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Curious as to what others are using for monitors with DataCAD. I currently have a couple Samsung monitors (27" & 22"), but looking to update as these are the last items to be updated for the office. There is nothing wrong with them, but my wife is working out of the house and would like to get some monitors for her computer. So lucky me, I have a great excuse to upgrade and give her my old monitors.

- I have seen Neil post some links to LG monitor deals, but does anyone have experience with them?
- I am very intrigued with the BenQ monitors (PD-series). Curious if the CAD mode and some of the other features are really worth the price point.
- Any other monitors that people are excited about these days?

Preferences
- ideally 4k at a min. (assuming DataCAD 20 runs fine - I need to verify)
- would be nice to have Thunderbolt 3, but I can do any connection if need be
- Not opposed to refurbished if someone knows of a good place to find them.

Thanks for the insight

I am currently using two 28" 4K Acer monitors at work, and at home I have an LG 34" ultrawide 2K monitor (21:9). Yes, the newer version of DataCAD you have is, the better it will handle higher resolution monitors.

Get as physically big a monitor are you can, and with 4K, you really do want it to be at least 30". My 28" ones do show some things that will be too small for some folks, and some dialog boxes are a bit cramped, and need some tweaking.

A word about video cards, or more specifically video connection ports - you will need a Display Port output for each 4K monitor, and I think HDMI will handle a 2K. It is rare for a video card to have more than one HDMI port, so if you have two 4K monitors, you need a video card with at least two Display Ports - many / most come with three DP, and one HDMI.

Neil,

Thanks for the info. I ended up purchasing (2) 27" 4k monitors from Benq yesterday. In talking with a rep, I was able to get factory refurbished monitors (which are already discounted) even more discounted through this reps "friends and family" discount. He did mention that with 4k monitors the scaling can be an issue, and actually tried to get me to go with the 2k versions. On the plus side, if I don't like the scaling, I can easily exchange it according to the rep.

I am hopeful that my video card will be fine. I recently purchased the new 16" MacBook Pro, and overspec'd everything. So the top of the line video card should be fine. It is a Thunderbolt 3 connection to a dock that has a barrage of connections that currently supports my dual monitors. So it should be able to support the new monitors, and I believe these monitors can also be daisy chained. Either way I should be set.

You will need to set the scaling in Windows (in Parallels / Fusion?) to at least 150%, but probably 200% will be better. Some dialogs might be cramped, with text overlapping somewhat.

What you will get - is a very clear screen, with very little jaggy distortion of angled lines. Overall, high resolution monitors are a good thing.

Thankfully my eyes are still in good shape.... for the time being.

Well the monitors came in today, and I couldn't be happier. The clarity is night and day. My main monitor remained the same size (27"), but my second monitor grew from 22" to 27", and it feels massive. I am sure within a few days I will be used to it. But even my wife was commenting on how much bigger things looked.... (yes, yes... insert jokes.....).

It took a little bit of adjusting within Parallels to get it to where I like it. First I had to switch the display setting to "retina" display, as I had it "scaled" before. This allowed me to keep the higher display resolution setting within windows. I think the scaling is at 350%. The computer came up with that. I didn't play around with it too much, as everything looked good.

DataCAD took a little bit of playing around as well. Changing the text size was an absolute necessary. Instead of being at 12 I am now at 18 for text size, and it feels good. I also upped the toolbar icon setting to 32 from 16.

All in all I am happy. Excited to work on it in CAD and switch between the "sRGB" setting and the "CAD/CAM" setting. See if it truly does make a difference on the lines popping more against the black background.

Incase people are looking... www.benqdirect.com is where I got mine. This comes directly from BenQ. They were refurbished as I mentioned earlier. I was told by the rep that the difference comes down to warranty (1yr. vs. 3yr.). That most if not all of the office at Benq uses refurbished monitors. Right now they are about $200 off what a new monitor is.

Bigger and higher resolution is generally better. I am glad they are working well for you.

My 28" Acer 4K monitors were on a big sale and I got each for about $230, I think? I bought them well ahead of having a computer with a video card with two Display Port connections.