Should I go for a 1440p or 4k monitor?

Spudgun

Spudgun

Spudgun

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Good morning everyone,

I'm having a bit of a dilemma at the moment as to what resolution I should go for on my new monitor.

I'm coming from a 12 year old Dell 27" ultrasharp 1440p 60hz monitor and have decided to step up to 32" but can't decide on the resolution.


I'm currently running a 8700k with all cores at 5ghz and no avx offset and a 3080fe which is undervolted and runs happily at 1850 as it is cool, quiet and less power hungry there.

I can't decide between 1440p @165hz at 32" which I would run at 100% scaling (I run the 27" I currently have at 125% as the text is far too small for my ageing eyes) - my current hardware should be able to run that fairly well and a gsync compatible monitor should make it fairly smooth.


Or should I step up to 4k @ 144hz? I know that I would need to set the windows scaling here and it will be beyond the capabilities of my current hardware to run at 4k at the max refresh rate if my monitor, but I might be able to get the 60fps experience that my current hardware delivers.

Also, if I keep this monitor as long as my old one, hardware should develop over time to make 4k more achievable at high frame rates.


Essentially, then, this might be a choice between resolution and framerate and I can't decide which direction to go in, so any thoughts, suggestions or direct experiences of anyone else in a similar situation would be greatly appreciated.
 
I have 4k 42 inch OLED and would never looked back. I would advise a larger screen if you were to make the jump, 32 inch and above.

Saying that it does depend on what sort of game you play. If you are a FPS super sweat and need that millisecond of one extra bullet to win online shootouts then 1440p would be better for you. For all other games like story driven single player games or RTS then 4k is the king. 4k 60fps in these games is just so much better than 2k 120fps.
 
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Thank you for sharing your thoughts, they are greatly appreciated. 32" is as far as I can go without a complete redesign of my home office.

I'd be interested if others shared your opinion than 4k@60fps is a better experience than 2k@120fps, especially if the screen size is limited to 32"

Whilst I enjoy a decent fps, I don't play online as I neither have the reactions or talent for that as I am the wrong side of 50.

Thanks again :)
 
Always going to be a bit subjective but for most desktop tasks and gaming I keep coming back to 1440p (non-ultrawide) - 27" personally but 32" is OK. I just don't find anything else is as well balanced across all tasks - other displays can have significant benefits but also more downsides across a broad range of PC uses. (I also have an additional 43" 4K monitor).
 
Thank you all so much for sharing your thoughts, I do really appreciate it.

I've been doing some research as this thread has grown and would rule out an ultrawide as the width wouldn't fit, I really don't fancy a curved monitor and I also occasionally connect to a ps4 that doesn't support the wider resolutions and leaves some screen unused at the edges and thus negates having a bigger screen. Of course, this is something I should have noted in the opening post, so please forgive me for this oversight.

I'll make a decision on this tomorrow as I have the day off, so if anyone else has any thoughts then they would be greatly appreciated as I weigh up the pros and cons of 1440p v 4k at 32" screen size.


Thanks again for sharing so far
 
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Spudgun said:
Thank you all so much for sharing your thoughts, I do really appreciate it.

I've been doing some research as this thread has grown and would rule out an ultrawide as the width wouldn't fit, I really don't fancy a curved monitor and I also occasionally connect to a ps4 that doesn't support the wider resolutions and leaves some screen unused at the edges and thus negates having a bigger screen. Of course, this is something I should have noted in the opening post, so please forgive me for this oversight.

I'll make a decision on this tomorrow as I have the day off, so if anyone else has any thoughts then they would be greatly appreciated as I weigh up the pros and cons of 1440p v 4k at 32" screen size.


Thanks again for sharing so far
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I think if you are not getting ultrawide, then you don't really need curved. I would normally say anything over 30" needs a curve, but 32" I suppose is borderline. Certainly with 34" you notice that the curved just looks more natural. Flat looks, well, wrong, the corners of the screen are too far away.

I really would not get 4K if you are in to gaming. I made that mistake and am seriously considering moving backwards to 3440x1440. The fact is that 4k is still really difficult to drive unless you have limitless funds to spend on the rest of the system. You need top-tier gear to drive 4K despite what some may tell you.

A 34" 3440x1440 ultra-wide is identical to a 27" 2560x1440 except the extra width (in other words it has the same pixel size/dot pitch) So even if you play some games with the black lines down the side, you are losing nothing, but gaining the extra width for desktop and games that do support it (and nearly all on a PC do). However, if you do go to 34" I would really recommend a curved.
 
I have a 32" 1440p, and imo it's the perfect size and resolution. Windows looks good without any scaling - which is the only reliable way to run desktop programs that may or may not have been written to scale. It's about the same pixel size as a 24" 1080p.

There's an argument that you can see jaggies in some games and yes... I guess? Maybe they just don't bother me personally. Maybe my 40-something eyes aren't that sensitive :cry:

But practically, you can run high AA at 1440p on a mediocre gpu. You need a monster card to push 4k at good quality, and indeed a lot of the tech like DLSR has been working backwards to render low and upscale because we're not really able to do 4k gaming satisfactorily in a normal human's budget.

Obviously if money is no object, you go 4k and a monster gpu, but if you care at all about the cost I'd suggest 1440p and mainstream hardware to drive it rather than being tied in to top tier forever :D
 
if you dont need to show a lot of work stuff at once stick with 2560x1440, im running 4k on 32" and i need to have text scaling on everything...anything that doesnt allow it is miniscule and hard to read.
 
Kelt said:
This, and this.
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And this.

I used to run 3x 24" 1080P screens and replaced them all for 1 34" 1440P Ultrawide and have not regretted it once. Plenty of desktop real estate to comfortably run multiple browser windows side by side while still maintaining a very good DPI.

Gaming is no issue at all and even my old RX480 used to handle this resolution very well. I'm now running a 6700XT which I think pairs perfectly with it. The immersion when gaming on an ultrawide is also second to none, especially when backed up by decent headphones or speakers, you will be sucked in to the experience!

I can't say I've noticed the black bars on 16:9 videos either, I guess you just get used to it.

SpellowHouse said:
However, if you do go to 34" I would really recommend a curved.
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I'm not a fan of curved screens at all but given my experience, if I was buying another ultrawide monitor I would defintely consider the difference between a flat and a curved screen. I do sometimes have to move my head slightly when looking at content at the very edges of the screen. Again, I guess it depends how sensitive you are to that kind of thing.
 
MissChief said:
It’s true, some people are very strange.
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I always disliked ultra wides (without owning one) still went ahead and bought the Alienware QD OLED simply because I wanted OLED quality and that UW was the only option..used it one for one week hoping I will "acquire the taste" but I hated the UW so much that I returned the otherwise great monitor.I actually think those whole like this gimmick are strange.totally unnatural and weird aspect ratio. incompatible with many games and movies.short and wide..yuck I hate it.
 
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I've owned 2 UWs, still have one of them (Dell U2913WM) but rarely use it, but never found UW a good option for a general purpose use - it is very good for certain things. Even on 1440p UW too many games looked like you were playing them looking through a letterbox.

Ended up going back to my 27" 1440p 144Hz Dell with a Philips Momentum 436M6 alongside it.
 
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