I have a 32 inch 1080p monitor as my secondary

I honestly find this hard to believe. I have 2x 32 inch monitors on my desk and in 1920x1080 they’re ugly to the point of distraction.

if you are going big why spend the money on a 4k one if you are just going to use scaling anyway?

4k isn’t that expensive. you can get 32 inch 4k monitors for a few hundred dollars.

Scaling is not the same as reducing the resolution.