Discussion Regarding the Correlation Between Monitor Resolution and GPU

J

john1911

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I have come across this advice countless times on Reddit (r/PCMR, r/gaming, etc.) and various other forums - Unless you have a high-end GPU, you should not invest in a 4K monitor. This seems to be a default response whenever someone posts a build advice for a PC with a 4K monitor and a mid-tier graphics card. While I understand that a mid-tier graphics card won't be able to run games at 4K resolution, I believe there’s an overlooked aspect of this argument. You can always lower the resolution while keeping the aspect ratio the same during gaming, allowing you to still enjoy the benefits of a higher-resolution monitor for all other tasks except gaming.

A few years ago, I often had to lower the resolution to 720p while gaming on a 1080p monitor because my GPU couldn't handle games at 1080p. But that was still a viable option. This question has been in the back of my mind for many years now, and I've had too much coffee today, so....

I understand that gaming at a monitor's native resolution is ideal, but the idea that you should avoid upgrading to a higher-resolution monitor simply because your current GPU can’t run games at that resolution doesn’t sit well with me. It’s hard to understand why this is such a common recommendation.

There are many benefits to owning a higher-resolution monitor, but the default response I keep hearing is to get a 1440p monitor unless you have a powerful GPU capable of running games at 4K. Is there some other reason behind this that I’m missing or unaware of?

TIA
 
High-end GPU is needed ONLY if you "Game in 4K". Otherwise, even a modern integrated GPU is enough to "drive" a monitor at 4K.
Hence, go ahead and buy a 4K monitor.
A practical advice: There's hardly any perceptive difference between 2K and 4K resolution in daily workloads.
There's a massive difference going from 720p to 1080p and from 1080p to 2K. However, beyond that, it is highly subjective.
Regardless, 4K monitors are an investment worth making.
 
Part of the reason is older wisdom that's being carried over today as if it's still relevant: monitors didn't have good upscalers, so a 1280x768 signal used look like a blocky mess on a 1400x900 monitor.

An LCD monitor had only one usable resolution, it's native one. So you'd need a much more powerful GPU to drive a higher resolution flat panel. This was also partly the reason why LCDs were never considered usable for gaming for many years, and why CRTs were relevant for as long as they were.

Obviously this is no longer true, otherwise console gamers wouldn't even exist or be considered mentally disadvantaged to not notice the difference, at least with gaming monitors. TVs generally had better scalers than monitors, mostly because of sports content.

You might still find some productivity centric monitors with very basic or even unusable scalers, like the stuff from South Korea a few years ago. Thankfullly sites like rtings tests these things.

Also why https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/what-is-amd-fidelityfx-super-resolution/ is so interesting.
 
alap4m said:
High-end GPU is needed ONLY if you "Game in 4K". Otherwise, even a modern integrated GPU is enough to "drive" a monitor at 4K.
Hence, go ahead and buy a 4K monitor.
A practical advice: There's hardly any perceptive difference between 2K and 4K resolution in daily workloads.
There's a massive difference going from 720p to 1080p and from 1080p to 2K. However, beyond that, it is highly subjective.
Regardless, 4K monitors are an investment worth making.
Click to expand...
4k allows larger displays. ppi matters too.

For gaming, i generally do not like using lower than quality levels with DLSS ( perhaps Balanced is ok). For all games i have tested so far, even at 4k, there is too much softness in motion. In static scenes even performance mode looks more or less ok. so 1080p internal res is ok too if you tolerate the downsides.

That said, if you want to use a slow card for 4k and say use performance/ultra perf to get best possible image+ framerate then DLSS works much better. FSR breaks down badly at lower internal resolutions. Difference is huge. At 4k quality it might be decent enough.

For older games, slow gpu should be fine too. So best case is just play older games, there are so many.

4k 32 is a very nice format much better than 27 1440p for me.
 
If you care about RT and you want to play all the latest titles at 4K, you need atleast 4070 Super (DLSS + FG). If gaming is not your priority and you're ok with lowering res for demanding games, buy any high res monitor you like that benefit your other workloads.
 
The recommendations (1440p) you get are apt!
If you enjoy soft, blurry visuals in games then why not - get 4k monitor!
Content at native resolution will look best.
 
john1911 said:
I understand that gaming at a monitor's native resolution is ideal, but the idea that you should avoid upgrading to a higher-resolution monitor simply because your current GPU can’t run games at that resolution doesn’t sit well with me. It’s hard to understand why this is such a common recommendation.

There are many benefits to owning a higher-resolution monitor, but the default response I keep hearing is to get a 1440p monitor unless you have a powerful GPU capable of running games at 4K. Is there some other reason behind this that I’m missing or unaware of?

TIA
Click to expand...
Other than the not-insignificant blurriness of running at a lower than native resolution, I'd assume that many making that recommendation would be users prioritising frame rate. 4K monitors comparable to high end 1440p cost about double the amount.
 
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