I've been using a 1080p monitor since building my PC about six years ago. My system has an RTX 3070 and a Ryzen 7 5800X, but Overwatch sometimes dips below 144 FPS at medium settings, depending on what's happening in-game. I recently moved and no longer have my old monitor, so I'm trying to decide whether to replace it with another 1080p display or upgrade to 1440p. Would this hardware normally be capable of maintaining 144+ FPS at 1440p, and could the monitor resolution itself be contributing to the inconsistent performance?
3 Answers
A 1440p monitor is still a reasonable upgrade for this system, but don’t choose it expecting more stable frame rates. You could use 1440p for most games and lower the resolution or settings in Overwatch if needed. If consistently staying above 144 FPS is the top priority and the dips can’t be fixed, a high-refresh 1080p display would be the safer choice.
Something may be wrong with the current setup if a 5800X and RTX 3070 are struggling at medium settings. Check GPU and CPU usage during a dip, update drivers, make sure the game is using the dedicated GPU, and look for background programs or thermal throttling. Also check that render scale, dynamic render scale, frame caps, and any unusually demanding options aren’t causing the inconsistency.
That hardware should generally handle Overwatch at 1440p and well above 144 FPS, especially with competitive or medium settings. However, 1440p renders about 78% more pixels than 1080p, so it will put noticeably more load on the RTX 3070. If the game already drops below 144 FPS at 1080p, changing to 1440p is unlikely to improve those dips.
The monitor itself doesn’t reduce performance just because it has a higher refresh rate. The important factor is the resolution you actually render the game at, along with your settings and whether the CPU or GPU is limiting performance.