4K monitors are some of the highest resolution monitors you can buy for a desktop setup, and that means you’re usually going to pay quite a premium! So is it worth it?
The money that goes to extra pixels could go to other aspects of a monitor that can matter even more in the greater scheme of things. Which means you have to think carefully about whether what you need the monitor to do relies on those (approximately) eight million pixels being there. These six reasons in particular are a good justification for that 4K tax.
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6
You’re a Gaming Enthusiast
Most PC gamers gravitate towards monitors with resolutions like 1080p and 1440p, opting to divert their GPU power toward pushing out more frames rather than increasing the quality of each frame. However, if you’re a PC gaming enthusiast with a high-end graphics card and CPU, then you can have your virtual cake and eat it.
If you have the hardware to push high frame rates and plenty of pixels at the same time, it would be a shame to give up the chance to get that extra-crispy 4K imagery. Even if you only have a mid-range GPU, you might care more about having pin-sharp graphics than fancy graphical effects and fidelity. Also, with upscaling technologies such as DLSS and FSR, you can take advantage of 4K displays even on hardware too weak to render at that resolution natively. This is how most console games in the current generation manage to look decent on 4K TVs, despite not rendering an image anywhere near that resolution.
5
You Watch 4K Content on Your PC
Many people use their computers as a do-it-all system, for work, play, and everything in between. If you like to watch 4K streaming shows and movies, or offline 4K content, then you need a 4K monitor. There are some things to keep in mind, however. First of all, even if you find a UHD Blu-ray drive for your PC, you also need software to play the discs, since this is not included with Windows.
Even worse, the latest Intel CPUs have broken compatibility with UHD Blu-ray DRM and there are issues with later updates of Windows 11 as well, which deprecated the same DRM feature dropped by Intel.
Even if you only watch 4K content that’s digital, a big draw of this high-end content is HDR or High Dynamic Range. The problem with this is twofold: first Windows has a pretty poor HDR implementation, which often just makes things look bad without extensive calibration. Second, PC monitors are notorious for poor HDR performance.
Even among 4K monitors, you need to pay special attention and ensure that the monitor you’re considering offers at least DisplayHDR 600, and preferably DisplayHDR 1000 or better. With the rise of mini-LED and OLED technology, this should become more common among premium models. Of course, if you don’t care about having HDR in your 4K media, this isn’t a major issue.
4
You Need to Preview Your 4K Video Edits
If you’re a content creator making 4K content, then you need a display where you can preview that content in its native format. If you preview it downscaled to a lower resolution, you may miss issues with the image hidden by that downscaling process. In fact, there’s an argument to be made that you should invest in a 5K monitor instead, since this leaves additional space for things like a video editing timeline and toolbars while still giving you a nice native 4K preview.
Samsung ViewFinity S9 Series 5K Computer Monitor
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Of course, if you run a multi-monitor setup, that’s unnecessary, but you should also pay attention to the color gamut and color accuracy of your 4K monitor if it’s meant to play a role in content production. Again, if you want to produce HDR content, you need a monitor that’s good enough to accurate display that content, but I think most people who aren’t working on Hollywood projects probably aren’t doing that.
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3
You Work With Photoshop, Blender, or Other Design Software
It’s not just video editors that benefit from a 4K display. If you work with any sort of design software, whether manipulating photos or CAD (and so on) having lots of pixels is a big help. It means you can see fine detail in your work, that you have plenty of room for UI elements, and that you don’t have to constantly zoom in and out to see details.
Of course, this doesn’t mean much if you buy a 4K display that’s too small, so also keep in mind that you need a big enough panel so you can see those pixels without squinting.
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2
You Need to Split Four or More Windows
A UHD display panel is effectively four 1080p displays. So you can have a four-way split where each window gets the Full HD treatment. This is a multitasker’s dream, and it also makes these screens a good solution for people who need to monitor multiple windows at the same time that have charts, numbers, and graphs that have to remain legible. I’m looking at you stock market day-trader types out there.
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1
You Want to Buy a Very Large Monitor
Pixel density is an important part of image quality, and if you keep the resolution of a screen constant, but increase its size, the pixel density drops. This makes the image grainier and less sharp, unless you move further away from the screen, in which case buying a bigger screen didn’t have much point unless you wanted to have a screen you can use from further away.
If you buy a large monitor (e.g. 32-inches) for desktop use at typical desktop distance from your eyeballs, then a 4K monitor will maintain the same sharpness as a smaller screen at a lower resolution. To illustrate this point, have a look at this viewing distance chart and how it affects the resolution you can see with your naked eye.
Just keep in mind that with desktop computer monitors, especially when working with fine detail on a screen rather than, for example, watching a movie, these distances can be closer. The chart is just to illustrate the principle.
If you feel like you want to take the plunge into 4K, be sure to check out our roundup of the best 4K monitors, but if 4K isn’t the right fit, you may be more interested in ultrawide monitors. or even gaming monitors.
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