27: 2k vs 4k

Is there a big difference btw 2k and 4k when it comes to 27 inch monitors? talking about quality of pictures, pixels and etc

@Hydrolex: It is certainly noticeable, but is it worth the performance hit? Nope.

not now, but I believe in the next year or two, I'm sure nvidia and AMD will come up with graphic cards that can handle 4k. Don't you think?

Both are considered "retina" from a normal viewing distance for a 27" monitor.

Have to wait and see. Keep in mind that graphics keep advancing as well. A new game released 2 years from now will be pushing the limits and will be more demanding than games of today. Not sure if a single card solution will be able to cope with those titles at 4K/60fps Ultra. I can tell you I have a 1440p@144hz monitor with G-Sync and I love it. I have no desire to move to 4K at the moment. I will buy a 4K OLED TV down the road, but it will be a while before I upgrade my monitor. If they come out with a 4K@144hz or something, then I will switch. However, that may exceed the current HDMI 2.0 and Display Port 1.3 bandwidth limitations. It would also require a beast rig to run.

I have 4K G-Sync monitor and occasionally game in 4K with a single Titan X. I also use a i7 5820K that's overclocked to 4.5ghz.

My experience with playing MMORPGs in 4K has been a good one. The Elder Scrolls Online is one game that really benefits from it, especially the areas around Morrowind which are gorgeous. It also breathes new life into games like World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic. Plus my performance is consistently between a 50-60fps. One game that has great optimization and runs well on 4K in Star Wars: Battlefront. Games look amazing in 4K more than live video. It's a different experience.

With some games you might not see a drastic difference in 2K vs 4K. I usually play in 2K when I want consistency in my performance. In fact, the Witcher 3 is a perfect example. While 4K makes Gerald's adventure even more sharp, the difference isn't too big. However, I won't play Battlefront in 2K! I play Fallout 4 in 4K, but 2K is just fine too.

Not sure why you'd assume that. Maybe if game graphics stopped improving or something - but as long as game graphics keep improving (which they will), then it will be always hard to run new games at 4k and will always require a top end card.

If you're fine with playing old games or new games at medium settings (with a top of the line rig) - 4k is fine.

The PC hardware isn't there yet for a proper 4K gaming experience and neither are the refresh rates, 60hz is mind numbingly bad, I don't care what resolution you use.

I guess it's 30 fps or nothing with you.

What?

I had a 28 inch 4k monitor for a week. Traded it in for 1440. Much happier (144hz though). The 4k gave a wonderful picture, but icons/text/etc were very small for that size to me. I'm thinking 32+ would be better for a pc monitor at 4k.

I prefer 2k @144Hz

Like others have said if you want to play games on the more graphics intensive side you'll need multiple cards to maintain good frame rates. I'd much rather have the higher frame rate at 2k res.

2k as in 1920x1080? Please don't do it with 27 just don't. 1440p qhd is the way to go for the size.

Still too early for 4k, in my highly uneducated opinion.

I'd wager in one or two years 4K will be affordable, and in three to five years it will be borderline-standard (like 1080 is now). At least for PC gaming.

I have a 30 inch monitor and rarely use 4k. I mainly use 2k as the performance hit is huge and to be honest I prefer 2k.

Affordable how exactly? A gaming PC capable of running modern, pretty games at 4k and decent settings will not be affordable in most people's eyes any time soon. The monitor itself might get more affordable, but that doesn't necessarily mean PC gaming at 4k will be. Hardware doesn't advance that fast. My wager is that in 3-5 years from now you could probably get an affordable PC that could run games released today at high settings, 4k. But they won't be playing anything released 3-5 years from now at 4k (anything pretty at least)., so that probably won't be the standard for most people. I'm sure even then people will prefer 1080P or 1440P because 4k technically doesn't offer that much of an advantage. Most people out there really aren't just looking to hop on technology just because it's new and it exists. They'll do it when it makes sense. It will take much more than a few years for the performance trade off between 4k and 1080P to be worth it for the mainstream.

I'd say the sweet spot for a 27" monitor would be 3k resolution.

This kind of pisses me that tech is moving so slow now. I guess the money and potential is no longer there to push hardware faster. If today's with pc hardware moved as fast as 10 years ago than I'll bet we'd have 4k video cards for cheap already with good fps, and I'm speaking the olden days where a new release every year would crush the cards before that.

Affordable in that maybe in 2-3 years a card capable of running in 4K will be "budget" or "mid-range" (200-350 dollars) instead of "extreme high end" (600+ dollars) as it is now.

Affordable in that 4K monitors won't cost 400+ dollars, but 200.

And standard (for gamers, at least) in 5 or so years because by then prices would be even less, and everyone would have made the upgrade by then.

If anything, if technology was moving fast enough run games at 4k, then that means games would be progressing at a snails pace. Running games at extreme resolutions doesn't make sense when they don't look that much better than 1080p. That would be much better spent at creating high poly count models and lighting.

I want a 32-37" 4K, that's when I'll upgrade.

60HZ is good enough the worst thing about pc monitors it the contrast ratios are stuck in time and have been so for a long ass time almost no monitor has an actualt static contrast ration of over 1000:1 expect for a few exception my next monitor will mostly likely be a tv unless something with a good contrast ratio and black levels comes out like an oled monitor!

Im torn on this debate. I am planning to build a new right next year around broadwell-E and Pascal if the timing works. Ill probably start off transferring my 2 GTX970s until Pascal hits. My first thought was to get a 4k gsync monitor at the time, but the more I think about it Ill probably get a 1440p gsync monitor. Id rather push more frames then have the 4k I think.

Right now I have a 1080p 144hz gsync monitor. I dont think I can go back to sub-144hz!