this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2025
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The majority of gamers game at 1080p. Both on PCs, and especially on consoles. Most people's TVs aren't even big enough for people with average eyesight to see a difference between 1080p and 2160p.
So the question to ask is if the steam deck is too slow, because the steam machine at 1080p will solidly beat the steam deck at 800p.
If you want something faster for desktop, just build a matx mid tower with a 9070xt. It'll cost double, but you'll be able to game in 2160p.
I'm amazed they went for 4k.
It's fake upscaled 4k from 1080, though.
Fascinating. Is that how the ps5 and Xbox whatever work?
The PS5 has 4K native support since it has better hardware to go along with its bigger size. It also support 4K AI upscaling from 1080, so in some cases it's the same, although likely with more FPS. The XBox is probably more of the same.
Why do people keep repeating something so easily disprovable? You can tell 1080p and 1440p apart on a laptop, let alone 1080p to 4k on a TV.
It really depends on your viewing distance and the size of the display. If you're sitting 15 feet away fom a 55 inch TV, the difference between 1440p and 4k is going to be a lot less noticable than when you're 2 feet from a 32 inch monitor.
they did the maths
It depends how far away you sit. And size (inches) of the TV. You sit closer to a laptop than a TV.
It's all about PPI. Pixels per inch.
Usually when people post a source, the numbers say that at median screen sizes and distances from the screen, 4K isn't perceptibly better than 1440p, and the person writing it up as an article has misunderstood the conclusion as saying 4K isn't better than 1080p rather than that it isn't better than 1440p. TVs tend not to be made with 1440p resolution, so upgrading from 1080p gets you right to 4K, skipping the sweet spot.
If you have 20/20 vision, you need to sit 2 meters away from a 55" to be able to tell the pixels apart. You might see some improvement from 4K but it wont be that significant. If you are 3-4 meters away, you need a bigger TV if you want to start thinking about gaming in 4K.
3 meters away from a 55" TV gives you a very poor 23 degree viewing angle, let alone 4. The maximum SMPTE recommended viewing distance for that screen size in 16:9 is 2.3m.
In other words, for 4K to stop being perceivable, you have to make your experience worse in other ways.
Yeah, we sit about 2 meters from our 100" projector screen lol
Oh definitely. I have a large TV because I understand that. I don't know anyone else with a TV that actually sits that close though. Most people are gaming like 4-5 meters away.