Opinions on 4k gaming on laptop

Does 4k on 15" / 17" screens seem to make a difference compared to 1080p?

I tried comparing 4k and 1080p on fallout 4 on a 17", 4k seemed a slight bit more sharper, but not that different.

I also tried Witcher 3 on 4k and 1080p, I really couldn't tell a difference tbh.

Wondering what other people might think based on their experiences and other games.

 

Stick with 1080p.

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I love my 4K panel. I will never go back to lowdpi.

 

I'll chose frame rate over res every time. 60hz no matter what res is a deal breaker for me. Everyone is different on this. I'd like the 4K for viewing photos but for everything else on a 15/17" I'd find uncomfortable.

 

I have an 18.4inch panel at 4K on my GX800...yes it looks much, much better than 1080P

 

100% agreed. FPS is king for gaming. I still think 4K is way too high res for a 15-17" display. I'm happy with 3440 x 1440 for my desktop display and that's still not same pixels as 4K and 1080 Ti struggles at times to keep up with it at 60FPS with many newer games. You need to run 4K at 1080p anyhow on a 15" display for desktop work to be able to see icons/text.

With gaming, native 1080p display at 1080p vs 4K at 4K with 15" LCD it'd be hard to tell the difference. You might be able to notice 1080p running on 4K may not look as crisp but that's only because pixels are being "stretched" or "interpolated" to fit the higher res.

 

Is there a visible difference between 15" and 17" in 1080p?

The more i read on NBR, the more i'm moving away from 3/4k panels, if gaming is involved, even the non-shooting type.

 

I'm tempted to install a 4K just for SnGs!

 

The big advantage for 4K panels is they tend to be much better than your average 1080p panel. They are typically much brighter, cover more of the colour spectrum and are more colour-accurate. It is rare to find a bad UHD panel - but it is quite common to find a bad FHD IPS panel nowadays (sadly).

UHD panels are to FHD panels as IPS panels used to be to TN panels. In the past, OEMs would pick cheap TN panels to keep the cost down, while any IPS panels offered would typically be really good, as they charged a premium for them. We're now slowly headed in the direction where OEMS now pick cheap FHD IPS panels to keep costs down, while if a UHD panel is offered, it's likely being offered at a large premium, and is quite a good panel. Much like in the past, it isn't that UHD panels are by their very nature better than FHD panels - it's that if an OEM bothers to offer an UHD panel, it'll likely be a good one. By the same token, an OEM might view the FHD IPS panel as the "stock" panel on their budget systems, and will therefore source a cheap one to keep costs down.

This isn't an absolute truth however, as there are some really good 1080p panels out there. But often times, people will pick the UHD panel because it is much better than the 1080p display option for the particular notebook they're buying. A lot of OEMs pick a bad/average 1080p panel for their entry/mid-level spec systems and then have a top-tier spec system with a really good UHD panel.

Since you'd be scaling everything to 1080p anyway (including setting it to 1080p in games), the only real drawbacks to a UHD panel are the occasional software program that doesn't scale well and the hit to battery life.

EDIT: To give you an idea, the "standard" FHD IPS panel that comes with the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 gaming and the Latitude is an LG panel with 300 nits/ 67% sRGB (though the brightness drops to around 250 nits after calibration, due to rather high Delta E). If you get an UltraSharp FHD display (available on the Precision models) you get a panel with 300 nits/ 92% sRGB (with low Delta E). The UHD panel you can get on the Inspiron 15 7000 gaming features around 360 nits of brightness and 97% sRGB (reasonable Delta E). In other words, even one of Dell's top-end FHD UltraSharp panels (which is only available on their top-end Precision line) is somewhat inferior to the UHD panel you can get on Dell's consumer-grade Inspiron.

I personally don't see too much of a difference, but there is a PPI/DPI difference, given its the same resolution spread over a bigger/smaller area. The 15" panel will look sharper than the 17".

 

Great description.

That's the difficult question i have to find an answer to. Since light gaming is mandatory and all laptops falling in this performance range are not capable of even light 4k gaming, i have to decide, if a high quality FHD display is enough for my liking, because i have to downscale any game to FHD nonetheless. And downscaling is never perfect.
On the other hand, you cannot keep a GTX1070/80 powered machine to an overall fan noise of under 45db during gaming. 4k gaming is not possible, when the fan noise levels should remain moderate. Even with a big 17" barebone and a well-built cooling system.

 

Maybe i have answered my questions already myself. When downscaling is far from perfect and the difference between 15" and 17" @1080p not really an issue, then i should go for 17" FullHD IPS Panel, i guess. 4k doesn't have any advantages i could use in the long run.

 

IMO, If there is the possibility, go for QHD 120hz.
The double framerate compensates for the differences. Specially if this is a Gaming Laptop (17").

 

Couldn't find a 120Hz IPS QHD panel so far.

 

4k definitely worth it, it's like comparing 240p to 1080p you would't pick the 240p if gave you 120fps. And to be honest, 60fps is being greedy. most gpu's not able to do that at their design resolution with the latest titles. For me the sweet spot is 35-45 if higher i try to turn on another graphical feature. but im satified with a 1070 and 4k 17in. but if you going to have 4k on laptop I'll least recommend a 1060 or a rx480 minimal, cause the 7970/680 just dont cut it anymore. Noise wise, like how quite is yall room/house, do you need to hear a feather drop,I personally have the tv on, maybe a fan or ac but something thats louder then a laptop fan, and earphones works great, but my speakers are pretty loud.

