We Chose the WRONG Monitors 5 Years Ago

0:00 Our editors are kind of overdue for a monitor upgrade.

0:03 And Apple's new studio display got me thinking.

0:05 If Apple has those, ASUS probably has

0:08 something that's better or less expensive or both.

0:12 After all, that's a huge part of why we went with the PA32

0:15 UCX Pro rather than the Pro Display XDR in the first place.

0:19 So, we reached out to ASUS, who, as luck would have it,

0:22 has a really comprehensive lineup of ProArt displays these days,

0:26 and offered to sponsor this video, sending over 12 of their 32-in PA32 QCVS.

0:33 Compared to the Studio Display, these are much larger.

0:37 They're 6K versus 5K resolution.

0:40 They have the same brightness, the same 60 Hz refresh rate,

0:43 and all of this for $300 less.

0:46 Now, it only uses Thunderbolt 4 rather than Thunderbolt 5,

0:50 but you get a built-in KVM

0:52 for controlling multiple systems without an external accessory.

0:55 So, these are going to be our editor's new workhorse monitors.

0:59 But, ASUS also sent over one unit of something really, really special.

1:05 The PA 32KX, an 8K monster with over

1:11 4,000 dimming zones and sustained 1,000 nits brightness.

1:15 This has the potential to be among the sickest displays I've ever seen,

1:19 and I cannot wait to use it.

1:21 No, no, no, not now.

1:30 Before we get started,

1:31 the keen it among you might have noticed there are only 11 displays in the pile.

1:35 Asus asked me to point out that that was not them cheaping out.

1:39 It's actually because we allocated one

1:40 of the ones they sent to Linus Torvalds' build.

1:44 The good news though is that some of the members of our editing team

1:47 are really more like supervisors these days

1:50 and don't really need the extra resolution dayto-day.

1:53 Let's actually start then by getting rid of one of the old UCX displays

1:57 and explaining both what's still great about them and also what isn't so much.

2:04 Uh, is Nicole remoteed into her system or are we good to just

2:07 We're not doing Nicole's.

2:08 We're not doing Nicole's.

2:09 No, we're moving PE.

2:10 She's You just said that she doesn't need it because she's a supervisor.

2:13 So, we're not switching hers.

2:14 We're switching Peters.

2:15 Oh, well, why did WE PUT THE PILE IN front of Peters?

2:18 Move the pile.

2:18 That was just for the intro.

2:20 Oh, okay.

2:21 As I mentioned in a couple of key ways,

2:24 this old monitor is actually kind of better than the replacement.

2:28 Thanks to its mini LED backlight with local dimming,

2:31 it supports HDR at up to 1200 nits peak brightness.

2:34 By contrast, pun intended, while the new units do support HDR,

2:39 they don't have local dimming.

2:40 They only reach about 600 nits peak brightness,

2:43 and they won't really pop the way that a true HDR display will.

2:47 So, why the step down?

2:50 Oh, sorry, Peter.

2:51 Hopefully, whatever you were doing wasn't important.

2:54 Oh, man.

2:55 I forgot how heavy these things were.

2:58 I haven't moved one in a while.

3:02 Okay, come on.

3:03 And that's a little dramatic.

3:06 Here's the thing.

3:07 HDR felt really important to us last time

3:11 we made an upgrade because we were certain

3:13 at the time that high dynamic range was the future

3:16 of our channel and the YouTube platform in general.

3:19 And it is, and we've dabbled in it.

3:22 But as it turns out, that future is taking its sweet time.

3:27 The whole workflow is still more cumbersome,

3:29 and the juice just hasn't really been worth the squeeze.

3:33 Also, while a thousand plus backlight zones seemed pretty good at the time,

3:38 in practice, the blooming is pretty noticeable in day-to-day work.

3:43 As for the new unit, I already went over some of the sort of highlevel specs,

3:47 but let's talk about some of the things

3:48 that make this a great monitor for cutting together footage.

3:52 And a big one is the resolution.

