Best 5K and 8K monitors in 2024

Sometimes, only the best 5K and 8K monitors will do. If you're working on a project that demands ultra-high resolutions and pixel-perfect displays, they're essential. 

Popular for creative design, photo and video editing, and gaming, monitors with 5K and 8K resolution can show details no other display can. It's true that not everyone needs the best 5K monitor or the best 8K monitor set-up in their office or home office. For most users, the best 4K monitors will offer more than enough clarity and color accuracy for everything from basic office work to professional graphic design. But for those projects, where every pixel counts, a monitor that supports a 5K (5120x2880) resolution or 8K (7680x4320) resolution is a game-changer, giving you new ways to see your work. 

After reviewing the very best business monitors, our expert team wanted to know which really were the best 5K and 8K monitors - so, we put them to the test. Comparing resolutions, refresh rates, and response times, we hand-tested the features of each screen, from panel and build quality to connectivity and eye-care features for when you're staring at the screen for extended periods of time. 

Best 5K monitor overall

The impressive Philips 499P9H is one of the more feature-packed ultrawide monitors available today. Its VA panel is 8-bit, rather than IPS and 10-bit, and only supports the DisplayHDR 400 standard - so while it looks fine to the untrained eye, it's less suited to professional photo and video-editing work than its rivals. That’s where our gripes end - this mammoth monitor features plenty of connectivity options, including a USB Type-C interface for hooking up a MacBook or other machine. In addition to the beautiful 32:9 aspect ratio, it goes further than rivals by including a pop-up webcam with Windows Hello Support for snappy face-ID login. The icing on the cake is its adaptive sync support, which makes it suitable for light gaming at 60fps if you have a capable AMD graphics card.

All around, this monitor is incredible to use, for productivity, this monitor is nearly too big and requires one of our largest desks in the studio to not look out of place. But once we found a good desk, this monitor made up for the work by allowing us to get so much done. We could have everything we needed and more on-screen without even thinking about adding a secondary screen or using our laptop in anything other than clamshell mode. This monitor has it all, and for productivity or creative work, this monitor is absolutely incredible.

Read our full Philips Brilliance 499P9H review

Best 8K monitor

 Two years after first clocking eyes on it, we're still drooling over the first 8K monitor to hit the shelves. The UP3218K justifies its cost in ways other than its sheer pixel count, which is so huge that finding content to take advantage of is no easy task. The monitor is adequately bright, features stellar build quality (surprisingly heavy), and its color reproduction is the best in the business. If you absolutely must have the sharpest screen that money can buy, this is it - but beware that it requires two DisplayPorts to run - so pairing it with a beefy GPU is a must.

Once we were able to get one of our higher-end PCs on this monitor, it became incredibly hard to want to use anything else. The clarity is absolutely astounding, there’s no other way to say it. Sadly, there is not a ton of 8K content out there, but when using 8K content on this 8K screen, it’s truly breathtaking. Granted, not everything has to be 8K to look amazing on this display, even 4K and 5K content looks great thanks to the amazing color accuracy and high brightness. 

The one caveat we do need to mention one more time though, is that it takes a beast of a machine to run this monitor, so if you are interested in this display, make sure your computer of choice can output what is necessary to make this gorgeous monitor worth it.

Read our full Dell UltraSharp UP3218K 8K monitor review

Best 5K monitor for creators

 The Apple Studio Display is a monitor designed for creative professionals, specifically those already invested in the Apple ecosystem. It has a 27-inch 5K resolution display with a pixel density of 218 PPI and supports one billion colors, making it an excellent choice for photo and video editing tasks. It also features a P3 wide color gamut and 600 nits of brightness. The monitor has a sleek design and is available with a tilt-adjustable stand or a VESA mount adapter. However, the stand does not have height adjustability unless you pay an additional $400. The display is also compatible with Apple's True Tone technology, which adjusts the white balance to match ambient lighting conditions. However, this feature can be turned off for professionals who require high color accuracy. The screen is reflective, but upgrading to the nano-texture screen can minimize reflections. 