 

also never go for a basic 4k screen, a top of the line 1080p would look better in the color department, and you'll notice color before sharpness

 

Which panel do you use? TN/IPS? Manufacturer?

Which games are you playing in 4k with a 1070?

 

4K is boring on a laptop...can't tell much of a difference.

 

I can tell easily.

 

For you...with a small size monitor on a laptop...just wasting performance.

 

Not true. Opinion, yes. Fact, no.

 

So does that mean running 4K with a GTX 1050 will still have the same performance as running 1080p with a GTX 1080?

 

We're talking about being able to tell the difference resolution wise, of course a 1050 is going to struggle at 4K with more demanding titles.

 

4k is 4x the pixel count so of course a 1050 will struggle to push an image that's 4x 1080p than just 1080p.

 

I wouldn't get 4k for another 1-2 GPU cycles to use that resolution reliably for a few years after purchase. 1080p & various applications of DSR will get you a good image consistent across all titles if you have enough GPU power to up resolution at least somewhat most of the time.

 

yea you'll definitely need a gtx 1070 or better to play games maxed with fluent fps

 

My problem is that I've been spoiled by 120Hz gaming, so I'm not going 4K until 4K/120Hz is realistic.

My next laptop has to have a high quality 1440p/120Hz G-Sync panel.

I still wish amazing 1440p laptop panels were being prioritized over jumping to 4K prematurely. To me 2160p isn't legit until an Nvidia xx70 level card can do the games of its time at a fluid 4K/60fps, no drops. We're still a couple years away from that happening, meanwhile 1440p/120Hz is the perfect fit for today's cards..

 

This thread is also relevant to this topic: What is the point of 4k on small display?

As for me, I have a 4K television that I do most of my gaming on, but I set my gaming resolution to 1080p because my GTX 1060 is in no way capable of playing 4K at a decent framerate. I agree with @Kevin - there's little point to having a 4K display on a gaming laptop until graphics cards can push out 60fps without severely dialing down quality. I certainly don't plan on buying a notebook with a 4K display anytime soon--unless the notebook market decides that the only way to get a decent-quality display is to get a 4K display. (That's actually why I have a 4K television now. I was in the market for a new television a few months back, and I would have been fine with a 1080p, but the televisions with the better contrast ratios, lower input lag, less motion blur, better upconversion technology, etc. are all 4K televisions these days.)

One day, we'll all be gaming on 4K or 8K displays with excellent scaling and 240hz, along with GPUs that can push out 240+ fps on ultra quality settings. Aliasing, screen tearing, and input lag will all be things of the past. But we're not there yet, and there's no need make sacrifices in quality settings or FPS just so you can game at 4K. It's not worth it.

The other point is that we're getting quickly diminishing returns with resolution increases, as there are limits to how much detail our eyes can discern at normal viewing distances and typical screen sizes. I'm much more excited for advancements in OLED and especially " true QLED" (not that fake QLED crap Samsung just started pushing under a false name for marketing reasons) than I am for advancements in screen resolution. These display technologies will make games look incredibly better than 16K resolution ever could.

 

This is what I am using with 3k x 120hz and 1 1080 (no SLI):
https://avell.com/fullrange-w1843-iron-v4
Also 4 memory banks (usually there is only 2) and 2 HDD bays and 3 SataM2 slots.

 

But it's not IPS.

 

While you are right about this, the B173QTN (AFAIK) is the only 120hz 17" display around. Even the only one above 1080p with a frequence above 60hz.

 

I was just wondering, because 120Hz IPS panels are already available in external monitors. But i have already settled for a 17" IPS 75Hz 1080p (Clevo P670)

 

actually it is kind of refreshing to see a company like Avell pushing boundaries a bit like this (compared to the normal fare of re-sellers) and offering something a little bit different that truly appeals to certain customers. sure, it's not for everyone (possibly price & size restrictive for most), but still can appreciate what they are doing in offering custom configs with that unique 3k/120hz panel (with a quality build unit), must be a beast

 

That's your opinion. Half my reasoning is because the desktop looks so spectacular at 4K. The other half is I haven't seen a game yet that didn't play well at 4K on the 1080.

Every time I look at a lowdpi monitor and those awful fonts I want to hurl. (hyperbole)

 

Another big advantage for me is multitasking(more windows open at once), production programs like rendering and 3d modeling, yea i never going back to 1200/1080p, my old m6500 and my 1080p monitor literally collecting dust. my rx480 is would be biting the dust next.

 

Sure is; this thread is titled "Opinions on 4K gaming on laptop", after all. But the opinion is based on facts about the limitations of today's GPUs, screen sizes, and viewing distances. People are welcome to draw different conclusions, of course; I'm glad 4k gaming is working out well for you. But for myself and probably most people, gaming at 4k right now is not going to be worth the sacrifices in FPS or quality settings.

 

I think 2k is that happy medium between viewability and clarity as well as multi-tasking.

 

For gaming only, Hz is a lot more important than resolution. If there was a laptop with a 120Hz 4K panel I'd say go for it, but right now there's not.