On September 1, 2020, NVIDIA introduced the RTX 3090 graphics card, the first designed for 8K gaming. Despite this pompous announcement, the reality is that 8K monitors barely exist, they are brutally expensive and therefore inaccessible to 99% of users (being generous).
Resolution, refresh rate and price?
You might not even remember it or even discover it at the time, but six years ago the first 8K display was shown. This resolution replaces the 4K resolution which, while widespread on televisions, is not the case on monitors.
Steam data shows that 12% of users use the 1440p resolution and little more than 2.5% Use the 2160p resolution, bad 4K call. We take data from Steam because it is the most widely used video game platform that provides data. There are not many “trusted” sites that provide us with data.
When the first 8K screen, there were several problems. The reason is that again did not exist Standards DisplayPort 2.1 and HDMI 2.1. This limited it to a 60Hz refresh rate and required two cables to operate or adjust the image compression.
At CES 2023, they showed some 8K displays, but it is far from being a trend. Currently, these are very expensive products and for the vast majority of users they are nonsense.
Has a problem 8K resolution with a 60Hz refresh rate y is the required bandwidth, which is 50 Gbps. To give us an idea, the HDMI 2.1 interface supports up to 45 Gbps and the standard DisplayPort 1.4 is limited to solo 26 Gbps.
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
Want to run without knowing how to walk well
Although the most popular resolution is 1080p, it makes sense that the user would want higher image quality. But the problem is accessing 4K monitors and the hardware that lets you play at that resolution.
The new PS5 and Xbox Series X use the HDMI 2.1 interface and, in theory, support 4K gaming. The problem is that the few games that run at this resolution are limited to 30 FPS.
On PC the story is not much different, only the NVIDIA RTX 4090 has HDM 2.1 and supports 4K gaming without issue. But the number of games supporting this resolution is not exactly plentiful. Although there is a respectable amount, the amount is small and we are far from compensating the user.
Without a doubt, the biggest problem facing 8K monitors and TVs is power 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 there ever come a day when 8K resolution will be a standard? Well yes, but on computers it 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 that resolution.