Despite the issues with PC hardware this year that has resulted in limited availability and inflated prices for graphics cards and processors new and old, the future of gaming monitors is looking pretty exciting with 4K 240Hz and 1080p 480Hz screens on the horizon. But refresh rates aren’t always what gamers are looking for.
Unless you’re playing a competitive multiplayer game where reaction times and super-accurate frame rates are essential to getting an edge over your opponents, not many gamers will actually want high refresh rate monitors and instead opt for quality/resolution. So today, we want to break down the two biggest quality features in gaming monitors today: 4K and ultrawide.
Here comes today’s question then: given the choice, would you prefer to get a 4K monitor or a 1440p ultrawide? What are the benefits of each? And is the upgrade to 4K/Ultrawide truly worth it now? Or will it take a few more years before either becomes actually worth the cost?
Although many gamers today will own a 1080p monitor, higher resolutions are getting more and more popular, though admittedly that is due to price. Years ago 4K monitors were well above anyone’s sensible budget. Today, those prices are dramatically reduced, still expensive, but at least some models are in the budget range now.
The same goes for ultrawide monitors, and although most games are still taking a while to officially support ultrawide screens, some of the best out there already do and the results speak for themselves. When it works, ultrawide can provide significantly increased immersion in games that support it. And again, some models are now within the budget range.
But if you want to go 4K ultrawide that’s just not going to happen unless you have a whole heap of cash just lying around. Unfortunately for most gamers these days that is simply out of their budget range, and so have to settle between one or the other.
What do you think? Which is the better choice for gamers, 4K widescreen or 1440p ultrawide? What are the benefits of either choice? And is it worth upgrading to either of them from 1080p? Or is it better to wait a while still? Let’s debate!
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i still prefer having 2x 1080p monitors on my desk instead of one "big" or "wide" screen.
It just makes sorting things easier. I hate needing to alt-tab 70 times when following guides for games or work
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yeah thats understandable, i've been using multiple monitor setup for years now and i would never go back to single monitor setup, its just so good for multitasking, like watching stream/youtube on one monitor and browsing news or reddit on another. Though what i hate that windows cant properly use them with games running at "fullscreen mode"
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Well the exclusive fullscreen option is working as intended, even though you don't seem to like it, lol.
Use borderless if you must look stuff up during the game, or just grab a phone like I do :D
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in some games non fulscreen mode causes imput lag and other perf issues, thats why im not fan of it. and then there are games that dont even have borderless mode at all so yeah...
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Yeah, all works as intended. Exclusive fullscreen does what it does for a reason, but multi-mon setups suffer. That's why it's easier to just grab a phone to google something or have a laptop nearby.
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I'mma stick with 1080p 144Hz.
I have a 4k TV. I don't need that for gaming.
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I don't understand why more people dont get ultrawides, it is SO much more fun for racing and sports games and don't even get me started on everything else. Tomb raider and AC are just incredible. I couldnt see myself ever going back to 16:9. I think ive owned mine at least 3 years now, its only 2560x1080 but its plenty for my v64 to drive. Next will be 3440x1440 with a 6800xt.
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because its niche market and the compatibility is not that good especially for older stuff. I think 16:9 is good enough for overwhelmingly vast majority of users with the fact that ultrawides cost extra so yeah, i dont think that ultrawides are going to push away 16:9 ever.
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I really don't think there's a problem with compatibility. For older stuff, maybe. But you can play those in 16:9 then.
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"I really don't think there's a problem with compatibility" Well decide for yourself, here is decent list. For older stuff its most likely not gonna work, unless stretched image or hud is fine by you.
"but you can play those in 16:9 then" well, whats the point of having it in the first place? It would be acceptable if vast majority of all pc games would support UW, but they dont, thats the issue.
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just to be clear, im not saying that UW monitors are useless, far from that. If you play mostly new games and are interested in video editing then its great but if you dont want messing around with HEX editor or looking for community patches for games that dont support it and just want more of "plug and play" then its not for you, also as i said UW monitors are more expensive on top so there is that as well..
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Ive had no issues with most games supporting uw, if they dont its a stupidly easy hex fix or .exe download. I got black flag to work in uw that should say something. Most games support uw and multi screen unless its like 20 yrs old. Only game i play in 16:9 is Detroit become it runs like crap modded.
