GPU for these games at 4k?

eddiew · 10 Nov 2015 at 12:17

Hey chaps,

Question for those with the knowledge; if I wanted to run these games...

- Kerbal Space Program
- Cities Skylines
- XCOM (and XCOM 2 next year)
- Skyrim
- Civilization V
- Minecraft (not a joke entry - it's not optimised at all)

...at 4k, is that viable for a single GPU? I don't think any of them are graphically demanding or very fps sensitive, but that is a lot of pixels to shunt around.

If it's practical with a single graphics card, would my trusty 2500k keep up with it? Would rather avoid a total system rebuild if possible...

(Reason; I want a 32" monitor and don't like AMVA panels, but the only 32" IPS options I can find are 4k...)

Cheers!

razorpakk · 10 Nov 2015 at 12:26

The CPU is fine (sigh Intel), of course it depends on the budget.

I would say a 390x is more than enough, but maybe you'll want to play more demanding games soon.
And if you can stretch to a 980Ti, that's still a great price/performance card.

eddiew · 10 Nov 2015 at 12:40

razorpakk said:
The CPU is fine (sigh Intel), of course it depends on the budget.

Good (but sigh indeed)

razorpakk said:
I would say a 390x is more than enough, but maybe you'll want to play more demanding games soon.
And if you can stretch to a 980Ti, that's still a great price/performance card.

My gaming interest/time is limited, and never goes into FPS/race/flight territory... I can foresee only one game I'm interested in next year, namely XCOM 2.

Which does kinda make me wince at the idea of a £500 GPU... Could find the money, but that's a big investment for the time I'll spend using it. Would need a new PSU as well :<

Would a regular 980 be viable? Or is 4gb vram not gonna cut it at 4k?

russell664 · 10 Nov 2015 at 12:55

eddiew said:
razorpakk said:

The CPU is fine (sigh Intel), of course it depends on the budget.

Click to expand...

Good (but sigh indeed)

My gaming interest/time is limited, and never goes into FPS/race/flight territory... I can foresee only one game I'm interested in next year, namely XCOM 2.

Which does kinda make me wince at the idea of a £500 GPU... Could find the money, but that's a big investment for the time I'll spend using it. Would need a new PSU as well :<

Would a regular 980 be viable? Or is 4gb vram not gonna cut it at 4k?

Some games @1080p can use 6GB of Vram, Shadow of Mordor for example.

razorpakk · 10 Nov 2015 at 12:55

It's enough for the games you intend to play, but a 390x is a better option (cheaper, more Vram, same performance).
Just checked OCUK 390X offer, didn't know there were only a few options.
I would go either HIS, the weird one, or Msi for the safest option.

eddiew · 10 Nov 2015 at 13:49

Trouble is the 390X's all want 600W power supplies. Think I'm currently packing a Seasonic 500.

Advice noted though, thanks chaps

(Tbh, I may just wait a while, either hope for a 1440p IPS 32" screen, or that nVidia will start packing more vram onto those vanilla 980s.)

varkanoid · 10 Nov 2015 at 13:57

I think you will find a 500W is fine for 390x. Also I think you will find a GTX 980 is fine for those games too at 4k dont take too much account of what people say about vram.
I had 970SLI and 980SLI Shadow of Morder with ultra hd pack running fine. (altho admittedly gsync helped).
I've played XCOM on a 970 with full detail at 4k it was fine. Although I have heard Minecraft can run like a dog at 4k.

eddiew · 10 Nov 2015 at 14:01

varkanoid said:
Although I have heard Minecraft can run like a dog at 4k.

Ironically, Minecraft performance is my biggest worry... Badly optimised java, a ton of mods by coders who may or may not know how to get decent performance out of it, and mostly on the CPU :/

Nice to hear about XCOM though, cheers

Scania · 10 Nov 2015 at 14:26

eddiew said:
Ironically, Minecraft performance is my biggest worry... Badly optimised java, a ton of mods by coders who may or may not know how to get decent performance out of it, and mostly on the CPU :/

I've got Minecraft 1.8.8 running beautifully @ 5760x1080 (spanned over 3 1080p monitors) and tbh it runs superbly, even with shader mods added.

I've got an aged system (Rig in sig) tbh the only game out of my collection that I have to really wind back at that resolution to make it smooth is GTA V.

eddiew · 10 Nov 2015 at 14:51

Scania said:
I've got Minecraft 1.8.8 running beautifully @ 5760x1080 (spanned over 3 1080p monitors) and tbh it runs superbly, even with shader mods added.

