed reviews on Amazon: Samsung ViewFinity S9 27" 5K. 

[rAC]

16 minutes ago, David Nahmani said:

Have you tried it yet? It looks great on paper but I see mixed reviews on Amazon: Samsung ViewFinity S9 27" 5K. 

No still waiting for delivery (of both the Studio and the monitor) I am getting it from a retail store that I can easily take it back to if it’s not satisfactory but AUS$800 cheaper than the LG.

PS I finally figured out how to add a pic for my profile/circle ID and did that:-)

Edited Monday at 09:46 AM by rAC
Add more detail

[David Nahmani]

36 minutes ago, rAC said:

No still waiting for delivery (of both the Studio and the monitor) I am getting it from a retail store that I can easily take it back to if it’s not satisfactory but AUS$800 cheaper than the LG.

Great. If you can, definitely give us a quick review of how it's performing and how easy it was to set up when you get it. 

37 minutes ago, rAC said:

PS I finally figured out how to add a pic for my profile/circle ID and did that:-)

I see that! Looking good! 😄 

[rAC]

Sure - review will come, along with the Studio review 🙂