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@Bluej511 even with hex editor and other patches they are still not perfect (like letterboxed cutscenes, etc.) and vast majority of games requires some kind of tinkering
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Can't imagine my life without 240hz to be honest. Not anymore. So 1080p 240hz all the way. It's gonna take a lot of years for this to be available and playable at 4K, so I don't think that there is any need to change from 1080p for now
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I mean even right now, with my setup. I play most games at the lowest settings possible in 1080p. For them to actually be playable and enjoyable. So I don't think that I'm going to change my resolution any time soon
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i mean i understand that someone would like to play the way you do, but what games do you play?
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Anything tbh. A lot of people think that you benefit from high refresh rate only in fast paced FPS games, but It's the same for any game really. Currently I'm enjoying RDR2, GTAV, Insurgency Sandstorm, Days Gone, Dirt Rally 2.0 and Spelunky 2
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high refresh rate shines in fast paced games and is not really that much better in slow paced games. I mean if you like 240hz then thats great, but there is no way you are playing anything close to 240fps in games like rdr and maybe days gone as well? I used 1080p 144hz TN panel for 5 years and in that time i decided that high refresh gaming is not worth for me, i mean its cool but not for me :)
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and the biggest kick in the nuts is when you have good pc and high refresh monitor but your current game doesnt support it or have major issues with unlocked fps. I mean again, if anyone swears by 120+hz monitors then thats fine but to me personally its just nah
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Oh yeah, I totally understand. I get 150fps in RDR2, 115-130 in cities. The hardware isn't ready for 240fps gaming, that's why I don't think that I'm going to be switching my resolution anytime soon. I cannot play games with sub 120fps. It's abysmal to my eyes. 160+ feels great but 120 is absolute minimum for any game
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I'm on a 165Hz screen since 2015 and before that - I had a laptop with an OC'd display to 110-115Hz. 60Hz felt like lag to me for a loooong time now. Not every game hits the full refresh, especially since I balance that out with 4K-10K resolutions, depending on the game, but still I aim to have at least 80-90fps G-synced. Even in something like Skyrim - 4K, ultra + RTGI reshade - 90fps at the lowest and I'm fine, while anything less hurts the mouse rensponsiveness, even in a "slow" game like Skyrim.
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uhh a little bit out of topic, but why your titan x shows as "AMD" in your "PC Specs" notification?
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No love for Titans? Idk to be honest. This is the only option on the website and since it's not very popular.. no one cares I guess :D
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240fps 4k is already possible today... you have to remember that high refresh rate benefits fast paced games most, so i think that's where the usefulness of 4k@240hz should be focused. Games like CS:GO and Valorant can easily do 4k@240fps today, if you think games like RDR2 then yes, 4k@240hz doesn't make sense, but at the same time it doesn't make sense to have a 240hz monitor for a game like RDR2 anyways, not matter whether it's at 4k or 1080p, i think we should welcome 4k@240hz with open arms.
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I would argue that's up to individual opinion. It does make sense to me to have 240hz monitor for RDR2. Because If I was getting only about 100 frames.. I wouldn't play it. I would have to wait, because I literally cannot enjoy it with such low framerate.
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In fact.. I cannot enjoy any game with such low framerate. Doesn't matter what type of game it is. Unless it's turn based or doesn't include any mouse movement.... Then it's okay to have lower frames.
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Are you very susceptible to motion sickness? I can play games at any framerate, just that I prefer higher fps (80-90+) for a smoother response and motion (also I play at dumb resolutions, ranging from 4K to even 10K, so I have to balance the fps with my hate for jaggies). Weirdly enough, my missis plays games at lower fps, while trying games on my rig gives her odd motion sickness when the fps exceeds what she's reasonably used to :D
People are weird!
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I might be. I always have to turn motion blur off and If the game doesn't support raw mouse input I'm sick. Basically the camera speed must be the same as my hand speed otherwise I have a huge problem. So anything below 120fps is very unresponsive and "floaty" for me
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Xquadrox how can you upscale to higher than 5k resolution with 1440p screen?
