A higher resolution allows you to see more around you and therefore you won’t miss any enemy. The field of view also expands because the human eye perceives more detail than at a lower resolution. If you’re a fan of flight simulation games, you may want to choose a QHD monitor to view all the details of your cockpit. Other benefits are better texture representation and higher frame rates. Ultra HD, QHD, and HD work on the same principle as the rendering process. The graphics card has to render the images to display on your monitor. So you should consider buying a QHD gaming monitor if you have invested in a 4K graphics card or plan to do so soon.
If money is not your limit, Ultra HD (UHD) is of course even better. However, UHD monitors cost up to three times more than QHD monitors. In addition, all other components of your computer should have much more power to prevent bottlenecks during image creation. That’s why here is about UHD resolution.
What does UHD resolution mean
4K resolution first appeared as a cinematic standard in 4096 by 2160 pixels, which is where its name 4K comes from. But in consumer electronics, it has been transformed into the 3840 by 2160 pixel format, which does not have four thousand in its specification, but that resolution is four times that of Full HD (you can fit four Full HD screens into one 4K screen). UHD (or Ultra High Definition) also means 3840 by 2160 pixels. Some people like to keep the distinction between 4K and UHD, but the term 4K is used today for gaming consoles and TVs so often that it’s already being used as an acronym for 3840×2160 resolution.
Many manufacturers of various hardware put the label “4K UHD” on their products to cover both possibilities at once, while from a technical point of view the label “2160p” could also be used to denote both types: 4K and UHD. 4K contains so many pixels (over 8 million) that it doesn’t make sense to pack them into a smartphone display (although some have tried). You’re only likely to see this resolution on large monitors and TVs.
UHD resolution for gaming
Ultra HD, or 4K as it is commonly referred to, is the latest standard that literally the entire industry is striving to move to. 4K televisions started hitting the market a few years ago, and there are now many 4K monitors, many of which, surprisingly, are not that expensive. As you might have guessed, 4K offers excellent clarity and picture quality. However, given the sheer number of pixels, the resolution requires very powerful hardware.
Indeed, only powerful high-performance graphics cards, such as Nvidia’s latest RTX models, can handle this resolution when it comes to running demanding AAA games. At the same time, even some older and weaker models – like the RX Vega 56, RX Vega 64, GTX 1080 Ti, GTX 1070 Ti – are capable of running games in 4K, though the frame rate will be lower and less stable without any concessions to other graphics settings.
Overall, UHD is the way to go if you value visual effects for performance and can afford a high-quality GPU and a proper 4K monitor. For most people, however, something more cost-effective will probably be a better option.
UHD resolution for watching content
While having a high-resolution monitor is a good start, it does not mean that you will be able to enjoy all of your content in that resolution. This is because the resolution of the image you see on your screen also depends on the resolution in which the content you are viewing was recorded.
Consequently, if the video was recorded in 1080p and you have a 4K monitor, the highest resolution in which you can watch that video would be 1080p. Conversely, if you had a 1080p monitor and the video content was shot in 4K, the video resolution would be limited to 1080p. Fortunately, more and more content is being shot in higher resolution, and streaming video services like Netflix offer an abundance of 4K content to choose from.
