What resolution/monitor to pick

Hello all,

I'm sure this question has popped up numerous times, but maybe mine is slightly different.

Basically, I am an avid gamer, but I am looking towards increasing screen real estate to be able to work better as well (Coding websites, apps and a bit of photoshop)
Pretty much I'm looking for all-round stuff.

I'm currently rocking an Iiyama 27" GB2773HS, 144 Hz, 1920x1080 display over displayport.
PC specs:
Gigabyte Z97 Gaming 3 Mobo,
16 GB DDR3 1600 Mhz RAM,
2x GTX 970 4 GB
i7 4790k @ 4.4 Ghz.

I have been looking at multiple things. I get the feeling a single monitor is a better solution, however I am a little curious towards the performance as I don't have extremely good GFX cards.

So .. Do I look for a 1440p/1080p second monitor? Or do you think a 4k/Ultra Wide Screen monitor is a valid solution as well? I've been thinking, researching, but I just can't seem to find a conclusion in all this.
Any help to decide would be much appreciated.

If the conclusion is: May wanna upgrade. That is an option soon, but I wanna hear you guys out first!

Well if you're not doing gaming, most reasonably modern graphics cards will cope with a 4K monitor (or maybe even 2). If screen space/real estate is what you're looking for then a higher resolution will be beneficial, although I do sometimes find that my 4K monitor makes some stuff difficult to see detail on. Best thing for you to do if you can is go to a PC shop and actually try some monitors to see what they are like.

steaky360 said:

Well if you're not doing gaming, most reasonably modern graphics cards will cope with a 4K monitor (or maybe even 2). If screen space/real estate is what you're looking for then a higher resolution will be beneficial, although I do sometimes find that my 4K monitor makes some stuff difficult to see detail on. Best thing for you to do if you can is go to a PC shop and actually try some monitors to see what they are like.

Click to expand...

I am looking to gaming as well as working, which is where the dilemma stems from. And finding a decent PC shop nearby is hard atm.

What games are you playing?

Im running 2 GTX 980's on a 1440 144p Asus Swift and its pretty awesome.

In all honesty thought the jump from 1080 to 1440 was a little under welming in the gaming department, 1080 is still beautiful in my opinion however the additional desktop real estate was good. Think to remember too is monitors always look best with their native resolution for 1080 looks a little blurry on a 1440 monitor.

I got this monitor as a kind of experiment and was mainly in it for the 144hz

Things like the witcher 3 im managing to run about about 55-70 fps but in most games i notice a frame drop of about 20fps between 1080 and 1440.

Heres my review of it if its any help to you

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/foru...Monitor-My-Honest-Review&highlight=Asus+Swift

SmokeDarKnight said:

What games are you playing?

Im running 2 GTX 980's on a 1440 144p Asus Swift and its pretty awesome.

In all honesty thought the jump from 1080 to 1440 was a little under welming in the gaming department, 1080 is still beautiful in my opinion however the additional desktop real estate was good. Think to remember too is monitors always look best with their native resolution for 1080 looks a little blurry on a 1440 monitor.

I got this monitor as a kind of experiment and was mainly in it for the 144hz

Things like the witcher 3 im managing to run about about 55-70 fps but in most games i notice a frame drop of about 20fps between 1080 and 1440.

Click to expand...

I play pretty much anything. Most games I play constantly are less intensive. But I'm a sucker for eye candy and I play GTA V, Witcher 3 and all those new games as well. SW Battlefront 3 and Just Cause 3 soon for ex.
I just have no idea on what sort of impact things have if I were to use a higher res monitor. Alternatively I could stick with the main 1080p screen as have the second for productivity at 4k or ultrawide.

a 1440p and 2 1080p monitors is great for me, but I require the use of many programs at once

My R9 280 isn't a top end card but I am happy with its performance at 1440p even if it means lowering the settings a bit. The only reason I bought a monitor that also had 144Hz was Counter Strike, which I play on low settings anyway and it achieves 144 fps at 1440p easily. I am looking to upgrade my graphics card soon so that I can get a bit more eye candy whilst maintaining the high resolution. One benefit of going to a higher resolution and pixel density is the need for less anti aliasing although the drop in performance at the higher resolution far outweighs the gains of lower AA.