Steam survey suggests players ditching 1080p gaming monitors
The latest Steam hardware survey is in, and Valve’s figures suggest the gaming PC winds are changing. While the majority of players are still using the now seven-year-old Nvidia GTX 1060 and playing games on 1080p monitors, there’s reason to believe that a resolution revolution is on the horizon. That latter part sounds like a Red Hot Chilli Peppers album, but I’m sure you get the idea.
Not to sound dramatic, but the gaming PC scene is developing somewhat of a problem, particularly in terms of performance expectations. For example, if you’re unfamiliar with the realm of high-spec rigs, you’d perhaps think you can grab a graphics card for around the same price as a PS5 and match its performance using the best gaming monitor.
In reality, just a GPU like the RTX 4070 will run you more, and cheaper alternatives like the Nvidia RTX 4060 can’t quite perform the same 4K tricks as a new-gen console. Not even upcoming Prime Day PC deals will necessarily save you from this fact, as while we may see a few premium graphics card discounts, you'll still have to fly uncomfortably close to the four-digit price sun.
Naturally, that means that many PC players sort of have to stick with 1080p gaming monitors, and it’s out of performance necessity rather than preference. Don’t get me wrong, there are esports enthusiasts out there who will be playing FPS games at 1080p to boost fps, but a chunk of Steam users out there will simply be looking to play PC games with what they can afford. Simply put, if those same people could pick up a 4K GPU in 2023 for less they would, but there’s a solid premium price barrier surrounding UHD resolutions.
That said, players are apparently managing to make the leap from 1080p to 1440p and 4K. Steam hardware
Read more on gamesradar.com
