NEC PA322UHD 4k Display offers 120Hz Support at Lower Resolution

The 31.5" sized PA322UHD display offers a "4k" 3840 x 2160 resolution with 60Hz maximum refresh rate, and offers a feature set and specs aimed at professional users. The screen is based on a Sharp IGZO IPS-type panel.

It has a 10ms G2G response time, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 350 cd/m2 brightness, 176/176 viewing angles and a 1.07b colour depth. The backlight is LED and offers a 99.2% Adobe RGB colour gamut coverage. As TFT Central reports today:

A colorimeter and SpectraView software package is needed to hardware calibrate the screen for optimum performance. NEC's useful ColorComp digital uniformity technology is also featured, with NEC claiming "93 percent more correction points than previous MultiSync PA Series displays". NEC even specifically list the fact that the screen uses PWM for backlight dimming (bravo for the transparency NEC!) but with a very high 20,000 Hz frequency listed this is expected to be of minimal concern to most users.

The stand offers tilt, height, swivel and rotate adjustments. Connectivity wise there are 2 DisplayPort 1.2 ports (one with Open Pluggable Specification for digital signage connection), 4 HDMI ports, 2 DVI-D Dual Link ports and 2 USB 3.0 ports (plus upstream). The USB ports feature DisplaySync Pro, which is essentially a virtual KVM (Keyboard Video Mouse) switch. There is an AmbiBright ambient light sensor featured, and the screen also has simple 2W stereo speakers built in.

120Hz Support from an IPS-type Panel?

One interesting feature is the ability for the screen to support refresh rates up to 120Hz. Before people get too excited, this is only available up to a 1920 x 1080 resolution maximum, not at the full 4k resolution. Nevertheless, it is still interesting since this would be the first IPS-type screen on the market to support a higher refresh rate natively than 60Hz. This doesn't necessarily mean that this is going to be an amazing gaming screen though. It's not been deliberately built to offer fast gaming experience, it's more than it's taking advantage of the  bandwidth possibilities of the  connections and panel, and using that to offer a higher refresh rate when running at a lower resolution. Response times of this panel technology will need to have improved quite a lot if this 120Hz refresh rate is going to be practical, as we know from our tests of the Dell UP3214Q that average G2G was around 11.2ms in practice. This isn't fast enough to cope with a 120Hz refresh rate as you need to consistently deliver <8.33ms to make that viable. Even then, lower response times would be preferable to avoid too much blurring. That's not to mention any possible lag from the electronics and scalers which might affect gaming experience.

The PA322UHD-BK (standard monitor with black cabinet) is expected to be released starting in December at an estimated retail price of $2299 (£1700+ including VAT). The PA322UHD-BK-SV with SpectraView II calibration software and colorimeter is expected to retail at around $3249 (£2430+ including VAT). Via TFT central, see source link.