Is 4k gaming worth the performance hit?

[Bald-Eagle22]

7900XTx and my desktop is a 42inch LG C3 Oled .

Playing at 3840x2160

Depends on the title . Helldiver2 , Manor Lords , Starfield , and BF2042 look awesome and can max them all out at full 4K with 60 plus FPS all the time. However games lkke Cyberpunk just kill it but I'm not prepared to drop another 1k on a GPU for a 4090.

I can remember jumping from 720p to full 1080 HD with my 280GTX and thought wow , but for full 4k at reasonable mainstream prices I think were still 2 generations of GPU'S away 3 to 4 years

 

[bakes0310]

Thanks I have the same card and with a 7900xtx. That sounds reasonable to what your expectations are. I am leaning towards a 32" 4k OLED. I play a lot of RPG and RTS games so not the most demanding. I bet manor lords looks pretty good.

7900XTx and my desktop is a 42inch LG C3 Oled .

Playing at 3840x2160

Depends on the title . Helldiver2 , Manor Lords , Starfield , and BF2042 look awesome and can max them all out at full 4K with 60 plus FPS all the time. However games lkke Cyberpunk just kill it but I'm not prepared to drop another 1k on a GPU for a 4090.

I can remember jumping from 720p to full 1080 HD with my 280GTX and thought wow , but for full 4k at reasonable mainstream prices I think were still 2 generations of GPU'S away 3 to 4 years

 

[Quartz]

I only play single player games that tend to be RPGs and RTS games like baldurs gate 3, total war. So I feel I don't play massively graphic games. Would I be blown away by 4k in these games?

Absolutely. I play Borderlands games, Command & Conquer 3, Far Cry, Freespace 2, and the like and have been playing at 4k for a decade. Especially in Borderlands games the improvement in visual quality is incredible, and I'm on a 27" 4k monitor so high ppi. No RT in any of them, though. For RT-heavy games like Quake RTX or Portal RTX I can drop to 1080p or I could faff around with upscaling.

In any sniping game the extra resolution allows you to see and snipe at greater distances.

For me, no, it's not worth it. What is worth it, is OLED. Once you have tried OLED, there is no way back.

These days you can have both. I'm leery about OLED because most of my time is not gaming so I fear burn-in.

 

[alexkyriak]

I use 48inch oled at 4K and sit reasonably close, like 800mm. For space/flight sims, this distance and the expanse of 48inch screen, and 4K visual fidelity and level of detail, is incredible for flying. Other game types also benefit massively, like cyberpunk. Running off a 3080ti is pretty good for most stuff, but more power would be really good.

 

[SpellowHouse]

These days you can have both. I'm leery about OLED because most of my time is not gaming so I fear burn-in.

I think it's all very personal. I didn't want both. I moved back from 4K to 2K, because I preferred the ease of driving 2K. 4K is such a performance hit.

 

[bakes0310]

I think it's all very personal. I didn't want both. I moved back from 4K to 2K, because I preferred the ease of driving 2K. 4K is such a performance hit.

Did you miss her IQ but then got used to going back in favour of high FPS.

 

[Quixote]

In my opinion no, it's not worth the hit - at least unless your screen is very big.
I've just demoted my 27" 4k 60hz monitor to secondary & put a 1440p 27" 165hz as the primary.
I'm running a 7900xtx & it's just such a better experience the crazy framerates I'm getting now.
I never even really got much benefit in content creation, which is what I got the 4k monitor for in the 1st place. At 27", I had to use 150% scaling to keep interfaces consistently useable, which meant I didn't even really have any extra screen real estate anyway.
So for me, I'd say, 4k only for 32" and up screens & gaming, well I guess just use lots of upscaling if you like high framerates.

 

[Noxia]

IMO absolutely. Anything less makes me feel like I've gone back a generation.

Edit. That was a bit OTT but personally very noticeable to me.

 

[nalla]

depends on your monitor, i did have a 48" oled and 4k was good at that size, but i have since got a 34" ultrawide oled and prefer this.

 

[eeii]

Noob question is it possible to output a 1080p res to a 4k tv and let the scaler on the tv convert the res to 4k. ?

 

[moppy89]

Noob question is it possible to output a 1080p res to a 4k tv and let the scaler on the tv convert the res to 4k. ?

Yes but you probably wouldn't want to

 

[eeii]

Yes but you probably wouldn't want to

Does anybody know if it actually looks any good.

 

[Mr Evil]

Does anybody know if it actually looks any good.

I have an LG CS, and the upscaling is surprisingly good. You'll notice that it's not native 4k though, especially on things like small text, which can look a bit odd sometimes. FSR is better, where available. Where it's not, use integer GPU scaling, which looks identical to native 1080p.

 

[pastymuncher]

For me the biggest problem with 4k is that you are always going to be tied into buying stupidly priced gpu's to power it as a mid range card isn't going to cut it. This is why I settled at 1440p which is a nice upgrade from 1080p but easily powered by mid range cards. I may go ultrawide at some point in the future but only at 3440x1440 or 3840x1600.

 

[Grim5]

I own 2560x1440, 3440x1440 and 3860x2160 screens and yes 4k is worth the hit, everything else looks blurry to me

Even on my 3440x1440 monitor, I'm often playing games with downsampling enabled to increase the render resolution closer to 4k, as native 3440x1440 is too damn blurry

 

[bakes0310]

Thanks for the responses. Still leaning towards 4k OLED. I do play the odd modern game but they seem to be PS4 ports at the moment like ghost of tshuiuima and god of war which get 144fps on my 1440p. Plus I'm working through my steam list and there's not any demanding games on there.
So I'm thinking by the time I get to cyberpunk and any other demanding game, they will be played on hardware that can play it easily.

 

[TNA]

I own 2560x1440, 3440x1440 and 3860x2160 screens and yes 4k is worth the hit, everything else looks blurry to me

Even on my 3440x1440 monitor, I'm often playing games with downsampling enabled to increase the render resolution closer to 4k, as native 3440x1440 is too damn blurry

Yep. I noticed it straight away after owning 4K monitors for almost decade before going for the Alienware QD-OLED 3440x1440.

Luckily however DLDSR helps a lot with this. But now we have the 32" Alienware QD-OLED I want to switch. Just not in a rush to do so. Will make the jump when a offer presents itself like it always does.

 

[TheRealDeal]

Went from a 4k 60hz to 1440p 240hz and the 1440p is way better due to the technology it has over the 4k. Both are 27 inch so i don't really notice a major difference in clarity but the hdr and motion smoothness of the 240hz crap all over the 4k. To get a similar spec to my Samsung g7 at 4k would have cost a fortune.

 

[Nexus18]

All depends on the game, for the games where higher res assets aren't loaded in unless 4k+ is detected, then big difference. For the games where this is done properly then hardly notice the difference tbh. Thankfully DLDSR along with DLSS solves that issue whilst providing the best IQ and performance "overall"

 

[Calin Banc]

All depends on the game, for the games where higher res assets aren't loaded in unless 4k+ is detected, then big difference. For the games where this is done properly then hardly notice the difference tbh. Thankfully DLDSR along with DLSS solves that issue whilst providing the best IQ and performance "overall"

Speaking of DLDSR, I think 2880x1620 looks sharper than 4k (which is just the regular downsampler to 1080p).