I have a roughly €1,500 gaming PC with a Ryzen 5 9600X and Radeon RX 9070 XT. In some games it should manage around 60 FPS at native 1440p, but I'm wondering whether using FSR to render at a lower internal resolution and upscale to 4K would look better. I'll also be playing competitive games such as Valorant and Counter-Strike 2, where high frame rates matter. Is upscaled 4K worth choosing over native 1440p, and how much does the answer depend on the monitor and game?
3 Answers
Native 1440p is the simpler choice if you want consistently high refresh rates and maximum settings without tweaking. Upscaled 4K can look better, especially at 32 inches or larger, but 60 FPS is not automatically better than a smooth 120–240 FPS experience. I’d prioritize the type of games you play: use native 1440p for competitive shooters, and experiment with 4K FSR for slower-paced or visually demanding games.
It depends heavily on the game and display, but a well-implemented upscaler can look better than native 1440p because many games use blurry or smearing temporal anti-aliasing. On a 4K monitor, 4K with FSR Quality or Balanced will often look noticeably sharper than 1440p native. The result isn’t guaranteed, though—some FSR implementations have shimmering or ghosting, so compare the modes in motion rather than judging from screenshots.
For the RX 9070 XT, I’d use the monitor’s native resolution and adjust from there. If you have a 1440p display, start with native 1440p and FSR Quality or native-resolution anti-aliasing if the game supports it. If you have a 4K display, try FSR Quality first and drop to Balanced or Performance only when you need more FPS. For Valorant and CS2, native resolution is usually preferable since the GPU should deliver very high frame rates without upscaling.
You probably won’t need FSR for most esports games on that card. Save it for demanding single-player titles where the extra performance is useful.
Also consider screen size and viewing distance. A large 4K display benefits more from the extra pixel density, while a smaller 1440p monitor may already look very sharp.