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I also see no need to render any game above native resolution 99% of games have anti aliasing...
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@zenmaster supersampling and anti-aliasing are completely different beasts. AA sucks more the lower the render resolution is, especially TAA and FXAA (they are fine to use at 4K+ yet blur a lot at 1080p or even 1440p in some cases). Supersampling makes everything sharper and more detailed (more resolution!), gets rid of jaggies (because I'm also downsampling), gives AA more data to play with and even loads better LODs (in many engines/games LODs are tied to in-game resolution). I wouldn't be doing what I do if there was "no need to render any game above native" just because they happen to have AA.
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Suoersampling doesnt magic more pixels to you monitor also both tech have the same goal of getting rid of jaggies. I see no real reason to pixel count textures nowadays shouldnt be my job to make the game look better. If you have to jump through loops to make the game look acceptable to you maybe they dont deserve your money.
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Whoa whoa, slow down there, cowboy.
1) Supersampling DOES "magic" more data because you RENDER more data!
2) AA's goal is hampered by what it multisamples, and it's usually just the model edges. This does not usually fix issues with transparencies, bump mapping, parallax, etc, where supersampling just renders more detail. The goal might sound the same, but the execution and results are different.
3) Hoops? For one - it's no hassle, just enable DSR ONCE and then the rest is just the usual job of trying out different settings (+resolutions) for performance tuning. I find it interesting.
4) Mods exist to make games prettier. I guess devs don't deserve money now?
Come on, man...
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Since this argument wouldn't die without visuals, here's something I just made for a comparison:
1440p native vs 8K downscaled to 1440p
Pay attention to the floorboards on the lower right, the power lines above the planter, the chainlink fence, textures, foliage, lounging chairs and their shadows, etc.
Both images at identical settings + TAA!
Just in this comparison you can see that rendering at a higher res affects screen-space effects (AO, reflections, etc), shadows, post-pro effects (bloom here, or outlines in Borderlands), texture detail/smoothness, transparencies (chainlink, powerlines, foliage), etc.
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I hope this dead horse can be laid to rest now? AA alone sucks, supersampling is king - always was the case. Even when DLSS is involved - I still prefer to at least DLSS the image to 4K+ and then downscale to my monitor via DSR - ends up a sharper and smoother image than 1440p native (thanks, AI!). If AA alone could resolve all the pixelation in the world - I wouldn't be supersampling every single game. But 3D works the way it does and that's that.
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@Gerulis20 I'm not UPscaling anything (unless DLSS is involved) - I'm DOWNscaling.
Anyway, DSR gives you up to 2x linear resolution by default, so you're right - 1440p ends up at 5K max. But I have a little tool that lets me go beyond that limit and set anything up to 4x linear res, so up to 10K :)
Works fine, I finished GTA IV at 8K not long ago. Not everything will run well-enough to go past 5K, and even 5K itself often runs bad in new AAA games, so it's always a game of finding the right mix of settings and res to reach acceptable fps.
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oh understood, one thing tho, that pic you posted, its not really 10k if you used dlss.
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Ok, here's a 10K of Far Cry 5, it has no DLSS. Better? DOOM runs at 10K without DLSS too, just doesn't hit the 30 like in that screenshot and has more aliasing than the DLSS version. Doing a DLSS upscale from 8K to 10K isn't exactly simple either, mind you :P
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Better
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@MORTcube Definitely sounds like some sort of a problem, though you can't exactly blame human biology for getting confused at motion that your body doesn't experience. I heard that people who have motion sickness when gaming are helped a lot by the same meds that reduce motion sickness in cars - have you tried any of that? Surely needing that 120fps minimum has got to be barring you from quite a few games/experiences?
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To all the 4 people who care enough to supersample to get the most unnoticable difference more power to em. I follow the classic rule of ultra is for screenshots and high settings are for playing. Really arguing the 0.1% problems here sorry to say.
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Wait, so you first tell me there's no difference, I show you that there IS indeed an obvious difference, then you just brush it off that I'm "arguing over 0.1% problems"? What kind of mental gymnastics is that? Just say "I was wrong, there IS a difference, but it's not for ME" and call it a day! You're the one who came out of the woods with your remark in the first place, so wtf?