The Apple Studio Display is expensive, and may not be suitable for those outside its target market of creative professionals. All that being said, this monitor is the perfect companion for those in the Apple Ecosystem. If you are looking for the best monitor for a Mac mini, Mac Studio, or even a Mac Pro, this might just be exactly what you are looking for. As is true with any product within the beautiful walled garden of Apple products, everything just works. The UI is uniform, certain features of the monitor, such as brightness, speakers control, and full control of the webcam can only be accessed from a Mac, and therefore, this monitor makes the most sense to use with a Mac. 

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows though, we actually have found many members of our team who, while they love the Studio Display, are used to multi-inputs on their monitors, and therefore cannot get away with using this display at their workstation. The Studio Display has only a single input display, natively. You could use a switcher, a hub, or physically unplug the monitor from one Mac to another, like your Mac studio to your Macbook, or even your iPad (especially with iPadOS 17 and Stage Manager enabled). However, there is no internal ability to switch between inputs as is common on most modern monitors.

Read our full Apple Studio Display review

Best curved 5K monitor

LG’s massive 49-inch curved Ultrawide monitor has a lot of screen. It packs a punch with a 32:9 aspect ratio, HDR10, and 1000:1 contrast ratio. In short, this is legitimately the equivalent of two 1440p monitors side by side on our desk. Thankfully, it has a slight curve allowing the far sides and corners of the screen to be a bit easier to see. This may not be the best and most color-accurate display for professional photographers who need perfect accuracy above all else, but with a sRGB of 99%, this is a fantastic solution for most, and anyone (even creative workers) who wants to fit a large amount of content on their screen at one time.

We found this monitor to be great for video editing, as we could fit a huge portion of our timeline on the screen without sacrificing room for a preview window, media window, and effects. What we did find this monitor just about perfect for was anyone using it for business, administrative tasks, research, writing, coding, web development, and more. The fantastic IO has been so great for switching between multiple computers, like a work laptop and a personal laptop, and the image quality, while technically only kind of a 5K display, is still great. Due to how 5K is calculated, depending on who you ask, this is either absolutely a 5K display or barely a 4K display. Regardless, it’s beautiful, blends into nearly any workflow, is great for a ton of professions and use cases, and is perfect for those with multiple computers at one workstation.

Read our full Dell UltraSharp UP3218K 8K monitor review

Best ultrawide 5K monitor

Dell's ultrawide monitor is the most business-like in design and function on our list. Its stand is chunkier than the LG's 49WL95-W's and features a circular cable tidy hole for added convenience. This model places its two USB downstream ports along its bottom edge rather than around the side, and it also features a USB Type-C port. That's alongside two upstream regular USB ports used for hooking up two PCs and using them with a single keyboard and mouse (courtesy of KVM). Dell's Display Manager software makes it easy to better utilize that massive display by managing up to six windows simultaneously. Dell's proprietary software for their monitors also helps make sure that the firmware is up to date, helps run brightness and color temperature scheduling and so much more.

Beyond just the software, the overall experience of using this monitor has felt so eloquent and professional. Everything is done exceptionally well, the UI is great and not flashy, and the port selection has left us wondering if we could get rid of the other docks we needed with past monitors. This monitor feels great, works great, looks great, and has a great (large) price tag. The one major drawback is that due to low refresh rate and response times, this is not a great gaming monitor, but for those looking for professional use cases, this monitor should be a strong consideration. 

Read our full Dell U4021QW review

Best big-screen 5K monitor

 The closest thing to an official Apple monitor without being the 6K Pro Display XDR. This 5K monitor is beautiful (and not just because of how bright it can go). It has an IPS panel and covers 99% of the DCI P3 gamut, making it an ideal choice for photographers or video editors seeking the best color accuracy. It uses a single USB-C port to transfer video and data simultaneously, which makes for a tidy setup; on the flip side, its port selection is limited to three Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports located around the back - so get your dongles ready.

