4K or 1440p or 1080p for new PC?

[Taz]

I currently have an HP 1080p monitor for my Mac Mini. It does the job fine. However, I want to build a new gaming PC for flight sims and was wondering whether to stick to 1080p or move up to 1440p or even 4K in terms of monitor?

[kalniel]

Only you can know

I like the look of 1440p - but even that requires quite beefy GPUs at the moment. 4K is right out if you need gaming oomf.

The framepacing monitors sound like a great match for flight sims though, so have a look at freesync or if your game likes nvidia cards, g-sync.

[EndlessWaves]

For a computer both horizontal and vertical resolution matter, not just vertical like on a TV. So '1080p' would cover both 1920x1080 and 2560x1080 but there's a big difference between them in usability (and performance!).

[deejayburnout]

Depending on your budget, I would buy the best you can afford. A good monitor would last you years.

[kalniel]

Depending on your budget, I would buy the best you can afford. A good monitor would last you years.

Right, but that doesn't answer the question For the same budget you could buy a fast/variable refresh 1440p or a fixed 4k. Both would be objectively 'the best'

[virtuo]

For flight sims and nothing else,I think an ultrawide would be great, 1080 lines or 1440 lines if you have the budget.

[Taz]

Yeah, it's pretty much going to be a flight-sim computer - a present to myself for Christmas. Just getting back into PCs so don't really know what's out there right now. My last exposure to PC hardware was the kit in my profile (my system) - you can see how long ago that was!

I'm catching up fast though and didn't consider a monitor upgrade as my current 1080p monitor seems fine. There's also the question of whether FSX or X-Plane run well in resolutions above 1080p, all the way up to 4K.

I'm after ultra-realism but don't want to to end spending £2K to £2.5K on a new PC if I can help it.

[Mr_Chris]

I'd go 1440p, it's the happy medium until 4k becomes more manageable

[deejayburnout]

Right, but that doesn't answer the question For the same budget you could buy a fast/variable refresh 1440p or a fixed 4k. Both would be objectively 'the best'

Correct but wouldn't you get a better quality 1440p panel than a 4k one for the same money.

[kalniel]

Correct but wouldn't you get a better quality 1440p panel than a 4k one for the same money.

Depends what you call better quality. You'd likely get a higher refresh rate for the same money.

[madmantheonlyone]

I have recently replaced my monitor and I went for 1440p, I think the days of 1080p are coming to an end soonish, but 4k is still not within comfortable reach.
The reason is gpu performance. Currently even the best single chip gpus cannot handle 4k at an acceptable fps. these same cards are now being a bit of an overkill for 1080p, but they are just right for 1440p (this and the next generation, even more) I think it will be another 3-4 years before 4k gaming will enjoy the same framerates. Obviously you can double up cards and run then in crossfire/sli and get acceptable performance, but I'd rather take 1440p@144hz with 90+ fps than 4k@60hz (with any fps...), also dual card setups are just a pain most of the time, they dont work, they stutter, whatever.. maybe dx12 will change that but dx12 being widespread is also at least 2 years away at this point

[jeromesm3]

4K is the trend right now. I'm currently using a 1080P and 1440P monitors. 1080P will still be the standard for many more years...

[christreleaven]

Depends on your budget... 4K is nice, but you need some serious GPU power for decent gaming.

[TheFoxx]

It may also be worth considering the size of the monitor when deciding the resolution. If you want a larger monitor then you'll benefit more from a higher resolution.

27" Is possibly a reasonable limit for 1080p. 1440p is optimal for 27" since that keeps you at a standard DPI, but good for larger monitors still.

As others have said 4K is entirely luxury right now due to gfx card requirement, 1440p is the way to go

[Snake-J]

Been reading up about this a lot and have just gone for 2k 144hz myself waiting for the monitor to arrive. My reasoning was to get the best I could in regards to the hz as 4k wont go above 60 then in the future can always get a second 4k monitor when the technology is better!

[DeltaSierra]

I think 2K is best atm. 4k maybe in a year or so. I am leaving the 4K as a later addition to my setup. Besides, getting more screens can never be a bad thing!