It also would have been nice if you replied to the correct comment - now you just made a mess...
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I dont need see point in killing my gpu headway/1% lows for very subtle differences in a open world fps. I tend to play more than stare at textures. Right/ wrong...practical definitely not.
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Good for you. Still an odd way to inject your opinion.
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3440x1440- 100hz (might up grade to 144hz) is great for gaming and movies I download. Sucks for streaming and youtube. also 4k TVs are so much cheaper just buy that with your gaming monitor.
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Same, tell me about streaming... I cannot get Netflix to go above 720p for some reason.
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21:9 is a much better aspect ratio for sure, very few games would'nt benefit from it and I don't think any would suffer.
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except the developers/small market share disagree
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It took 16:9/16:10 about 2 decades to get a solid market share after consumer products started coming out.
21:9 started coming out on 2015, give it another 10 years before it gets some solid market share.
Otherwise in FPS games you get better FOV without making everything feel further away and smaller than it is.
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In RTS, CRPG and other over the top camera view games you see more of the field.
In Racers you get a better split screen and in all games really.
In Third person games you see more of your surroundings.
And as a side note, movies are in 21:9 aspect ratio.
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I dont think ultrawide will become mainstream. Its niche enough to demand a premium. Most if not all youtube/twitch/streaming services/movies/games always support 16:9 and not the other way around. If you have issues not seeing enough of the screen you can always buy a bigger 16:9 monitors/tv that have a wide variety of sizes. For monitors i dont see a real reason going beyond 4k (screen size to resolution and the eyes ability to tell a difference).
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That's what they said about widescreen in the 90s.
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There is a reason to go beyond 4K, less aliasing, which would of course depend on the size of the screen as well. Almost all Aliasing (jaggies) is gone at 8K. Of course on a smaller screen of the same resolution, those would be less due to higher pixel density.
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i want to see the text size without scaling on a 8k 32 inch screen you need like a microscope... Also i´d take some anti aliasing tech over trying to run 4x the pixels of 4k resolution. For monitors its excessive.
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At this point we need to downscale graphics. Games have gotten way too expensive and it's almost all(95-99%) due to graphics.
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"i want to see the text size without scaling on a 8k 32 inch screen you need like a microscope… Also i´d take some anti aliasing tech over trying to run 4x the pixels of 4k resolution. For monitors its excessive."
Well you could could use super resolution at 4K or whatever the equivalent is and then apply super sampling on top of that to achieve the same effect. Just note that super sampling is very demanding!
Because using super sampling is like running the game at a higher resolution.
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native is always better though.
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Native isn't always better.
For example, where are the 8K 165Hz screens? I can play at 8K 165Hz using DSR and get both the smoothness of the framerate, the G-Sync and the resolution. Obviously I'm downsampling to my screen, but the visual difference is still obvious and there for me (I even slap additional AA on top of whatever res I run), I get my high-res screenshots/video, yet running a lower native means that I have a comfortable fallback for high fps gaming without the need to run UPsampled (and, therefore, deal with blur).
There is a nice balance to strike between native, what screen tech is available/affordable and what the GPU can muster with things like DSR.
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Since I already made a sample for someone else, here's a comparison:
1440p native vs 8K downscaled to 1440p
I'd love a 4K+ display with all the bells and whistles, but 1440p is still a good fallback resolution for now, especially if I need the frames. It's always a balancing act and I don't mind having a lower res screen that I can fall back on if I need to, while still being able to get that extra AA through supersampling when I have spare performance on the table.
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I mean native vs regular upscaling, of course downscaling is better than native. XD
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Yeah, but NeoPGX also talked about downscaling. In other words, he said "Want to try 8K? Use a 4K monitor +DSR/supersampling" (which is essentially what I do, minus my display being not 4K) and you said "native is always better"... Someone somewhere got confused.
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Oh I see, my bad.
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To be clear I was talking about using a 4K monitor to reach 8K via super-resolution which actually results in the image being downscaled to giving 8K-like clarity (as in how much aliasing there is) at the monitor's native resolution and if you really wanna go crazy with it, apply 4x supersampling on top of that in the driver settings to get 16K-like clarity. There should be no visible aliasing/jaggies at that point.
