since 21:9 is stupidly expensive, im down to either a 1440p or a 4k since they are pretty much priced the same(below RM2k)

ive done some digging but fail to find a simple answer. how does a 1080p and 1440p contents look on a 4k monitor?(mainly videos and gamings)
lets cut all the crap on scalling and pixels grandma story. we need real answer from actual 4k owners. is it acceptable in real life conditions.

i have 6700k with a 980. moving up from a 27" FHD i need the extra pixels mainly for work but im afraid that it would somehow affect my gaming and movies.
1440p monitor would still be ok for my gamings, but a 4k is kinda future-proof plus more pixels for my works.

if any 4k owners could give their opinion would be best

- how does 1080p/1440p contents look on 4k? (assuming screen size are the same)

FYI, i bought my ultrawide for rm1040. although it's 2560x1080p

to answer your question, everything will look smaller on 4k (given the same screen size and you don't scale it properly)

yeah but i need more vertical pixels and 1440p ultrawide is like rm3600 the cheapest. costs more than my rig lol.

btw to make things more understandable:
assuming we have 3 monitors, 1080p,1440p & 4k, and size is the same 27".
all three playing the same 1080p videos(or game) fullscreen.

will there be any significant difference since the image is shown through the same screen size?

I'm currently using Samsung U28D590D. For viewing high res photos and UHD videos in their native resolution, its really nice. Gaming wise, some games, I ran at 3840 x 1620 21:9, some at UHD 16:9. I've tried running 1440P, but once you've seen 2160P, 1440P is kinda blurry.

If you view 1080P or 1440P content on UHD, its just like viewing the content on 1080P or 1440P monitor (same monitor size). UHD is not going to make the content any nicer because the source is already on lower resolution.

going from 1200p to 2160p, yes it really is a huge jump and i'm loving the 4k contents.

But please, do take into account of the hardware that's needed to drive that 4k screen. To fully enjoy the 4k experience, one should have decent hardware. Here's my take on my experience.

Previously was on a single R9 290 on a 4k screen. Games like DOTA 2 looked really nice, it's totally different when playing on 1200p.

The nightmare begins when you just purchased AAA titles. I started on Far Cry 4, getting 20-30fps on 4k ultra, certain part of the game tend to drop to 10-20fps region which ruins the experience. Then i added another R9 290 on Crossfire. Far Cry 4 then shines, getting 40-50fps on 4k ultra is mindblowing on Far Cry 4. Then comes The Division. Getting flickering issues on Crossfire so i had to play on windowed mode and bump down the quality to medium. Such a turnoff.

I ended up upgrading to a single 980 ti and i'm getting 40fps on 4k ultra in The Division.

TL:DR version.

Choose your path wisely, if you ask me now, i'd put my money on a 1440p g-sync or free-sync monitor anytime anyday. Heck i'll even go for 1080p 144hz anytime anyday as well. It's pointless to go 4k and playing games at medium. Unless you have money to burn, to really enjoy 4k on any games with all the bells and whistles turn on, make sure you have SLi 980 Tis. I'm not kidding.

FullHD on 4K UHD is like running 960 x 540 on FullHD screen. (or if you like, 1280 x 720 content on 2560×1440)

1440p on 4K UHD is a lot more forgiving.

Next thing you need to factor in is the size. 27" would have more PPI compared to say like 32".

The 4K UHD monitor I used was 32" but I played games like League of Legends and Metro Last Light on Full HD.

To me it's acceptable because I didn't pay attention to detail, after all those games you would be more focused on the action rather than details so in the end it goes back to what you expect.

The above is correct.

From my experience running GTX 980 Ti and 4K UHD content, I'd second that you should aim for GTX 980 Ti SLI to fully enjoy 4K UHD resolution. If not then you're just playing at higher resolution and lowered details so it goes back to being no different from playing at Full HD / 1440P at reasonably high details.

A single GTX 980 Ti just barely cuts it for 4K UHD content.

GTX 980 SLI? Well it sort of works, that is it works until game settings take up more than 4GB RAM, then you suffer from memory starved performance.

But still can get 4K monitor, but run the game at 1080P or 1440P resolution if want to achieve max settings. At 4K, anti-aliasing impact diminished, so dont need to run AA, which bump up the fps significantly.

Unless 144 Hz fps is priority. My personal preference V-sync to 60 fps. Help reduce power consumption too in some games where the GPU dont need to max 100% utilization. I'm running Far Cry 4 3840 x 1620 (ultrawide with top bottom letter box), setting High, no AA with my GTX 970 SLI.

But I think, if gaming is the only thing you do on your PC, then getting 1080P, or 1440P or UHD monitor with the preferred Hz is your major consideration. But you like watching photos (captured on DSLR) or watching UHD video too, than you'll be missing a lot. Just gp to Harvey Norman and see those UHD 60 fps video samples, compare that to FHD and you know what I mean.

That's what people said about 1600x1200, 1920x1200 & 1920x1080 a few years ago.

LCD is meant to run at native resolution. 4k in, 4k out. Like any upscaling on LCD monitor, it will look terrible. Upscale on CRT & Plasma is the best, but these are obsolete.

Today's technology is not ready for 4k gaming at high fps.

But it's true that with higher pixel count, the need to apply Anti-Aliasing is lessen. AA needed to smooth out jagged lines visible at lower resolution, but higher resolution mean higher pixel density, hence the jagged line effect is not as obvious compare to lower res. I think these illustrations show what I mean



Moving from FHD monitor to UHD, I can tell you personally that you need to apply less or no AA when running games at this resolution.

On the upscalling thing, I'm not so sure if other monitors do any resolution upscalling, but my Samsung UHD doesn't. So if I play FHD movie or view 1920 x 1080 photo on my UHD monitor, it looks exactly the same if I run it on FHD monitor. But that is the point. If you have UHD monitor and you run FHD content, the content will just look same like you run it on a FHD monitor. If its terrible on FHD monitor, it will still look terrible on on UHD. If its nice on FHD, it will look just as nice on UHD. But if you watch UHD content (like movie or photos) on FHD monitor, it will never look as good or as nice as seeing it on UHD monitor. Even Youtube now started streaming some UHD content.

If you're gaming only, I guess its matter of preferences. Some prefer 144 Hz FHD than having 60 Hz UHD. Even top tier GPU struggle to push newer games to 60 fps on UHD. But if you do other things like watching photos or into UHD video contents, a UHD does have a lot of benefit. Even right now, UHD contents comes at max 60 FPS, which compare to normal FHD movies at 24/30fps, still whole lot nicer.

You go Nvidia thread say that and you'll get bashed.

I would agree with the less AA required part.

It's same like CRT days, AA was introduced when the reso was low and jaggies looked ugly. As resolutions improve (1600 x 1200 on 19" instead of 1024 x 768 on 15") the jaggies are more forgivable so from 8xAA you can just go 4x or 2x AA.

Keh keh keh, I'm currently team Nvidia. But no loyalty ha ha ha come Pascal and Polaris, need to consider again. I have concern about Nvidia Asyn Compute support for DX12. Read that even their upcoming Pascal may have issues with Async Compute. About gaming in UHD, some games like Grid 2 can run more than 80++ fps UHD Max out No AAwith GTX 970 SLI. BF4 campaign, I like 21:9 at 3840 x 1620 Ultra No AA, can get 60 fps though I cant see much difference between high and ultra, so i just run it at high. Crysis 3 - maybe I need to sell my car and get 2 x Radeon Pro Duo to crossfire