A 5K monitor price war has started even before a stand-alone monitor has hit the shops. Dell, which has announced but not yet shipped its UltraSharp 5K monitor, says it will cut its price. The Tame Apple Press claims that this is because Apple has released a Apple’s 27-inch iMac 5K monitor on its top of the range machines and Dell is terrified of the competition.

Dell’s UltraSharp 27 Ultra HD will be priced under $2,000 from December. It will ship next month. But when the monitor was originally announced it was priced at $2,499.99. Apple was flogging an entire computing platform into its 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K Display. Dell’s UltraSharp 27 is only a monitor. One of the few times that Apple has undercut anyone in the market.

5K monitors display images at a resolution of 5120 x 2880. This is about 60 percent more pixels than 4K displays, which have a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels. Most people can’t see the difference, unless they happen to look at their bank accounts. Dell’s 5K monitor has its merits, sporting an “anti-smudge/anti-reflective edge-to-edge glass design and pristine picture quality for colour-critical work.

It also has two 16-watt integrated Harman Kardon speakers, six USB ports and one media card reader. It also has one mini-DisplayPort and two DisplayPort interfaces. Question is who wants to go to 5K anyway. 4K monitors are available for as low as $700, and there is content being produced for 4K.