Though such a technique would most likely cost you more GPU memory than you have.
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Using the tools that I have, I could do 16K DSR on a 4K monitor (and get proper 16K screenshot files!). And then you could drop some AA or even supersampling on top, like 16K raw res via DSR and then 200% supersampling in-game for a 32K-like effect.
And if we did that on an 8K monitor....
But yeah, at that point we're running into limitations with signal output, memory, etc :D
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Depends on the type of gamer. I have kind of "tunnel-vision" when I play games on a standard 16:9 monitor. I tend to focus on the action in the center of the screen instead of minimap and chat corner. I would imagine an ultra-wide would be a waste on me.
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If you have a monitor like the asus rog PG27U and the gpu to push it to its maximum potential, then 4k for sure! Add to 4k, some HDR, 60fps+ with some temporal upscaling and you got right there the best visual there is!
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Laptop is 768p so I'm one of those.
My tablet has a better screen than my laptop.
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768p is still a great resolution when it's native.
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and small screen, otherwise, eehhh...
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15.6'' seems to be a good mix with 768p.
Tho the TN panel really sucks.
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Dude I played PS4 Pro on a 32 inch 768p TV and it was great.
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It's native.
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Not to derail the thread, but what I would actually want to be able to buy years from now is a decent HDR monitor that doesnt cost a lung and a kidney.
As it is right now, best/cheapest option is to buy an oled tv, which is too damn big for anything other than gaming.. not to mention oled has several drawbacks when used as a regular PC monitor.
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By all means, derail away. That's what the comment section is for.
When it comes to affordable HDR monitors, you'll probably have to wait 3 - 5 years (guesstimate) till the tech matures and the production costs are reduced.
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Well, the issue is finding an oled monitor at a reasonable size. It's all 55" or bigger. You wouldn't even put a 55" tv in an area where the couch isn't far enough from the display. I recon that it would take at least another 6-7 years before we'll see well priced monitors with all the goodies of todays top end stuff.
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I have 1500h on my lg CX OLED as of now. I live in a basement apartment so i enjoy dimmer setting for my OLED. Also some ultra wide monitors cost more than a 49/55 inch oled tv while the oled is better in almost every aspect. Every time content fades to complete black it still blows me away...
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Yeah its funny how gaming on a TV was considered blasphemy not that long ago. But now an oled tv for gaming is as premium as you can get for a fraction of the price.
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my next monitor upgrade, although not soon, is definitely going to be some kind of oled tech.
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My ideal monitor would be 36-38inch, 8k res and oled. I currently have 4k 32inch VA monitors, 4k at 32inch is really really good balance of screen size and PPI but i still can see jaggies and 8k at that screen size should fix it, VA monitors came far in recent years and decent model have decent response time and very good black levels, OLED would elevate to another level.
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You can get rid of a lot of jaggies by applying a load of TAA/FXAA and/or supersampling to the 4K image - I do this all the time in my quest against jaggies. I wouldn't want an 8K native screen, since supersampling will look better on a lower-res screen than (in most instances) a lower res image on a higher-res display. Those are my 2 cents. But then I'm a pleb with a 1440p 165Hz color-calibrated IPS :)
Ditto on the OLED, though. I'm watching that space eagerly for the right time/price, though getting an OLED TV with G-sync at 120Hz is already affordable.
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Imo if you think this is a good buy for you, might as well pull the trigger this year when you see a good deal.
TV tech hasnt really done much the past few years and prices havent really gone down. Biggest was probably hdmi 2.1 being standard now, but thats actually been around since 2019.
Not that you lose anything from waiting, just that you might be waiting for almost nothing.
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Xquadrox i've been using AA all the time on 4k, good thing about it is that you dont need to use as much unlike in 1080p or 1440p, something like 2x msaa or fxaa is pretty good, i would say ideal for my preference.
"I wouldn't want an 8K native screen, since supersampling will look better on a lower-res screen than (in most instances) a lower res image on a higher-res display."
It doesnt apply for 32-38inch 8k monitors because PPI is so much higher.
