This resolution has been the de facto standard for gaming for some time now, and it will stay that way until cheap 1440p monitors become much more common, or 4K-capable graphics cards become reasonably affordable. (One depends on the other.) Most of us just want our games to look good and run smoothly, and that's much less expensive to achieve at the mainstream resolution of 1,920 by 1,080. The truth is, though most gamers would love to play at the highest resolution possible, buying both a high-res 4K (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) or 1440p display and a video card that can ace gaming at that higher resolution will cost you plenty. In fact, according to the latest Steam Hardware Survey results, 1080p remains by far the most common native display resolution for PC gamers on the service, outranking all other resolutions combined. Today, 1080p monitors are affordable-you can find plenty of 'em down around $100-and even a midrange video card can run the latest games on one of these displays with a silky-smooth frame rate. 1080p, or 'full HD') will remain the sweet spot for most PC gamers.

For the foreseeable future, though, playing at 1,920 by 1,080 pixels (a.k.a.

Not so! Yes, they are important, and yes, they are the eventual future-when they get cheaper, much cheaper.

Best 4k graphics card for the money