Steam survey suggests players are leaving 1440p gaming monitors behind

gamesradar.com:

It’s needless to say there are quite a few 1440p gaming monitors out there, but Valve’s latest Steam survey hints that players are moving away from QHD resolution. While the standard is still sitting pretty in second place just below 1080p, the published statistic might be a sign that players are either finally upgrading to 4K, or deciding to harness faster refresh rates at lower resolutions. 

You only have to glance at the best gaming monitors around to know that 1440p panels are popular. Sure, they lack the definition of fancy 4K models, but playing at lower resolutions is a PC gaming norm. Simply put, there are players who will actively choose QHD displays, but now that both UHD models and the graphics cards required to drive them are getting cheaper, we’ll potentially see a big shift towards higher spec screens. 

Ultimately, that’s what Steam Hardware Survey results for November 2023 seem to be implying, as 1440p resolution usage dropped by a whopping 7.17%. These figures are based on a random anonymous sample, so they naturally aren’t a definitive representation of every player on the platform. Nevertheless, we’re used to seeing minimal percentile differences in usage when it comes to resolutions, and this specific stat sticks out like a sore thumb.

1920 x 1080 (1080p) remains the PC players’ go to resolution standard, equating to 60.09% percent of last month's sample. As mentioned above, 1440p sits behind UHD with 15.97%, followed perhaps surprisingly by 1366 x 768 with 4.10%. The rest, including 4K, come in at under 4%, which perhaps illustrates how many people out there are potentially still not quite ready for UHD. 

It's worth noting this isn't the first time we've witnessed a dramatic display usage dip this