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I get the PPI argument, but even supersampling doesn't look perfect at odd multiples. Running a 4K image integer-sampled on an 8K display would be perfectly fine, but then running 1440p or 5K on it would not be ideal. That's my main concern when on a quest for perfection :D
@Penoys - yeah, the TV space doesn't innovate quite as much...screens in general don't - my current display that I bought in 2015 is nowdays MORE expensive than it's ever been, for example. I'm more waiting for the prices to go down a bit more so I can get a nice big LG with all the bells, rather than waiting on the tech itself to advance. Plus my current 4K TV was a really good deal on a black friday years ago :D
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i have to say that i never played on ultrawide monitor, but just the fact that its not universally supported as 16:9 is enough to scare me away from it, especially older games should be problematic to run without issues or letterboxing. Im perfectly happy with 16:9 and for racing simulators i use triple screen setup which is even better, so yeah, i probably will never get ultrawide.
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Exactly. I don't want to try it because either it's not that good and I wasted my money, or it's amazing and then I'm stuck hoping for ultrawide support or hacking it in every game I get. No thanks, I'll stick with 16:9 and be happy not knowing what I'm missing lol
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There's usually a listing of supported games online. Planned to buy an ultrawide myself but after seeing that most of my regularly played games weren't listed I decided to abandon ship.
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What are you all playing that isn't supported?
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"But if you want to go 4K ultrawide that’s just not going to happen unless you have a whole heap of cash just lying around." Um, I thnk it's not going to happen, correct me if I'm wrong, because they don't make them.
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There might have been some crazy custom 4K monitors, but I haven't been able to find any mention of 4K ultrawide (so you might be right)
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Thats because 3840x2160 is 16:9. I think ultrawide 4k would be the equivalent in pixels. Something like 5120x2160 but then it would be more then 4k. MSI makes one at around 1200$ and lg has one for around 1400. Id rather get a 49in if i had the room and just go 5120x1440.
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Understandable
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Thanks, I hadn't seen these. I guess I'm technically still right since they are marketing them as 5K.
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I will never go back to 16:9. Ultrawide completely changed my gaming and movies experience and I love it!
I have RTX 3080 Ti and in some maxed AAA games I can't even achieve 100 FPS (my Alienware is 3440x1440 @ 120 Hz). The point is that with 4K it will be worse experience with lower FPS in 16:9! than with much wider screen with higher FPS on high-end GPU.
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Same monitor I've got, they're great. My 2080 is dipping as low as 45 FPS in just a couple of titles, which is about as low as I can stand even with Gsync, so I definitely wouldn't want to have worse performance with less space.
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Personally, I think we will have this forever trickling down effect. I think right now 1440p is the best resolution, noticeably better than 1080p, but not too hard to run, or even do higher FPS with. So this likely will become next mainstream resolution. 4k is still in spot where it feels bit too demanding and prices bit too high, so it still isn't ready for mainstream.
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Though 4k will also eventually get easy enough to run, so people will just move to it, plus monitor prices will go down. But we just aren't there yet. So I would say 1440p is better for now. As for ultrawide, never wanted to get that, feels weird to me, I am not used to it, plus while game support improved, it is kind of niche resolution, so there will always be worse cases for support.
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At least out of the box without mods and widescreen fixes. So personally I love to stick to more common resolutions, so I know developers will support it well for years to come, without those effects, like stretched image.
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yeah maybe it might sound crazy for some people, but not consistent support was one of the reasons why i dropped 144hz monitor market(outside of insane hardware requirements which constantly increases). It was quite common to dig in config files and other nonsense to unlock the fps in story based games and in some other games it was just impossible to do it. I think with ultrawide is somewhat similar issue, its probably cool when it works but its useless when it doesnt.
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1440p will never be as mainstream as 720p or 1080p was, because only games use that resolution, all other media is either 1080p or 4k these days. Not saying 1440p is bad choice for monitor right now, but it is stepping stone like 900p was. rtx 3090 can play all newest games at 60fps+ at 4k ultra settings, we are 2-3 gpu generations away for 4k to be much more usable for budget/midrange market.
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Good point, yeah, probably won't be as mainstream. Might be hard to believe today, but 1080p was once hard to run too, so 4k will definitely go mainstream. It is just question of which graphic card generation does it.
