4K monitor, 1080p gaming

[LegoFace]

Hello – I'm trying to figure out a reasonably spec'd PC (RTX 2070, Ryzen 9 3900 perhaps) for mostly work but also gaming. My monitor will be 4K (I need for work) but I don't necessarily want to game in 4K because I assume (I don't know, hence I'm asking) I'd need to spend more on the spec to run games on a 4K monitor. Or can I run 1080/1440 games on a 4K monitor (upscaled?!, ugly?!). No idea, honestly.

I would really appreciate some advice. My budget for the PC (excluding monitor) will be around £1200-1400.

Many thanks

 

[SlimCini]

My laptop has a 4k amoled panel but I game on it in 1080p and it looks very nice. I think it's the amoled making it very nice primarily but I don't notice any ugly 4k --> 1080p artifacts.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Yeah....I had a quick read around before I posted and it seemed, for some reason, 1080p upscales better than 1440p...which, frankly makes zero sense to me

1080p is 1k, 2160p is 4k, 1k goes into 4k 4 times.

1440p doesn’t go into 2160 without factorising so the pixel ratio is all messed up.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Thank you for explaining it...now it does make sense. Just as well I didn't recommend a 1440p system then

They complicate it as a lot of people refer to 1440p as 2k but it isn’t really.

I always used to get confused because I’d think but 2160/2 is 1080 so why is it 4 times? You’ve got to remember thats only factoring the vertical pixels. You times the vertical by the horizontal to get the full pixels so it’s x2 on the vertical AND x2 on the horizontal.

 

[LegoFace]

Thank you for all the kind replies. Still not 100% sure what to do. I'll seek out some YT videos on 1080p gaming on 4K monitor (large). Cheers

 

[SlimCini]

They complicate it as a lot of people refer to 1440p as 2k but it isn’t really.

I always used to get confused because I’d think but 2160/2 is 1080 so why is it 4 times? You’ve got to remember thats only factoring the vertical pixels. You times the vertical by the horizontal to get the full pixels so it’s x2 on the vertical AND x2 on the horizontal.

The other confusing bit for some is the fact these are 2d areas and not 1d dimensions.

Doubling the length of all sides of a rectangle quadruples the area. So to get only double the area you need to increase the length of all sides by square root of 2.

The stupid bit is why they decided to choose the vertical pixel count of 1080 as the number to describe 1080x1920 but the horizontal pixel number of 3840 (and then round that to 4000 to get 4k) to describe 2160x3840. Bizarre.

If that is 4k then 1080p is actually 2k.

And 1440 (which is 1440x2560) is actually 2.6k

 

[SpyderTracks]

Thank you for all the kind replies. Still not 100% sure what to do. I'll seek out some YT videos on 1080p gaming on 4K monitor (large). Cheers

Basically, if you wanted to game at less resolution than native 4k on a 4k monitor, 1080p will scale better. BUT the best physical size for a 1080p monitor is around 24", over that you start to be able to see the individual pixels so will look jagged and spotty, so the larger the screen, the less smooth the picture becomes.

 

[LegoFace]

Basically, if you wanted to game at less resolution than native 4k on a 4k monitor, 1080p will scale better. BUT the best physical size for a 1080p monitor is around 24", over that you start to be able to see the individual pixels so will look jagged and spotty, so the larger the screen, the less smooth the picture becomes.

I see. I'm looking at a 27" or 32" size monitor. It's the not knowing how good/bad games will look before a huge outlay. Perhaps text for menus etc. will look pixelated. Hmmm. Many thanks.

 

[LegoFace]

it may be worth seeing if you can find comparison photos (or videos) to visually show the differences and then you can decide if it's tolerable to you.

Good idea!