3:55 While we and most YouTube channels aren't shooting higher than 4K these days,

3:59 as it turns out, editors just love having

4:02 more real estate and a super sharp image.

4:05 The more the pretty much the better.

4:08 Okay, is that fair to say?

4:10 Yeah.

4:10 Okay, editors.

4:10 Yeah, you're nodding.

4:12 This is also a pretty nice thing.

4:13 I was about to show you guys the IO and I

4:15 noticed instead the matte coating that ASUS has on this.

4:19 That is that is really nice.

4:22 That's not a lot of glare.

4:25 here.

4:25 Uh, you know what?

4:26 I'm going to grab the old one and hold it side by side.

4:28 That's practically a mirror by comparison.

4:32 See that?

4:35 Yeah, that's a big difference.

4:37 Yeah, that one looks glossy next to Yeah.

4:39 And it's not glossy.

4:40 I know.

4:41 That's the thing is like like here coming to the IO,

4:45 we've got HDMI 2.1, Display Port 1.4.

4:48 That's all we need for 6K 60 Hz.

4:50 We've got two Thunderbolt ports.

4:52 one that does 96 watts if you wanted a single

4:55 cable solution to something like a MacBook Pro or a PX13.

4:59 And then finally, another USBC headphone jack,

5:03 as well as wait, what the hell is that?

5:06 A single USB type A.

5:07 Oh, that's nice.

5:09 Oh, but wait, there's more.

5:12 There's another type A and another type C over here.

5:14 I totally missed that.

5:15 All right, this took me a minute to figure out,

5:17 but she clicks on like that, and then she's got a little lock right there.

5:21 Boom.

5:24 I wish Peter was actually here to try his new monitor.

5:27 These guys, they kicked all the editors out because they were like,

5:30 "Oh, they'll be in the way of the production." And I was like,

5:31 "Okay, yes, but like also who's going to tell

5:36 us if they're any good if the editors aren't here?

5:38 Don't worry.

5:38 It came from a good place.

5:40 It came from a good place." Oh, okay.

5:44 Here we go.

5:49 Oh my god.

5:51 616 by 3384 pixels.

5:56 If you'd shown this to teenage me, he would have actually crapped himself.

6:00 Cable management is built into the stand.

6:02 And for that matter, so is this one, this one, this one, and even this one.

6:12 There you go.

6:13 Well, okay.

6:13 Not like that.

6:14 There.

6:16 Yeah, it only goes it only goes 87 degrees because ASUS

6:21 just wanted to bother every OCD person who bought this display.

6:24 No, no, no, no.

6:25 There you go.

6:26 I'm liking this anti-glare coating.

6:28 It's really good.

6:29 Yeah.

6:29 Sponsored video or not?

6:30 That's uh that's pretty sick.

6:33 In compliance with energy related regulations,

6:35 the max brightness blah blah blah is fixed.

6:37 Would you like to remain in energy saving mode?

6:39 Uh no.

6:41 No.

6:41 I'd like to be in give me that brightness mode.

6:44 All right.

6:44 Now's a good time to take a quick look at our on-screen display.

6:48 As you'd expect from a professional display,

6:50 we've got a plethora of color spaces and user modes.

6:53 And a really cool one that's supported on all of the new ProArt models is

6:57 the new M model P3 that is designed

7:00 for color consistency between Apple devices and ProArt displays.

7:04 And ASUS also wanted us to point out that or you could just not

7:08 cuz you can scan this QR code and you can get their display widget center.

7:12 This allows you to adjust a ton of settings through software on both

7:16 Windows and Mac OS that would normally be buried in an on-screen display.

7:20 So that way, no matter what kind of computer you're using,

7:23 you don't have to feel like you're leaving any features on the table.

7:26 Not going to lie, this looks kind of awesome.

7:30 Like the reduced glare is incredible and it's so sharp.

7:34 Oh, buddy.

7:39 She's she's a heavy boy.

7:42 Like the new Studio Display XDR and like our old UCXs,

7:48 this bad boy is miniLEDD with full array local dimming.

