Question Should I bother with a 4K TV right now for 1080p gaming?

jcmeyer5

Junior Member
Feb 15, 2021
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Will I cost myself anything (image quality or graphics performance) if I go with a 4K television now even though I don't plan to run higher than 1080p at 60FPS for the foreseeable future? Long story short, we have 3 PC's with 1660 Supers in them that we game with (and two Xbox One X, not Series X). Two are feeding 40" Samsung 1080P 60hz LED-TVs. The third is moving downstairs. The plan is to line them up on a wall and game side by side, so I would be getting another 40"

Thoughts?
 

aigomorla

CPU, Cases&Cooling Mod PC Gaming Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 28, 2005
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Will I cost myself anything (image quality or graphics performance) if I go with a 4K television now even though I don't plan to run higher than 1080p at 60FPS for the foreseeable future?

I was never a fan of downscaling.
I could never get stuff to look correct when i downscale.
 

lakedude

Platinum Member
Mar 14, 2009
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I was never a fan of downscaling.
I could never get stuff to look correct when i downscale.
Historically I agree but modern "retina" displays have changed this IMHO. Mismatching resolutions looked terrible on 1080 or lower screens but 4k is another matter.

We feed our 4k TV 1080p all the time and it looks fine.

Same with our S10 phones. We run the displays non native all the time and can't tell the difference because the pixels are so small.
 

sweets3450

Senior member
Dec 9, 2009
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My experience with a traditional TV is never as positive as a dedicated monitor when using either as a primary computer monitor whether it's the sharpness, input delay, delay from just turning the device on, etc. For gaming the biggest issue is probably going to be the input lag so if that doesn't bother you, it should be fine!
 
Jul 27, 2020
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Don't have experience with Samsung. Had a Sony TV before. It needed minimum 1080P signal to upscale to 4K with good results. Picture was pretty sharp. Sold it and got an LG OLED. Haven't noticed any issue with the upscaling. The only thing is, you may start disliking your 1080P TVs if you get used to the 4K upscaling. 1080P at 40 inch comparatively looks ugly with big pixels.
 

DasFox

Diamond Member
Sep 4, 2003
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It’s not about Hardware Specs, it’s what sort of games are you playing?

1. It’s about the games you’ll play.
2. Then after considering #1, you consider hardware.
 

DasFox

Diamond Member
Sep 4, 2003
4,666
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It’s not about Hardware Specs, it’s what sort of games are you playing?

1. It’s about the games you’ll play.
2. Then after considering #1, you consider hardware.

If frames, performance and graphical quality mean anything, stick to playing 1080p on a 24” computer monitor.