[SOLVED] 1080p 144Hz vs 1440 75Hz vs 4K 60Hz

[kulike]

Hi everyone,

I currently own a 28" 4k 60Hz monitor, which is great for the most part but made me wonder if I really need it, especially with it being quite demanding on my 980 Ti forcing some games to run at 30 FPS or less.

Now I found two potential monitors in my local store, one is a 27" 1080p 144Hz and the other is a 32" 1440 75Hz (not sure if those sizes are too big for these resolutions, either way, size is not the issue for me I had a 32 monitor before and I liked it.) If I were to sell my current monitor it would more or less cover the cost of one of the other two monitors so money is not the issue.

Now I never owned a monitor that is more than 60Hz and I'm simply curious what the experience is like. I don't do competitive gaming at all which to my understanding, a higher refresh rate is ideal for. I also use photoshop and illustrator every now and then.

So my question is what monitor would be better 1080p 144 Hz or 1440 75 Hz or should I just stay with my current one and upgrade my graphic card sometime in the future ( mind you my budget is not huge and I'd maybe upgrade to a used GTX 1080 Ti soon. )

Thanks for your help.
Apologies for my general ignorance but monitors are not my cup of tea.

 

[TechyGate]

Depends on what games/apps you want to run, for example, for gaming ideally 1080p 144Hz would be the best and for the 1440p 75Hz, you mostly wont notice the difference between 1080p and 1440p.
So i would recommend to you to get the 1080p 144Hz monitor.

 

[King_V]

4k is quite burdensome on just about every video card out there.

The only reason I'd say 144Hz would be at all worthwhile is because typically, you don't have to pay much more for 144Hz versus a lower refresh rate.

That said, make sure that whatever monitor you get has FreeSync. The 980Ti won't support FreeSync, but Nvidia finally added driver support for FreeSync on the 10-, 16-, and 20- series cards. Don't pay extra for GSync.

Frankly, I think once you approach the 100Hz mark, you've hit the limits of human eyesight and exceeded human response time. I still do everything at 60Hz, though my monitor tops out at 75.

I think it's more important to maintain a steady rate than a high rate necessarily. If, say, you cap your frames at 60fps, and your video card is powerful enough never to dip below that 60fps line, then it should be very comfortable.

With adaptive sync technologies (FreeSync, GSync), of course, even dips maintain smoothness.

 

[kulike]

In my case, both monitors are available for the same price, so I guess the 1080p 144hz is the better option of the three?

 

[King_V]

Do they both have FreeSync? It would be helpful to know the FreeSync range on both of them.

Tough call - I, frankly, felt that 1920x1080 looked great at 27" when I had such a monitor, and imagine 2560x1440 would look good at 32". There are others who disagree. I think also how crisp of a display can make a difference, so two monitors of the same size and resolution would not necessarily look as good/bad as each other.

I tend to favor larger monitors a bit... but that's a personal preference.

 

[kulike]

If I remember right both are FreeSync, but not g-sync ( to be fair I'm way behind on this and not sure what this really is).

I also like a big screen hence I'm considering only 27" and up. My concern is that my current 4K is too demanding, would 1440p be a demanding resolution on 980 Ti? I do like smooth gameplay which makes me think that 1080p 144hz is the better option but again I'm hearing 1440 is the sweet spot though not sure if 75hz is good in that regard.

One thing I can say tho when one of my older games runs at a consistent 60fps it's actually quite pleasant for me to game. (I'm not really crazy for having the highest fps ever, but a consistent one)

 

[King_V]

FreeSync and GSync are both Adaptive Sync techologies. AMD uses FreeSync, and Nvidia uses GSync.

Starting with the 10-, 16-, and 20- series, Nvidia finally allowed for FreeSync support. The problem with GSync is that its proprietary, and requires extra hardware in the monitors, which adds significant extra cost. I say good riddance to that.

Any which way, I'd say it might be good to stick with 1920x1080. It (the 980Ti) could probably average 60fps at 2560x1440, but it wouldn't be able to maintain that 60fps minimum. At 1920x1080, there's probably not a lot of scenarios where your existing card couldn't maintain a 60fps minimum.