FullHD vs 4K vs 8K, what awaits us in the future of gaming? To find out we decided to do some clarity, explaining the differences between the different types of resolutions and trying to understand what other parameters you need to consider before buying a new monitor.
Lots of news. But are they always that useful?
The world of video games, and electronics in general, as we know, by its very definition is a fast, hectic world, always looking for new stimuli and novelties that improve our gaming experience, that break down the boundary between real and digital and finally, that they convince us to spend more money to buy the latest technological crap.
But do we really need it so? Or rather: is the economic outlay always justified by the proposed improvements?
A single answer is difficult to give, but today we will focus on the peripheral that more than any other brings out the performance or limitations of our hardware: the monitor!
Monitor or TV? That is the question!
But sorry Japan, performance is determined by the PC, not the screen!
Well sure, but it is not wrong to say that using a more 'challenging' screen rather than another we will have very different gaming performances!
What do you mean by 'challenging'?
The two variables to judge the goodness of a gaming monitor (we talked about it in depth in this article) are the resolution, that is the number of pixels on the vertical and horizontal contained in the screen and the refresh rate, that is how many frames in a second the panel can reproduce.
So my 4K TV in the living room is already the top I could wish for!
Hem… no! There are a lot of differences between PC monitors and TVs and they mostly concern the two aspects just described. Let's say to simplify that TVs favor the quality image, while PC monitors the speed and response times.
Before understanding the pros and cons of these two types of screens, it is necessary to better understand the meaning of that K and the concept of image density.
FullHD vs 4K vs 8K. Tons of pixels to chew on.
K stands for “1000” and by convention the pixels on the long side of the TV / monitor are counted, ie the horizontal ones. A 4K panel for example has a resolution of 2160x4096px and it is precisely those 4 thousand pixels on the long side that make it called 4K.
Another very common mistake is to confuse the term UHD (Ultra High Definition or Ultra HD) with 4K: well they are different things.
I termini 2K, 4K and, as we shall see shortly, 8K they basically derive from cinema and are the digital evolution of the ancient film format. The difference with TVs is that these are produced according to the 16: 9 standard, where the long side is sixteen ninths of the short one.
Having to fall within this aspect ratio, it was decided to literally cut away the extra pixels on the long side, with UHD in fact we mean a resolution of 2160x3840px.
Here is an image that clarifies this aspect:
I know, the acronyms are often misleading, but what interests us is to understand when and if for example, a 4K TV / monitor can represent a real improvement and is worth the money invested.
To understand it we just need to think about another aspect or the effective resolution, or put it another way: the pixel density image.
A pixel, we know, is the fundamental unit that reconstructs the mosaic of the screen, but what is often underestimated is their distance. Think you have an image FHD (Full HD) reproduced from a TV panel, or from a smartphone screen. The pixels of that image are the same (1080x1920px) but their size and proximity change a lot.
This density is measured in PPI (Pixels Per Inch i.e. the pixels contained in each square inch) and is obtained with this fun mathematical formula:
This information is fundamental because it not only tells us how well an image is defined, but also indicates the right distance to keep so that our eye notices appreciable differences.
To return to the example of FHD, a TV with this resolution has an excellent performance in the 32 "cut if kept about 1 meter and a half from us, but if we approach 30 / 40cm away as in the case of a telephone from 6 ”, we will begin to see the image break down into its pixels (seeing is believing :)
So what is the right distance from the screen?
Well let's say that the higher the resolution, the shorter the viewing distance because it is good and the distance must be halved to quadruple the resolution.
In other words, 4K, which is four times the FHD, requires half the space of the FHD model to have the same visual rendering.
Take for example a 65 ”TV, the suggested distance for an FHD model is about 320cm, which drops to 160cm with 4K resolution and only 80cm in 8K!
It is logical to think, however, that we will not bring the sofa closer to the screen by buying the new TV, and we will not cut a piece of the desk to get closer to the monitor, so the improvement we were talking about a moment ago can only be obtained in terms of screen size, but only within the physical limits of the density perceived by our eye.
So we are ready to give a first verdict: if you have a 65 "model in the room (lucky you!) You will certainly have an improvement in image quality if we switch from an FHD model to a 4K model, but you will not notice any difference to the beyond a certain distance, so do your calculations well.
That's all? Is the resolution enough?
Absolutely not! As mentioned the peculiarity of gaming monitors is the image update speed and have panels from 75, 144 o 240hz not only determines a more fluid movement of the figures, but constitutesand a real competitive advantage, especially in fast-paced games such as "shoot it all" like Fortnite, Doom, Rainbow Six Siege or the various Call of Duty, to name a few.
And the problem is right here!
There are 4K and even 8K TVs but with speeds that do not exceed 60hz and gaming monitors even from over 200hz but with resolutions hardly beyond Full HD.
Here is a mirror of the most common models on the market with the best resolution / speed ratio:
In general, pro gamers still prefer speed and the compromise most in vogue today is 144hz on QHD panels (2560x1440px).
Here are some examples of gaming monitors!
BenQ EW277HDR – FullHD 60hz
Asus VP248H – FullHD 75hz
Asus ROG PG258Q – FullHD 240hz
AOC AGON AG322QC4 – QuadHD 144hz
Asus PG278QR – QuadHD 165hz
BenQ EW3270U – 4K 60hz
I have a very high budget, what is the best monitor ever?
If the money in the pig has magically sprouted or a wealthy American uncle has left you a substantial legacy, well then you know that there is a model that breaks all the limits just described and is also the only one in the whole market to have. these features, I'm talking aboutAsus ROG Strix PG27UQ.
If on the one hand we have a fairly trivial name, on the other we have truly unique characteristics:
- Panel 4K 27 "IPS
– Refresh rate di 144hz
- Response time of 4ms
– HDR 1000
– Local dimming a 384 zone
- Technology support G-sync
A true technology bomb to play any game in maximum detail.
Do you want to buy the best monitor there is? You can buy it from our friends at PC Hunter!
Asus PG27UQ – 4K 144hz
What awaits us in the future of video games?
Yes it is true, in the future we will certainly have more detailed images and higher frame rates, but the first step to reconcile these two aspects are ... the cables!
Yes, strange to say, but also the most advanced cables such as HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4 they have a bandwidth of 48 and 32 Gbps respectively, which translated means passing enough data to carry an audio video signal up to 8K but with speeds below 120hz. On the other hand 8K means 4320x7680px, or over 33 million pixels to be updated up to 120 per second (plus the audio signals in high definition too), not really a joke!
Oh I already forgot to tell you, a PC so powerful it generates all those FPS…. to date it does not exist! Yes, even if you spend 4/5000 € to put together a PC with an SLI of two or more 2080TI (the most powerful video card to date), you will hardly go beyond 100 FPS in 4K, making even the aforementioned very powerful Asus monitor useless.
But on the other hand, the beauty of technology is precisely this, when a record has been reached, a new one is immediately chased and having the best today, protects us from having to update our hardware in the short term.
What if I told you that the market is moving to do without the same PC to play?
We talk more and more insistently about Cloud Gaming, that is, games loaded on a remote server to which we can connect and play simply with a TV connected to the Internet, that's cool right?
So what awaits us in the future of gaming? We have already talked about Google Stadia but it seems that many other important multinationals are also preparing their resources in this direction. But this is another story and we will definitely talk about it later, always here in the pages of Tech Princess.
Mata ne!
Tags2K 4K 8K FHD monitor PPI refresh rate TV resolution FullHD vs 4K vs 8K, what awaits us in the future of gaming?