7:52 But unlike those, it's got a whopping 4,32 dimming zones.

7:59 That is almost double the Studio Display XDR

8:02 and about four times what we had on these.

8:06 It's also using what ASUS calls their nextG

8:09 miniLEDD light profile in order to help reduce haloing.

8:13 Now, this display does not have industry-leading peak brightness.

8:17 It's only around 1,200 nits,

8:20 but it's got some extras like a built-in colorimeter and support

8:25 for like every color space in user mode under the sun.

8:28 Also, it is limited to just 60 Hz, but that seems like a fair trade-off for 20

8:36 75 PPI versus the 218 of its little brother.

8:41 And also guys, if we're being real,

8:43 we're going to need a faster display port connection before we

8:46 could even go above 8K 60 Hz for color critical work.

8:50 You don't want to be using display stream compression for that.

8:53 Wow, is this thing ever thick and heavy.

8:57 Dual HDMIs this time.

8:59 Display port.

9:01 Thunderbolt 4 once again with up to 96 watts of charging.

9:04 This monitor is too much for just one man.

9:09 A wild poof appears

9:11 and that's his contribution.

9:14 This video is brought to you by ASUS H

9:16 and the letter H.

9:18 All right.

9:19 HDMI, display port, power, USBA to type- C,

9:23 and we get a Thunderbolt cable as well

9:25 along with just like its little brother, a calibration.

9:29 Good lord.

9:30 I think this one comes delta E.

9:31 Less than one.

9:32 Uh yeah.

9:33 Yeah.

9:34 sRGB color accuracy on average 68.

9:41 That's That's nuts.

9:44 I don't know if I'm going to bother installing the shroud.

9:49 It's felt.

9:50 Yeah, it has like velvet for light control.

9:52 Okay, that's pretty cool.

9:53 Okay.

9:53 Yeah, we're putting it on.

9:56 Okay.

9:56 And a one.

9:57 Oh, dude.

9:58 The base is so heavy.

10:01 You can tell it's weighted just to like deal

10:04 with the sheer girth of what's sitting on top of it.

10:12 Girl, are you so thick?

10:14 There we go.

10:16 Anti-glare has come so freaking far, dude.

10:20 Like, look at that.

10:22 What is happening right now?

10:23 Peter wants to see me monitor.

10:25 You're on a video call with him.

10:26 Is it?

10:26 Yeah.

10:27 Hi, Peter.

10:28 This is You please tell me you're not editing like this though.

10:34 Like you're just remoted into the system, not through the webcam.

10:37 Right.

10:38 And this looks incredible.

10:39 I wish ASU sent 12 of these.

10:41 Would it have cost, you know, like $9,000 a monitor?

10:45 Yeah, I can understand why they didn't.

10:46 I can understand.

10:48 For 10 of them.

10:49 I can understand why they didn't, but they're pretty sick.

10:54 Yeah.

10:54 Okay.

10:54 I like that the shroud screws in now

10:56 rather than using just like little plastic push pins.

10:58 Yeah, this is really nice.

11:01 Just feels primo, you know.

11:03 There's not really a ton of space in here.

11:05 Why don't we take this out there to give it a shot?

11:06 Sure.

11:08 We need a 5090.

11:11 Where are we going to get a 5090 at this hour?

11:13 I don't know.

11:14 Time to go on a quest.

11:15 Oh god.

11:19 Um, nope.

11:23 Nope.

11:22 Hey, huzzah.

11:24 the systems that Red Bull had us build for uh those uh athletes they sponsor.

11:30 I don't think we should take it out of those.

11:32 Oh, but bring the monitor over here.

11:33 Bring the monitor here.

11:35 We're G to G.

11:36 Okay, let's do it.

11:39 Damn.

11:39 How many FPS are you getting?

11:40 Don't worry about that, brother.

11:43 It does look incredibly sharp.

11:44 Like, I'm looking at the text on the Grand

11:47 Imperial Mall and uh Gosh, that's good.

11:50 Dude, this is nuts.

11:52 Holy the buildings, too.

