1440p vs 4K for GAMING in 2024 (PC & PS5)
Seeing as I’m surrounded by some fantastic monitors, namely a collection of 1440p and 4K panels, I thought it’d be a good idea to talk through what your options are at the start of 2024 – should you get a 4K monitor, or is 1440p the better choice? Let’s find out! Now, it should be pretty clear that 4K monitors are just outright better. More pixels means a sharper, more crispy image, and that means you get a generally better image quality. Everyone would love to be running 8K 1000Hz monitors if they could, but sadly we have to snap back to reality. In this often bleak reality, we have a few key constraints, namely the horsepower required to render all those millions of pixels.
For some context, 4K – that is 3840 by 2160 – is just shy of 8.3 million pixels. 1440p, 2560 by 1440, is just 3.7 million pixels. A 4K monitor has 125% more pixels, or 2.25 times more. That means running a 4K display is HARDER to run than TWO 1440p displays. That puts a significant strain on your hardware – whether that’s a gaming PC or a games console, and means you have to sacrifice either visual quality – something that seems antithetical to the point of getting a higher resolution monitor – or sacrifice frame rate. For some systems, like those equipped with shiny RTX 4090’s, that might not be the biggest deal. It has enough horsepower to play most games at reasonable settings, and at reasonable frame rates. Sure, you can get more performance by running at 1440p, but if you’ve got enough horsepower it doesn’t matter all that much.
It also depends on what sort of games you play, and how much of your screen time is dedicated to gaming versus working or watching films and TV. For those that might spend more time using their PS5 as a BluRay player and so care more about having the utmost in visual fidelity, a 4K panel would almost certainly be a better choice. If you only play games like Stardew Valley or generally slower paced or cinematic titles, again, 4K is probably the better choice – if we forget things like price of course. Still, if that sounds like your sort of usage, you can be pretty confident in your choice to get a 4K display over a 1440p one.
If you play anything more fast-paced though, things like FPS games, fighting games, or even racing games, having a higher frame rate is a really big deal. Beyond the outright smoothness that comes from higher performance and higher refresh rates, the faster your frame time, the lower the latency you’ll experience between acting and having that action rendered. For racing games, that means you can control the car easier and improve lap times. For FPS games that means you can’t blame the equipment when you still lose every engagement. Sorry, I had to. No really it means you can respond quicker to what’s happening on screen, and the same goes for fighting games. This is pretty easy to demonstrate too – here’s what the on display latency looks like at 60 FPS, 120 FPS, and 160 FPS. You literally HALF the latency going from 60 to 120, and the closer you get to your monitor’s refresh rate, the lower the latency you’ll experience. These results by the way come from my open source latency testing tool, and if you’re interested in testing stuff like this yourself, you can pick one up at OSRTT.com!
If you’re gaming on a console, things are even more complicated as consoles like this PS5 offer a more limited set of outputs and performance. This PS5 CAN run at 4K 120Hz, but only in a handful of games, and only if you have an HDMI 2.1 monitor. If you opt for a 1440p panel instead, you’ll be a lot more likely to be getting full resolution at 120Hz, although it is worth noting that you might need an HDMI 2.1 monitor anyway to use variable refresh rate, something I’d highly recommend. If you’re gaming on a PC though, unless you have a top-end GPU, there’s no doubt you’ll get considerably better performance gaming at 1440p versus 4K, which contributes to a much smoother and more responsive experience.
The last thing you might want to consider is price. As a generalisation, 1440p high refresh rate monitors are a good bit cheaper than a 4K high refresh rate monitor. Of course, you don’t have to get a high refresh rate 4K monitor and that helps balance the price out, but if you want lower latency and a smoother experience, I’d highly recommend it. Apples to apples, that is 1440p 165Hz versus 4K 165Hz, you’re looking at £300-400, versus £500-700. Equally, if you do need an HDMI 2.1 monitor like this MSI MAG 323UPF, there’s a chance that’s going to be more expensive as it’s only the newest crop of displays that actually offer that – at least for now.
Of course, you should get what fits your needs best, but if I can be so bold as to throw my hat in the ring here, I’d say that 1440p ends up being the better choice for gaming right now. At some point when we have 4090 levels of performance in 4050 priced cards, 4K might be a better bet, but for the time being that’s where I’d put my money. With that said, I’d love to hear what you think in the comments down below!
