Is 1080p a waste today?

[Seriouz-Bizniz]

First, I would like to apologize in advance if this has been asked before or if I am posting in the wrong section.

I recently (as of last week) bought a BenQ xl2720z from my local Fry's Electronics. I bought this monitor as a second monitor to my current gaming and work setup. The BenQ monitor will primarily be used for gaming and programming. I play games such as (CS:GO, BF4, GTAV, MGSV) etc. Although it is a TN panel, after experiencing 144hz, I can safely say that I am in love with the monitor and its options. I found the height adjustment, pivot, swivel and tilt interesting as my other monitor (now secondary) does not have the luxury of doing any of those options. I have no regrets about the monitor, but I am wondering if I made the best economic decision. From what I understand, monitors are moving away from full HD and instead, going with higher resolutions such as (2560x1440p)(4k) etc, but at the moment that isn't the most important feature to me.

The xl2720z was advertised for $499, but I purchased it for $479 and change. I was able to use a buddies discount to save me some money, which influenced me to make a decision and purchase the monitor that very same day. Since monitors are not as frequently upgraded as often as your graphics card(s) or any other component in your machine. Do you think purchasing a 1920x1080p monitor is a waste of money by today's standards? or should have I stepped up to a higher resolution? Once again, I have no regrets about my purchase I just would like to know what would be the best decision to maximize my return on investment without breaking the bank.

Your feedback and any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[postmortemIA]

If is OK for today, but not future proof. I would think 2560x1080 ultra wide are also good bridge away from 1080p. Not much more demanding on graphics.
I hope you like dual screens,that seems your only upgrade path, other than selling what you have today.

 

[jackstar7]

If productivity is not a major concern, then 1080 will give you best bang for buck in the long term. The higher you go in resolution, the harder it becomes to get the most of it GPU-wise. The benefits for me are in non-gaming situations (editing/etc.) where screen resolution makes more possible for me. If you don't need that, you don't need to go bigger. Games probably look great on that screen and you should enjoy it.

Buyer's remorse is for suckers! Enjoy it!

 

[stockwiz]

Until we get $350 video cards that can power the higher res Im staying with 1080p.. not spending $700+ on video cards. Its good enough for me with diminishing returns for higher res. Plus I game on LCD TV with 5.1 floorstanding speakers anyways.. I prefer good sound and comfortable sitting.

My Dell 1920x1200 monitor is calibrated and looks nice... no desire to upgrade that either.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

It depends on the size you're using it at. 1920x1080 is really only good up until about 24", a few people bought into the 27" models but really the pixel density at that size is noticeable and so while they were usable they weren't ideal.

2560x1400 and 2560x1600 are good resolutions for 27-30" montitors, they give you a decent PPI (Pixels Per Inch) but they're easily usable at native resolution on the desktop.

Above 30" you ideally need to consider switching to 4k, there's some 32" panels out which are 4k and that's really the smallest size you can use at 4k and still use the desktop in native res, anyone with a smaller 4k panel is going to need to do some kind of scaling on the desktop to be usable. I think 4k will be good up until about 40" for desktop use.

If you're talking about games however, then really the higher the PPI the better, I game at 4k on my 32" now and that's a really great experience but I bet the same res at 24" which I've seen before looks even better. That's crazy PPI of 183!

 

[CP5670]

I use 1920x1080 at 27" and like it that way. The low ppi is definitely noticeable, but I prefer the larger text at that resolution, without having to do any dpi scaling in Windows. I think the size and refresh rate make a much bigger difference in games than a higher pixel density, and a larger display looks more immersive even if the ppi is lower. The low resolution also means you can actually run most games at a constant 120fps or 144fps with a single video card. For productivity work or programming, multiple monitors are arguably better than a single one with a higher resolution.

Not sure if I would buy this monitor today though. I would probably look for one of those 2560 models that can do at least 100hz. However, I won't be upgrading for a long time, until something larger comes out that has all the features of my current one (glossy, 120/144hz and strobing backlight) along with gsync.