11:53 Look at these trees.

11:55 What's aliasing?

11:57 Like to be clear, I would never buy a 5090 to game at 60 Hz.

12:03 Not today.

12:06 But if I was going to game at 60 Hz.

12:09 It says 80, but you know how sometimes it says 80 fps,

12:16 but there's so much tearing and there's so much inconsistency

12:19 in the frame times that it doesn't feel like 80 fps.

12:22 Yeah, that's where we're at right now.

12:24 Well, that's 8K.

12:26 God.

12:26 Yeah, the buildings look realistic.

12:28 Like that's that's one of the first times I've looked at Cyberpunk and thought,

12:33 "Wow, this looks like actually almost photorealistic just in the base game."

12:38 To be clear, I still don't think 8K is ever going to happen for consumer.

12:44 Maybe 20 years.

12:45 20 years maybe.

12:47 But like why?

12:50 Wow.

12:50 Because we're sitting here thinking, "Wow, that looks amazing.

12:52 That's why." All right, fair enough.

12:55 But this wasn't made for consumers, you know.

12:58 This is all about the features that professionals need.

13:01 I mean, even things like it supports DICOM,

13:03 which was a pretty cool thing that really

13:05 impressed us about the Studio Display XDR.

13:07 Well, here it is on both this and on its little brothers.

13:11 Speaking of the little brothers,

13:13 why don't we go see how Connor likes his upgrade?

13:16 Coming back to the displays we're actually deploying.

13:18 Ready to turn it on and have a look?

13:20 Sure.

13:21 I mean, yes.

13:21 I'm so excited.

13:24 He's just upset he doesn't have his shelf anymore.

13:28 We talked about that before the camera turned on.

13:31 Wow.

13:32 It's Premiere.

13:34 It's great.

13:35 Thanks, Connor.

13:36 I was going to say actually with the other monitor, um,

13:39 we have light set up in this room right now,

13:41 but this was blinding before coming from this bulb light.

13:44 Right now, I it doesn't face me at all.

13:46 It's great.

13:47 Now, tell me something.

13:48 The way that you would scale your interface normally,

13:51 are you going to get much out of 6K?

13:54 I mean, to me, it looks like you have some really small text on your screen.

13:56 Do you notice any difference or was 4K already a lot?

13:59 I don't see any impact right now, but I think you said earlier with screenshots,

14:03 we really want high-res and like be to be able

14:06 to punch in on words so we don't lose quality.

14:08 That is the big thing for me.

14:10 Really?

14:11 Okay.

14:12 I mean, you should know you always comment on LMG review.

14:17 Okay, that's fair.

14:19 This obviously is a JPEG, so it's not going to scale very well.

14:21 When you're reviewing our videos and it

14:23 was like this, would you complain about that?

14:25 Like, that's legible, right?

14:26 Yeah.

14:29 Yeah.

14:27 His seal of approval right now.

14:31 And if everything that we've looked at so

14:33 far is a little too rich for your blood,

14:35 ASUS does have a third model they sent over that's

14:37 more for people who are starting out, the PA 27JCV.

14:41 It's only 5K and only 27 in, but we get

14:46 a ton of the same features that we just went over,

14:48 like the built-in KVM, the Apple color space compatibility,

14:52 and access to a ton of different color modes while maintaining a solid 218

14:57 PPI for as low as 7 or $800 depending on where you find it.

15:01 So, thanks again to ASUS for sponsoring this video and this editing den upgrade.

15:06 If any of you guys are interested in checking

15:07 out any of the ProArt monitors that we talked about,

15:09 we're going to have them all linked in the video description.

15:12 Now, please stop recording because I've got an 8K monitor to steal.

15:16 Did you add that to it after script review?

15:18 No, I put that in before and you just never noticed.

15:20 Nice.

15:20 I mean, that is the plan.

15:24 If you guys enjoyed this video,

15:25 maybe check out the time that we uh originally upgraded to the PA32 UCX.

15:31 They really are great monitors.

15:32 We just didn't end up going the HDR route.