I'm confused. A 1070 is a mid-range card, a lot of people have them. It's only when you start getting to 1080 and 1080 Ti territory that the price becomes a major barrier.
Where is the point of diminishing returns for you? 144FPS is a hugely noticeable upgrade over 60. I have two 24" monitors, each 144hz and each 1080p. The pixel density is identical to when I had a 1440p monitor at 27".
Here's the thing... At 1080p, you have two choices - great visual quality at 60FPS, or lowered visual quality at over 100FPS. This is doable even on mid-range, heck even budget cards. I know because I did it with a 970 for a very long time, even when the 10-series cards were well into their lifecycle.
Those are great choices, both of them, and they're only doable because of 1080p. 2% FPS boost is simply false, as is a slightly smaller gain in visual quality, but it's fine if you just don't want it. We will have to agree to disagree, because I think this focus on "PIXELS PIXELS PIXELS" is completely stupid and misguided.
100hz+ is great but id take increased visual quality (realism) over pixel count and frame rate.
For me, 60fps is the cutoff. Below that is way too jerky.
I'd like to see processing power & software design diverted to realism until we hit that magical indistinguishable look milestone, then increase the framerate & pixel count as time goes by.
I'm happy with the release of the RTX 2080 series. A huge hunk of expensive die focused on nothing but visual effect.
A step in the right direction.
I'd suspect ... yes my opinion, no proof ... that 4K is more important for consoles then PCs because usually console players are on the far side of a room from their screen and PC users are at arms length.
As V.Dog says, its the other way round. Liken it to a football stadium screen - the closer you are, the more you see the individual pixels.
For PC monitors its around 90 DPI. 16:9 24" 1080p = 91.79 DPI.
To keep the same at 16:9 32" you need 1440p. (Happens to be exactly same - 91.79)
Theres a reason 91.79 is strongly recommended by quite a few. No scaling issues as the myriad of software is built around that defacto standard. With 4K you need to up the scaling to see font, when you do that and the software you want to run isnt specifically written with high DPI in mind you encounter problems. Even Windows & Steam struggled with it for years. (youd think theyd be the ones to get it right, let alone that piece of accounting software you like.)
With 27" monitors its a choice 1080p or 1440p. 1080p (81.59 DPI) you see individual pixels and at 1440p (108.79) most people have to up the scaling to see font adequately. Then comes scaling issues.
To those on 24" looking for a larger monitor - skip 27" and go to 16:9 32" 1440p.
It's not too large, doesnt require the extreme GPU power 4K requires, and comes with 0 scaling issues. Also, larger screen area than 34" 21:9 and no black bars as most content is 16:9. Compatibility king.