 

[thehotsung8701A]

Monitor at 1080p would be a waste nowadays but not HDTV. 1440p monitors is your best bet OP.

 

[fire400]

just my general experience, and not necessarily self-righteous hard stance justifications, but here we go..

in the 90's 1024x768 of a resolution was the cool thing to have, you all know who you are if you felt proud, compared to the usual 800x640 of that era.

lots of value laptops are 1366x768 as of today, but people still buy them... even though all the advertising is on HD-1080, or 4K uhd, or 8K extreme.

1080p is still a luxury on some laptops.
thinkpad x240 comes standard with 1366x768 IPS, which is an embarrassment to Lenovo. but the x240 wasn't a value laptop.

we're just getting into mainstreaming touchscreen displays and pushing hard for 4K and expecting the welcome of 8K.

sounds pretty dumb to state this, but here we go..
on the Yoga 2-11, the screen is defaulted at close to 85% of its maximum potential brightness, on supposed 'max brightness'; on what is actually software limits. the Windows 8.1 OS overrides max settings to give it a realistic 'lower screen brightness' than what the Lenovo hardware is capable of, whether another foolish Lenovo thing or an overseen nuisance, it's annoying. users have to manually adjust tweaks under battery settings to get the screen brighter, and setting the bar to 'high performance' doesn't fix it right away.
anyway, the idea is, maximizing return on investment may mean that end users have the uncontested ability to fixate optimal quality beyond out-of-box factory junk-settings.

one more thing, is that the colors are bland on the +2012 Lenovo thinkpad laptop matte screens compared to other laptops with more lush IPS displays. however, back-light-bleeding isn't as bad as it used to be with older laptops, which saves a lot of end users' eyes from getting strained as badly.
development of screen quality will need to accommodate positive user experiences based on health and adaptive reasoning.

1080p can be a waste of time and energy, yes. but it raises the bar like how win8 minimum specs for screen resolution recommends +720p.
people will in the end fight for quality over quantity, they'll vote for it somehow, slowly but surely. but even the most rigorous profit oriented marketing gears towards common sense eventually, hopefully, for the most part - otherwise we'd all still be on 1600x1200 tube monitors (and the argument in days past, was LCD's couldn't hold up to tube colors, but of course now that has changed with IPS).

i just buy what i can afford and what's reasonable, but i will admit, that if I have to pay an extra hundred or so dollars for a larger resolution display, why not... *-*

- p.s. -
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-reasons-shouldnt-buy-cheap-ips-monitor/

 

[smakme7757]

<snip>...future proof....</snip>

Not to be rude, but why do people still say that?

 

[ShintaiDK]

For 27", 2560*1440 is really the minimum. I cant imagine going back to 1080p.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Not to be rude, but why do people still say that?

With respect to displays it's generally true that displays get higher resolution over time and that the resolution we run out games and other media gets higher over time, so there is a sense in which shooting for say 4k now will last you longer into the future.

If you want to enjoy 4k media at some point and you only have a 1080p screen then at that point you'll need to upgrade, with a monitor which is more future proof, for example a 4k monitor, then you wont need an upgrade, it'll last longer into the future from now before needing to be replaced.

That's all people mean by future proof.

 

[xthetenth]

You can't be fully proof of the future but you can be aware of likely differences in lifespan caused by different performance brackets. In some areas, buying lower end more frequently is a great idea, like video cards, where generational increases dominate in-generation tier differences. In others the upgrade cycle is slower enough that buying a higher quality part gives much higher quality for a long time before the cheaper parts more frequently strategy gives an update.

Future proofing is goofy but buying with a mind to potential longevity is not a bad idea at all.

 

[RaulF]

2K minimum of go home, for enthusiast that is.

 

[MongGrel]

I've a 32" 2560 X1080P Dell IPS Ultra Wide that I don't mind but that's just me I guess.

It is a bit older now, but still works well here IMHO.

I think I picked that up on a Black Friday deal for $399 about a year and a half ago...

 

[postmortemIA]

Not to be rude, but why do people still say that?

