An executive of chip maker Intel Corp. says that ultra-high definition 4K monitors priced below US$400 will be available in the market by the end of this year.
At a press conference during the Computex technology show in Taipei, Kirk Skaugen, senior vice-president and general manager of the PC client group at Intel, said the California-based company is working PC manufacturers such as Micro-Star International Co. (MSI )to develop cheaper 4K displays by the end of 2014.
4K resolution is a generic term for displays that have a horizontal resolution of 4,000 pixels. The technology exists in the field of digital cinematography and digital television but 4K computer monitors are also widely available. Recently, manufacturers like Asus, Dell and Samsung began selling sub-$1,000 4K PC monitors.
It was only about six months ago that several manufacturers started shipping 28-inch 4k displays priced at around $700.
That’s much cheaper than the $15,000 to $25,000 price tag of 4K displays when they were first introduced. However, $700 is still above the budget of many people shopping for a PC display, according to online technology publication Digitaltrends.com.
It is not yet clear what Intel and its partners intend to do to bring down the price. The publication said the 5th generation Intel Broadwell processors, which will be introduced later this year, could allow OEMs to use 4th Gen Haswell chips in 4K monitors when prices for the older chips drop.