Vanilla (with shaders) or modded? The big mod packs are full of stuff in various states of optimisation that often cripple fps around certain blocks :/

That said, I have enough screens (2x satellite 17", HD cintiq, main 24" 1200p) that I could probably fake running at 4k by stretching the window to silly sizes across all of them... might give that a go tonight xD

AWPC · 10 Nov 2015 at 14:54

You probably have to go AMD. Nvidia do not really have a cheaper GTX 980 Ti option 4GB VRam is marginal @ 4K.

Scania · 10 Nov 2015 at 16:50

eddiew said:
Vanilla (with shaders) or modded? The big mod packs are full of stuff in various states of optimisation that often cripple fps around certain blocks :/

That said, I have enough screens (2x satellite 17", HD cintiq, main 24" 1200p) that I could probably fake running at 4k by stretching the window to silly sizes across all of them... might give that a go tonight xD

Its got loads of mods, my girlfriends 9 year old lad is obsessed with the things!

Its got some fancy shader mod (which isn't playable on his machine - Q8300 / GTX 260 / 8Gb RAM) but runs great on my 580's, and numerous other mods installed - about 20 in all!

suck it & see as far as the resolution goes I guess.

Seanspeed · 10 Nov 2015 at 16:52

AWPC said:
You probably have to go AMD. Nvidia do not really have a cheaper GTX 980 Ti option 4GB VRam is marginal @ 4K.

980Ti has 6GB of vRAM.

And with the games he listed, 4GB would be more than enough anyways.

Quartz · 10 Nov 2015 at 17:01

eddiew said:
Would a regular 980 be viable? Or is 4gb vram not gonna cut it at 4k?

No, 4 GB does not cut it at 4K. I regularly see VRAM usage in excess of 4 GB in Tomb Raider, for instance.

AWPC · 10 Nov 2015 at 17:35

Seanspeed said:
980Ti has 6GB of vRAM.

And with the games he listed, 4GB would be more than enough anyways.

OP is talking about 980 though not Ti. 980 has 4 Gb.Like I said Nvidia do not have an option with more than 4Gb apart from high end!

So it has to be AMD or a 980 Ti or used Titan (both overkill for OP & the games he plays right now).

Seanspeed · 10 Nov 2015 at 21:44

AWPC said:
OP is talking about 980 though not Ti. 980 has 4 Gb.Like I said Nvidia do not have an option with more than 4Gb apart from high end!

So it has to be AMD or a 980 Ti or used Titan (both overkill for OP & the games he plays right now).

Ah, I missed where he said he would wince at a £500 GPU.

Frankly, you shouldn't have a 4k monitor with anything less than double 980Ti's if you ask me. Unless you dont mind running lower resolutions or lower framerates once in a while.

I just dont think we're ready for 4k yet for normal users.

stooeh · 10 Nov 2015 at 21:45

For those games a 390 I would suggest is the best (value) option but you could use 390X, Fury, 970, 980, 980Ti etc

I doubt anyone is going to have VRAM issues with a single 4GB card at 4K unless they up the settings to where they would need multi GPU anyway and certainly not on these games (except perhaps a heavily modded Skyrim)

ugly ferret · 10 Nov 2015 at 23:13

A 970 or 390 will run those games fine, no need for anything more expensive if you don't want to spend the money.

Speaking from experience, 4k isn't as crippling as some people make out. Just turn off aa, and you'll be fine for games like that. And if you wanted to play new games, you won't be able to max them out but tweak some settings and they'll be more than playable.

If your psu can handle it then the 390 is probably the better choice, otherwise the 970 will be fine. I barely ever go over 3.5gb at 4k.

eddiew · 11 Nov 2015 at 09:33

Seanspeed said:
Frankly, you shouldn't have a 4k monitor with anything less than double 980Ti's if you ask me. Unless you dont mind running lower resolutions or lower framerates once in a while.

In all honesty, I don't care about 4k - I want a 32" IPS monitor, and that simply isn't available with simple QHD 1440p

I'm actually increasingly inclined to just not bother until next year. Either graphics hardware needs to take a jump up, or monitor makers need to take a step down. Feels like the screens have gone running off ahead of GPUs without asking how big the market for them will be...

ugly ferret said:
A 970 or 390 will run those games fine
...
If your psu can handle it then the 390 is probably the better choice, otherwise the 970 will be fine. I barely ever go over 3.5gb at 4k.

275 watts for the AMD 390

That said, a 970 is exactly the sort of thing that would be in my normal upgrade cycle anyway. Will have a poke around and see if I can find some benchmarks - although nobody really benches games that aren't very fps sensitive anyway. For my purposes, I suspect anything over 30-40 would be fine...

MooMoo444 · 11 Nov 2015 at 12:06

Seanspeed said:
980Ti has 6GB of vRAM.

And with the games he listed, 4GB would be more than enough anyways.

Those games might be fine, but you're limiting yourself to those games only. 4K needs more resources to play with if you want any semblance of future proof.