Considering going back to 1080p....

I have a nice Dell 1440p monitor...it's been really great. I love the extra clarity of the graphics and whatnot. But I also REALLY miss being able to max out everything and still get 60 fps.

I have an old samsung 1080p monitor I'm going to use for a couple days and see how gaming compares.

I'm curious if anyone else feels the same way or if anyone here has went backward as well.

My PC: Sapphire r9 290 tri-x, Intel i5-3570K

I can see where you are coming from - resolution isn't everything. Sometimes being able to juice the other eye candy and get stable framerates could certainly be preferable to raw pixel count. 1080p looks great on smaller-moderate sized monitors

I rather drop settings down than drop resolution. I sometimes drop a few unimportant settings down to get a constant 1440p/120fps

This is why I waited going to 1440p.

As for now my next video monitor will be that Acer 1440p IPS G-sync monitor. I have a single GTX 970 and it does a phenomenal job at 1080p. I think it will be a bit lackluster for 1440p though.

I have decided to basically wait till one of three things happen to get the monitor though.

1. Wait till "Pascal's" flagship GPU is launched which should alleviate that problem.

2. Wait till DX12/Windows 10 comes out to get that massive performance increase. (just hope Windows 10 actually has support/compatibility for all my music hardware/software, Or I will have two different SSDs with two different Windows on them.)

3. Wait till that brand new Acer monitor I mentioned above gets on a killer sale.

I know this is a somewhat long post basically to say I feel you man.

You cannot do 1440p without a 980GTX, that is the ABSOLUTE minimum. 3K and 4K HD cannot be done under a $1000

It's one of the reasons I've been holding for my Acer XB270HU, which I just ordered - you need an excess of power. By the end of the year I should have another GTX 980 and I should have an excess of power for a long time.

It's expensive to maintain a 1440P setup. If you aren't into keeping your PC up to date yearly, it makes a lot sense to get a 1080P or 1200P setup. There's nothing wrong with it, really. It's just size and sharpness - I'd rate the game's overall graphics as being more important.

Or have more than one... Just switch one you game on.

I would prefer 1080p max settings over 1440p lowered settings. I understand where you are coming from. However, this is a sign that it is time for you to upgrade your GPU setup if you can afford to do so.

But an R9 290 is a pretty decent card.

@BSC14: Decent for 1080p. I'd recommend 290 crossfire or wait for the 300 series if you want to realistically do 1440p 60+fps max settings. I knew one 970 would not be enough, so I bought 2 right away.

Yes you can. I'm running a GTX780 and can max out most games at 2560X1440. There are only a few games I play where I have to turn the settings down a tad (this usually just means lowering/turning off AA). Many of the best games Pc has to offer aren't even particularly good looking games. There are relatively few games that really push modern PC hardware.

I have 2 GTX 970s overclocked to performs similar or slightly better than stock GTX 980s.

I also game at 1440p and I have no worries for performance so I just max everything out in the games I play.

I even play some games at 4k or 5k res.

@BSC14: Resolution really depends on the size of the monitor. I really prefer 60FPS or as close as I can get. I have an 18.4in laptop so I'm pretty fine with 1080, games look great.

If you got a second R9 290 then you'd be really enjoying 1440P.

Single R9 290 should max graphics at 1440p, if not get another one.

Doesn't make sense. Why would you discard a perfectly working component for an inferior one? Simply crossfire or upgrade your card when the time comes.

I'm quite happy about all this 3k, 4k hype - because it's just becoming so easy and cheap to max games on 1080p.

So long as your screen is 24" or less, 1080p is fine.

1440p isn't that much of an improvement over 1080p to warrant purchasing a monitor for it, 4k on the other hand is exactly the upgrade I'd be looking for, thing is though, its to expensive, plus I still find 1080p to be an acceptable resolution margin, until there are GPUs powerful enough to run games at max settings, maintain 120fps without effort at 4k for an affordable price, as well as monitors or TV for an affordable I see no reason to leave 1080p, like I said 1080p still looks amazing and thanks to AA and nvidias new Dynamic Super Resolution technology I will be staying with 1080p for a very very long time.

Maxwell is 1080 sweet spot, Pascal should be 1440 sweet spot and Volta should be close to 4k sweet spot... Single GPU.

That's why I still haven't even upgraded my monitor yet. I love my max settings and high frame rate.

i went from 1440p back down to 1080p over a year ago and havent regreted it since. I mostly did it cause i found my newer 1080p monitor looked better and was easier on my eyes then my crappy dell 1440p since it had a really bad antiglare coating which i couldnt stand any more. But on the plus side games run easier at 1080p.

This was back when i had a 680gtx and it could run most at 60fps on 1440p but som didn't run quite full 60fps, like Tombraider for example. I have a 970gtx now and its probably just enough to run most games at 1440p but likely by the time i get a new monitor, it'll probably be 1440p and i'll have a newer video card again.

Sounds about right. But I'm not expecting that much from my future 4k upgrade.

I currently game on a 24" 1080p monitor. And I doubt having a 28" 4k monitor will look all that much better.

I find 1080p just fine on my 27". I would definitely go higher if I went any larger though.