Question Will a 4k monitor make my PC run like trash?

[Vanch3]

I've got quite an old PC, but only use it for watching movies, listening to music, and playing the occasional PC exclusive old school RPG such as Baldurs Gate 1 & 2 etc. For all of my modern gaming, I use my Xbox Series X.

I hook my Xbox up to my PC monitor, but unfortunately it's only 1920x1080 resolution, and has no HDR, so I can't make use of the Xbox's 4k gaming or HDR etc.

I've been considering buying either a 1440p or 4k monitor to use for my Xbox, but I'm worried that by doing that my PC will run like trash due to the increase in resolution on the monitor. Sure, the Xbox games will look miles better, but the PC might become slow as hell.

Is there a way to perhaps keep my PC resolution at 1920x1080, even when using a 1440p or 4k monitor? Or perhaps because I don't really use my PC for gaming, it'll be fine even at a higher resolution?

FYI, here are my current PC specs, and as you can see they're probably not optimal for gaming at higher than 1920x1080 resolutions:

OS: Windows 10
CPU: Intel Core i5 6600k
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970
RAM: 16gb DDR III

 

[Lutfij]

Yes you can manually set the resolution within the OS or Nvidia's control panel to 1920x1080p. You could do one other thing, have the OS resolution at 1440p or 4K but when you're firing up a game, you can set the resolution in-game to 1080p, that way you don't taxed your platform beyond it's capability.

Just to be clear, the GTX970 can drive a 4K monitor for your general Windows tasks and browsing and maybe video playback but for gaming, it's going to struggle a lot.

 

[punkncat]

I run my Samsung TV @ 1080 while gaming (with a 3070). I run it up to 4K for viewing vids and such. A 970 will be more than powerful enough to watch vids and surf at 4K. According to how big the TV is and how far you sit from it you might be able to see the pixels (at 1080), particularly if young with good eyesight. I sit somewhere around 15-20 feet from mine and really can't tell (cause I am old).

 

[DRagor]

You'll have absolutely no problems running your PC with 4K monitor. For gaming you may want to lower the resolution in game a bit but that depends on game, some old ones can run 4K just fine. For comparison I'm running 2K on gtx 660 and still can use native resolution on many games.