Do I Really Need More Than 1080p?

[thismafiaguy]

I was recently shopping for a new monitor, and in many reviews people complained about "but it's only 1080p" regardless of monitor size. But why are people so obsessed with higher resolutions?

I've been running 1600x900 for many years and I never once thought things were jaggy or blurry. I use my computer for gaming, movies, and homework(not necessarily in that order), and even 1600x900 has been more than adequate.

At 1080p on an average sized monitor, I really can't see the pixels unless I'm less than 12" from the monitor, and that's if the image isn't moving. I honestly can't think of a way to justify spending quite a few more pennies for a higher resolution, while also sacrificing graphics performance, for an improvement that I probably won't be able to see unless I had the eyes of a fighter pilot.

 

[swilczak]

I agree the high resolution monitors are way too expensive. I will purchase one in the future when the price is reduced to around $300, and when graphics cards are powerful enough to not suffer in performance. The response time on these new high resolution monitors is usually slow. 1080p is fine for me right now. It looks wonderful with a high end GPU, a 120hz monitor and with the settings cranked up.

 

[Diamond-HP]

God the day 1080p isn't good enough sheesh, I'm still on my 720p 32" Samsung.

I don't like to over pay for certain things as I always feel if your on the edge of technology everything is more costly, you always get a lot more for your money if your one step behind the market trend.

As has been mentioned, your gonna need a top end card just to handle that resolution, plus buying the TV and I've heard cards are struggling to play Ultra because of the extra demand.

If you got the $$$ fair game, if you like a sensible buy or bargain then stick to 1080p or so.

 

[aonor]

1080p is fine currently as 1440p is too expensive and not a mainstream consumer product.

 

[Diamond-HP]

Once you go higher resolution, you never go back.

I can believe it however getting there and optimizing your system to fully utilize it properly is another thing altogether.

I'm guessing that's why your packing a GTX 780 Dual SLI set up? lol

 

[swilczak]

Once you go higher resolution, you never go back.

I can believe it however getting there and optimizing your system to fully utilize it properly is another thing altogether.

I'm guessing that's why your packing a GTX 780 Dual SLI set up? lol

Vey true, I only have one 7950 right now so I don't plan to go higher than 1080p with it, especially since I want high frame rates with my 120hz monitor.

 

[thismafiaguy]

I'm too blind to see all the individual pixels on my 1080p screen at a normal distance, but I know what you mean by never going back. I remember going from 1024x768 to 1280x1024, I was pretty surprised that I didn't realize how blurry 1024x768 actually was. Maybe I'll see a 1440p and 1080p monitor side by side one day, so I can actually make some noticeable comparisons. But since I'm a student and I have no need for extremely high resolutions, I'll stick to my Pavilion 27xi until I can find some 4k 120Hz monitors for less than $300, but then I would need 4 way SLI just to play Minecraft...

The bottom line for me is, I always consider the cost/benefit ratio, and I strongly agree that the closer you get to the cutting edge, the more exponentially expensive it's going to be. For me, 1080p was a nice step up, and I look forward to playing my favorite games on it. But I'll probably also stick to it for a while because I can't afford the hardware to max my games out on ultra high resolutions. I got my 27xi monitor for $240, and my GTX 670 for $360. There is no way I'll be able to match this cost/performance ratio at 1440p