As a competitive gamer who occasionally plays AAA titles, 1440p has always felt like the sweet spot for me. Despite having an RTX 4090, I couldn't fully move to 4K for a couple of reasons. One, native 4K is still very demanding on the 4090, meaning I'd have to settle for lower frame rates than I'm comfortable with. Two, DLSS upscaled 4K always looked softer, especially in motion. And when you're used to gaming at 1440p on a 360Hz monitor without DLSS, these two compromises are hard to overlook.

Thankfully, DLSS 4.5 has finally convinced me to make the switch this year, at least for AAA gaming. For starters, the upscaled image almost looks just as good as native 4K, and some might argue it looks slightly better than native with TAA. And while it's a bit heavier on the GPU than older versions of DLSS, the improvements in motion stability make it worth it. I'm still going to play competitive shooters at 1440p/360Hz, but for AAA titles, I now use a 4K/240Hz OLED monitor.

Upscaled 4K finally doesn't feel like a compromise

The frame rate boost is still there, but without the dreaded "Vaseline effect"

Enabling DLSS has always improved frame rates and made 4K gaming more accessible, even on mid-range GPUs. That should mean my flagship-class RTX 4090 should comfortably handle almost any game at 4K with DLSS, but that was never the problem for me. Ever since its introduction in 2019, my biggest issue with DLSS has been the noticeable hit to image quality, as if someone had rubbed Vaseline all over my screen. Yes, this has improved significantly over the last few years, especially with DLSS 4, but even then, the image still looked a bit softer in motion.

DLSS 4.5 is the first time I've stopped noticing that trade-off completely while playing open-world AAA titles like Black Myth: Wukong and Assassin's Creed: Shadows. Despite sitting very close to my monitor, the image just holds together better when I'm actually moving through the world instead of standing still and looking for flaws. With Preset L, foliage and distant objects don't break apart as easily, and edges don’t shimmer the way they used to. For the first time, I get better frame rates without feeling like I'm giving up visual detail, and that alone makes upscaled 4K worth using.

4K has always been the end goal

With DLSS 4.5, I don't need to wait for native 4K anymore

Just because I preferred 1440p gaming doesn't mean I didn't care about 4K. There's a reason why I always bought flagship GPUs like the RTX 3090 and 4090. I wanted that extra performance headroom, not just for higher frame rates, but for better image quality when I needed it. 4K has always been the benchmark for that, especially in the kind of open-world AAA games where overall presentation actually matters. The problem was never 4K itself, but how demanding it is, even on the best GPUs available today.

Even the RTX 5090 can't run some AAA games at 60+FPS with every setting maxed out at native 4K. Cyberpunk 2077, Assassin's Creed: Shadows, and Black Myth: Wukong are good examples if you're looking for one. With DLSS 4.5, though, especially with frame generation, you're looking at a whole different reality. I can crank up the settings, keep frame rates comfortably above 60FPS, and still get an image that looks close enough to native that I'm not thinking about the difference while gaming. I'm getting the best of both worlds now, which is why switching to 4K for AAA games finally feels like a no-brainer.

For competitive gaming, 1440p still has the edge

Upscaling alone won't get me 200+FPS, but that's not my target for AAA titles

There's a reason I'm not moving away from 1440p for competitive gaming anytime soon. When I'm playing fast-paced titles like Battlefield 6 or Call of Duty: Warzone, my priorities are completely different. I'm not chasing image quality as much as I'm chasing triple-digit frame rates and responsiveness. While I can hit 200+ FPS at native 4K in some competitive shooters like Valorant and Counter-Strike 2, that's not possible in more demanding FPS games without frame generation, which adds input latency and changes how the game feels.

At 1440p, I can consistently push higher frame rates and get the most out of my 360Hz OLED without introducing anything that could throw off my aim. And let's not forget that many competitive games don't support DLSS in the first place. That said, when I'm playing AAA games like Assassin's Creed: Shadows, I'm not targeting those frame rates. I'm perfectly happy with 60-100FPS, and DLSS 4.5 helps me get there. In fact, I don't mind enabling frame generation in these titles, since input latency is the last thing I'm concerned about when playing through the story with a controller.

DLSS 4.5 is why I stopped defaulting to 1440p

If it weren't for DLSS 4.5, I'd still be playing all games on my 1440p/360 OLED or my Alienware ultrawide. Although I still prefer this resolution for competitive gaming, I now feel like I'm not getting the most out of my 4090 if I stick to it for everything. When visuals matter more than triple-digit frame rates, DLSS 4.5 lets me push 4K without compromising frame rates or dialing down my graphics settings. It may not boost FPS as much as older DLSS versions, but for me, the softer look was the bigger problem. With that trade-off almost completely out of the way, I don't feel the need to upgrade to the RTX 5090 for 4K gaming anymore.