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yeah, i think 1080ti was the first mainstream gpu which could do 4k comfortably, earliest users might have went with 980ti + 4k combo but it should have been rough on newest games(at the time 980ti was new gpu). Though im not happy about nvidia with ampere generation is its vram allocation for their higher end cards, absolutely non 4k friendly.
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I would classify 1440p as the mainstream gaming resolution 27" 1440p 144hz has great pixels per inch ratio no need to scale anything. Easier to run than a 4k high refresh monitor.
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27inch 2440p 144hz monitors has indeed very good balance but what many people dont realize that 1440p at 144hz is actually harder to run than 4k 60fps at least in non esports stuff. Because high refresh rate gaming not only requires beefy gpu but also very good cpu and fast ram.
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1440p is a great balance so far i dont think i´ve seen a serious issue where my gpu utilization isnt 99% running native resolution 60hz+.
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and you can get some really good deals on 1440p 60hz panels as well, though if you pick your monitor for longer haul then 4k 32inch is sweet spot
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depends what you're looking for. Probably the ideal choice is to go for 1440p if u want to switch from 1080p, but a better hardware is needed to run games on 1440p. As for 4k i can't tell unless you're buy a big TV screen with high resolution to watch movies/tv shows and whatever your country provides i don't feel the need of 4k at the moment.
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I've purchased 15inch gaming laptop and i played a couple of games with it. Like verdun and kingdom come deliverance. If you're wondering should i get a bigger screen then my answer is 100% years. Ideal is 24inch for 1080p and 27inch+ for 1440p. Bigger screen doesn't require better higher unless the resolution is higher than your current.
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the size from which i switched from 15 inch to 24 is massive. I was even amazed the difference between smaller and bigger screen is. And i've played like 1-2 weeks on the small laptop. As for which size for laptop i would suggest i would go with 17 inch instead of 15, but at the time of purchase i didnt cared about the size.
PC Specs
I have a 1440p 144hz 27" TN dell. Seeing the gpu prices creep i would recommend going 1440p high refresh rate. I also have a 4k cx oled 55" angled at my bed(for videos/movies). Im also running the oled as 1440p 120hz at that distance(2,2m avay) you couldnt tell a difference in resolution and my 1080ti cant run it 4k 120hz (lacks hdmi 2.1).
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Never got the ultra wide monitor thing since most media is 16:9 and i like my monitors/tv´s flat. Its not great for editing since the curve effects colours...
PC Specs
I only just bought the Asus PG259QN 360hz monitor this afternoon, was only £456 off amazon atm, yes its 1080p but it will do what i need, my 4k tv is right next to my pc for when i want to try out games at 4k, so best of both worlds
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Yeah the thing with the really high refresh rates are - can the game/cpu/gpu handle it and the panel response times fluctuate through out the refresh range (see hardware unboxed monitor reviews for more info)
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yeah, my main focus wasn't just the high hz, yes 360hz is good to look at, but i was mostly just wanting a great 1080p monitor, and plenty reviews show this one is one of the best 1080p you can get atm and Asus never failed me yet, it also has great color, and i wanted proper full g-sync and this monitor uses less power than my current one, this monitor should hold me out for a long time :)
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Yeah most people keep their monitors until it breaks/5 years+. And thats why hardware unboxed monitor reviews are a godssend.
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I went Ultrawide a while back and love it! My main thing I'm saving up for this blackfriday will be another 1440p Ultrawide Monitor so I can have a stacked setup.
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1440p ultrawide is nice for work too. You can crop to 16:9 if you need to for certain games.
I think the tough part is pushing the frames. 4k 120hz means you will have to always upgrade your GPU to play with good settings, although DLSS does help. 1440p 120hz ultrawide is like 30% less demanding.
Eventually 4k 120hz won't be the upper limit of performance, but for now it's just out of reach.
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i did the entire ultra wide for a little while... it's cool in the beginning but eh after a month or 2, so currently just sitting in a corner waiting for DP 2.0 GPUS to arrive along side 4k@240hz monitors for some pretty darn good future proofing :)
PC Specs
Im gonna wait out the 32" and lower 120hz+ OLED monitors.