In addition to what princess said... I used my previous monitor for 7 years. Because it was that good. That is what I mean by future proof. Today's top range monitors are future's mainstream. And LCD tech does not improve that quickly. Not like graphics cards.

7 years ago top line was 1080p IPS and PVA. Both techs improved a bit since then, but not that much. Both still have similar response time and color reproduction as they used to.

 

[MongGrel]

If is OK for today, but not future proof. I would think 2560x1080 ultra wide are also good bridge away from 1080p. Not much more demanding on graphics.
I hope you like dual screens,that seems your only upgrade path, other than selling what you have today.

Yeah, one of those.

I still use a old Olevia 47" 747i 1080P extended on the side, those things have been defunct a long time now, the company was sold off long ago, but still looks pretty nice.

 

[fire400]

I've a 32" 2560 X1080P Dell IPS Ultra Wide that I don't mind but that's just me I guess.

It is a bit older now, but still works well here IMHO.

I think I picked that up on a Black Friday deal for $399 about a year and a half ago...

this looks like a sweet monitor. so what wallpaper do you actually use for this?

 

[PrincessFrosty]

In addition to what princess said... I used my previous monitor for 7 years. Because it was that good. That is what I mean by future proof. Today's top range monitors are future's mainstream. And LCD tech does not improve that quickly. Not like graphics cards.

I'm the same, my older monitor is the Dell 3007WFP-HC 30" IPS 2560x1600 which is now coming on 8 years old and still looks good, I got it long before the whole 2560x1400 craze hit for about £800 which is expensive but it lasted a long time by taking good care of it.

That's how I justified my new 32" 4k IPS panel, at £670 that's also quite expensive but it's a really decent bit of kit and the plan is for it to last another 8 years.

You can never fully future proof something, you just do it to varying degrees. With some tech its worth it such as monitors, with other tech not so much, getting more power than you need out of a GPU is often more expensive than it's worth because of the aggressive pricing of high end parts and their relatively short lifespan in the first place.

 

[Gryz]

From what I understand, monitors are moving away from full HD and instead, going with higher resolutions such as (2560x1440p)(4k) etc, but at the moment that isn't the most important feature to me.

People on websites like AnandTech are enthousiast. Early adapters. The people who buy the latest of the latest will come to places like this, and yell from the top of their lungs how awesome their newest purchase is. And how they can't believe they have ever been able to live without it.

Reality is that anything above 1080p is still bleeding edge. Especially for gamers.
Check out Steam's Hardware Survey.
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
1.11% of all gamers has a 2560x1440 monitor.
0.09% of all gamers has a 2560x1600 monitor.
0.06% has a 4k monitor.
0.06% has a triple 1080p setup.

So no, we are not moving away from 1080p.
In the future ? Sure. But the future is not here yet.

The thing for gamers is simple: when you go to 1440p from 1080p, your framerates will drop by roughly a third. (I once did a comparison for all benchmarks in AnandTech's benchmark-tool. Comparing 1080p vs 1440p with same settings). You lose on average 36% of your fps. That means you need a 50% more powerful videocard to go from 1080p to 1440p. Even if you have the money for a better videocard, the extra power could also have been used for better eyecandy. Like better shadows, AO, more foilage, further viewdistance, etc.

So it's a trade-off.
A trade-off that might be different for everyone. But no way one can say that everybody is moving away from 1080p.

 

[xthetenth]

In addition to what princess said... I used my previous monitor for 7 years. Because it was that good. That is what I mean by future proof. Today's top range monitors are future's mainstream. And LCD tech does not improve that quickly. Not like graphics cards.

7 years ago top line was 1080p IPS and PVA. Both techs improved a bit since then, but not that much. Both still have similar response time and color reproduction as they used to.

Yeah, unlike a graphics card which stops being able to keep up with modern games, a good monitor will remain a good monitor. If you pay for a high end one, that's 5-10 years of better image quality. Plus, the bottom price for just any monitor even antiquated is higher, so there's a higher floor and prices won't fall as far or nearly as fast as video cards.

 

[Headfoot]

I'll take high refresh rate TN for single monitor gaming over IPS every single day of the week. And on leap years.