While we haven’t had the pleasure of trying this monitor out ourselves in our studio, as we have with the others on this list, we can say by way of thorough research by our team of monitor experts, that this display is just as good as it looks on paper. 

Best 5K monitor for gamers

Professionals can be gamers too, which is why the CRG9 may be an enticing option. Its 5K display, flaunting Quantum Dot (QLED) tech and 1.07 billion colors, is gorgeous - and the monitor also sports VESA DisplayHDR 1000 tech backed up by 1,000 nits of pure room-illuminating brightness. For gamers, adding adaptive-sync tech will smoothen out frame rates up to the panel's 144Hz refresh rate. You'll need a beefy GPU to maximize this enticing ultrawide. Oh, and deep pockets will be required - this is one expensive monitor.

But, if you can get past the gasp-inducing price tag, this beast is remarkably good. Because it is such a good gaming monitor and still a fantastic business monitor, you can switch between a legitimate gaming setup and spreadsheets without so much moving. Granted, not everyone has the space for a 49-inch monitor – this thing is gargantuan – but if you do, its 32:9 aspect ratio with 5120 x 1440 resolution might just be the best beast you can buy.

Read our full Samsung CRG9 review

Best 5K and 8K monitors: FAQs

How to choose the best 5K and 8K monitors for you

When choosing which 5K or 8K monitor is best for you, there are several key factors at play. Like any of the best monitors, size isn't everything. Like 4K before it, the best 5K and 8K monitors are another big jump in quality, price, and requirements.

Right now, 5K and 8K monitors are a serious investment. For most users, a 4K monitor will be enough. Even if you're a creator looking for the best monitor for photo editing or the best video editing monitor, a 4096 × 2160 resolution is enough for most regular creative tasks. Generally, those who need a 5k or 8k monitor are professionals in design, photography, and videography, where detail and color accuracy are critical.

For 5K monitors (5120 × 2880 pixels), you can choose regular 16:9 aspect ratio or ultrawide monitors with 21:9 (or above) aspect ratios. The best ultrawide monitors are a great choice for a multi-monitor experience with a single screen.

Monitors with a regular aspect ratio are generally better for design work as high-DPI modes in Windows and macOS allow for working in scaled resolutions, which lets users zoom in to manipulate images in incredible detail while rendering pin-sharp text and UI elements. However, ultra-wide monitors present an intriguing alternative that ignores pixel scaling to give professionals acres of screen space for positioning windows, stretching out video-editing timelines, and watching cinematic videos as intended.

Your choice of 8K monitors (7680 × 4320 pixels), is limited, as currently, there aren't many 'affordable' 8K screens beyond the Dell UltraSharp UP3218K. It's an excellent screen in its own right, but we'd like to start seeing this market in particular flourish. There is nothing quite as sharp as 8K. In our experience, the best 8K monitors are significantly more demanding; therefore, most devices cannot output, so it’s essential to ensure that your computer can push to 8K if you are interested. Because of this, 5K is supported by far more devices than 8K. If you're integrating  higher resolution displays into your workflow, make sure the output is compatible. 

How we test the best 5K and 8K monitors

Our team of expert reviewers have hand-tested hundreds of screens, from the best monitors for the Mac mini to the best monitors for graphic design. So, we know what to look out for and what to avoid when it comes to high-performance, high-resolution displays.

Whether we're comparing refresh rates on the best MacBook Pro monitors or analyzing luminance of the best curved monitors, we take the same rigorous approach to all our screen tests. 

In testing out the best 5K and 8K monitors, we use the monitor for daily use, paying close attention to inteded use, for example, playing triple-A games at max settings on the best gaming monitors, editing images with photography monitors, and so on. We push the monitor to the limits in terms of testing color accuracy, brightness, response times, and refresh rates. 

Equally important to confirming specifications, our team will confirm how the monitor functions in day to day use. This will be done by utilizing the monitor for the tester’s workload for an extended period of time so they can get comfortable with the nuances of each monitor (eye strain, productivity, stands, and curvature, to name a few) and things like connectivity and even power consumption.

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