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- 1440p monitors offer a balanced price-to-performance ratio, often costing a lot less than their 4K counterparts while still keeping up on the visual forefront.
- High refresh rate gaming is a lot more possible with 1440p, which can be a huge advantage for competitive gamers.
- 4K proves to be a much more expensive option compared to 4K, especially considering the hardware cost required to run at that high of a resolution.
Now that 4K monitors have become cheaper, taking advantage of such a crisp resolution only makes sense right? Well, not so much for me. Sure, the increased pixel count of 4K makes it perfect for larger displays; however, 1440p still prevails as the ideal resolution for me, and that too for a large number of reasons.
The Sweetspot For Gaming
Offering an increased pixel count while also costing significantly less than 4K monitors, I found 1440p to be the ideal middle ground when it comes to monitor resolutions. In my opinion, it provides drastic upgrades over 1080p without costing a lot more, which is why it is also starting to become the industry standard for gaming.
Not only that, but the resolution also allows you to opt for a larger display without sacrificing pixel density. Personally, I think a 27′ makes the most sense with a 1440p display; however, the benefits over 1080p are still pretty drastic with a 24′ monitor.
No Need For High-End GPUs
If you take a look at Nauman Siddique’s list of the Best 1440p GPUs, you are going to notice that a flagship graphics card is not really a requirement for 1440p gaming. In fact, you can also get away with older GPUs such as the RX 6700 XT and the RTX 2070 Super, both of which deliver reasonable frames at 1440p in most modern titles.
This means that even someone like me, who uses an older rig, is still able to benefit from simply upgrading their display. For the games where I am unable to achieve a reasonable frame rate, I can turn on DLSS or FSR, both of which maintain great visual clarity when upscaling from 1080p to 1440p.
Competitive Gaming Is Still Possible
Competitive gamers who want to benefit from a high refresh rate option without switching to 1080p can utilize 1440p to get the best of both worlds. This has also become a more practical approach now that high refresh rate 1440p monitors are no longer as expensive as they used to be, with monitors such as the GIGABYTE-M27Q-P coming in at a price as low as $250.
Not only that, most modern GPUs are able to push high frames even at a higher resolution like 1440p, especially in easier-to-run competitive titles such as Valorant and Counter-Strike.
Don’t just take my word for it, Nvidia’s direct comparison between 1080p and 1440p highlights the benefits offered by the better clarity of 1440p, which is something you’d want in competitive titles.
4K Is Still Too Expensive
Despite the upgrades over 1440p, I think upgrading to a 4K monitor is a costly expense that still doesn’t make sense for the majority of gamers. Of course, the cost has continued to drop over the course of the past few years; however, it still sits way above 1440p.
Combine the overall cost of the monitor with the hardware required to run at such a high resolution, and you can expect 4K to set you back a couple of thousand dollars. To put that into perspective, only a handful of graphics cards, such as the RX 7900 XTX and the RTX 4090, are truly capable of providing a native 4K 60fps experience.
Granted, most users will use DLSS or FSR for a boost in performance, but even then, getting a sub-100 fps experience from a top-of-the-line GPU seems a bit outrageous to me.
Final Thoughts
In my opinion, the balanced price-to-performance you get with 1440p monitors simply cannot be matched with other resolutions. What’s more, high refresh rate gaming at 4K still seems too far-fetched, even with a high-end GPU. Until most graphics cards become capable of churning out decent frames at 4K, I’ll be sticking to 1440p options.
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Arsalan Shakil (aka GuyThatDoesEverything on YouTube) is a PC Tech Enthusiast and Electronic Geek. With over 10+ years of experience in Electronics, he then decided to explore Software Engineering to design embedded products and automate existing hardware solutions.
When he started tearing down old cameras to understand how they worked, he was shocked (literally, when he got zapped by a flash discharge capacitor), giving him the power (debatable) to fall in love with videography/photography. He also started making some fun videos that later became YouTube tech reviews.
Skills:
- 10+ years of experience in Electronics design, embedded solutions, and prototyping
- Majored in Software Engineering
- Research paper publication in IEEE for Embedded Military Uniform & LoRa WAN wireless technology
- Specialized in IoT Solutions
- PC Enthusiast & PC Modder
In his local region, he’s known to expose cheap PSU brands, often claiming fake certification or false claims on the box. He’s a true nerd and needed some friends in his life. Then he met some guys who work at Tech4Gamers, and they also came out to be equal nerds who suggested he join Tech4Gamers as a Hardware Expert.
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