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What will I need to game on a 4K TV

Gepetto

Gepetto

Gepetto

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My teenager has his eye on the new FarCry and is expecting to be able to buy himself a 4K TV after Xmas. He is hankering after a GTX 980, and I'm wondering if a single 980 will be sufficient.

He might also need a CPU upgrade so this could turn into an expensive couple of months!! He currently uses a 42" HD TV as his single screen for movies and PC, but, it's old now, and he's hoping that a 4K TV will be around £500 in the Xmas sales.

He's currently running the below

i7 860 LGA1156
Asus Maximus 111
8Gb of RAM
GTX 580 Phantom 3GB.

What is he going to need? Sorry if it's a basic question, but, I have no experience of really high resolutions.
 
Aren't most 4K tvs only 30Hz at the moment due to the limits of HDMI? If so will reduce the processing requirments a bit but obviously wont be so good for gaming on. A 980 might just about be ok for 30Hz on it's own depending on the game and the settings used.
 
Panasonic AX800 and 900 have displayport. Most newer 4k tvs also now have hdmi 4k/60hz. Will currently only work though with 9 series nvidia as they have hdmi 2.0.
 
For me the last thing I would want to do is go for 4k and then have to worry about turn features down, my self I would either go sli or wait until 2015 gpu's and as he waiting until after xmas, I would start looking then and see what out or coming out in the next few months.
 
Gepetto said:
Blimey! Even with a GTX980?
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4K roughly need 4x the GPU grunt (and need more vram as well!) to deliver the same performanace as 1920x1080.

If you'd consider 980 would still not be completely able to turn everything up for games such as Crysis 3 for 1920x1080 res, it will still be a while before 2 cards can drive 4K smoothly, let alone 1 card.

But as someone already pointed out that most 4K TV will be limited to 30Hz with HDMI, so effectively you might only need half the GPU grunt...though I wouldn't recommend gaming on 30Hz display.
 
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Also you will need new rig if you are going to bother with dual 980's. That spec is OLD. Basically you going to have to blow a lot of money very quicky if you want to modernise.
 
///Rage said:
Panasonic AX800 and 900 have displayport. Most newer 4k tvs also now have hdmi 4k/60hz. Will currently only work though with 9 series nvidia as they have hdmi 2.0.
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Yeah true, I'm guessing any at the £500 mark probably will be the older ones that are stuck at 30Hz, would be happy to be wrong on that one though :)


WesleyBurns said:
Also you will need new rig if you are going to bother with dual 980's. That spec is OLD. Basically you going to have to blow a lot of money very quicky if you want to modernise.
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Yeah basically this Gepetto. 4K gaming is absolute cutting edge enthusiast only at the moment with the price tag to match.
 
nails666 said:
Y
Yeah basically this Gepetto. 4K gaming is absolute cutting edge enthusiast only at the moment with the price tag to match.
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VincentHanna said:
Say goodbye to £1200+ if you want to game at 4K.

Your teenager can afford a 4k TV!?
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Thanks guys! The input is most appreciated :cool:

He can afford a £500 TV, and was hoping to be able to upgrade his PC to cope.

It doesn't look that that is feasible though, and having seen the comments on here I think I'll push him towards two screens. One for movies, and one for gaming.

Saying that I'm not sure that enough movies will take advantage of the 4K resolution as yet, so a complete rethink might be in order. :o
 
Netflix 4k is marginally better than 1080p Bluray according to reviews that I've read. i.e. not worth it.

When 4k BluRay specs/standard is confirmed it may be a different matter :)
 
At the end of the day TV companies always need new tech to sell people their new screens.

We've gone from CRT, to Flatscreen CRT, to Widescreen CRT to 'HD Ready' (720p) to Full HD, then 3D and now 4k.

The best application for 4k screens at the moment probably is high end PC gaming, as long as you have HDMI 2.0 or Displayport.

I'll probably jump in within the next 18 months when GPU's really catch up to be able to push the pixels and there is an actual way to watch 4k movies (not "4k mastered" 1080p Blu-rays!)
 
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