Going for one with a higher refresh rate will also enable your graphics card to refresh the image on-screen at faster rates to help eliminate blurring and tearing with fast-moving content. If you consistently surpass the barrier of your monitor's refresh rate (60Hz being the norm or 60 frames per second), then the leap to a 1440p monitor may be an ideal enhancement to your experience.Īlso, check benchmarks from reputable sources to see how your graphics card and setup could handle the extra demand.
Seeing how your PC handles games at 1080p would be a reliable way to estimate just how 1440p will go down.
Latest AMD and NVIDIA GPUs will be able to handle gaming at 1440p (as well as 1080p) and even support VR.
1440p is becoming more popular as consumers upgrade to more powerful hardware at affordable prices. Grabbing a sweet deal on a new 27-inch (or above) monitor for your gaming den will be an ideal investment, allowing you to choose a screen that offers an increased refresh rate and higher resolution. Again, this is only if your graphics card and accompanying components can muster up enough power. An example display could be a 1440p unit with a refresh rate of 144Hz, which will enable you to enjoy smooth gameplay at a higher resolution than Full HD. Most 1080p screens are 60Hz, while more expensive 120Hz screens can output 120 frames every second. Higher frame rates are better if your monitor can handle it.
We want to be aiming for a steady 60 frames per second (FPS) as an absolute minimum for smooth gameplay. As noted above, it depends on what your PC can handle. It doubles the horizontal and vertical resolution, so you can begin to understand just what's being asked of your graphics card when you throw an intensive application or game into the mix - four times the pixels. 7680×4320 - FUHD (Full Ultra HD) / 8K 4320pĤK is considered the true successor to 1080p.
Here are the resolutions we'll be working with when selecting a new monitor (or TV if you wish to get into couch gaming): 1440p and 4K are slowly acquiring market share, but often require the best graphics card options. 1080p is the most popular configuration used today. It is 10328 × 7760 pixels and is generally found on UltraWide aspect ratio screens, that is, 21: 9.One of the major factors to consider when choosing a new display is the resolution. This model is generally used in projection equipment.Ĭurrently, 10K is one of the largest resolutions found on the market. There is also a variation called 8K Fulldome, with a resolution of 8192 x 8192 pixels. This resolution can be found in different screen proportions, such as: It is also known as Full Ultra HD (FUHD) or 8K UHD. With four times more pixels than 4K, these screens have a resolution of 7680 x 4320 pixels. One of them is the one adopted by Digital Cinema Initiatives, with a 4096 x 2160 ratio.Īnother variation found is the Ultra Wide HDTV, 5120 x 2160 pixels. It is generally used for 19:10 aspect ratio screens.Īlthough the 3840 x 2160 ratio is the main aspect of this model, the 4K resolution has some variations. The 2K resolution, with proportions 2048 x 1080 pixels, is an intermediate version between Full HD and Ultra HD and ends up not being found in the market.ĢK is mainly adopted by the DCI (Digital Cinema Initiatives) film industry. They are also suitable for 16: 9 format screens. They have a better image quality than HD, with a 1920 x 1080 aspect ratio, which is equivalent to more than 2 million pixels. They are mainly used on widescreen (16: 9) screens. The screens of HD resolution, or High Definition, are those of 1280 x 720 pixels, that is, almost 1 million pixels. So, saying that a screen has a resolution of 1280 x 720 means that it displays 1280 pixels per line and 720 per column. In this way, the resolution will define how many pixels there are in each row (width) and each column (height). The pixels are the points that make up the image, and are organized in rows and columns. The resolution shows us how many pixels fit on the screen. As the screens are usually rectangular, the measurement is made considering the size of the diagonal. That is, a smartphone with a 5-inch screen is 12.7 centimeters (5 x 2.54).
The screen size is measured by inches, each one being 2.54 centimeters. While size refers to the physical dimensions of the screen, resolution is the amount of information displayed within these size limits. When we talk about screens, we need to take into account two measures: size and resolution. The more pixels, the better the display quality. They differ by the number of pixels that are displayed on the screen, that is, how many points will form the image. HD, Full HD, 2K, 4K, 8K and 10K are different screen resolutions, whether for TVs, monitors, among others.