4k upgrade - GPU/Monitor advice

Soldato
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Hey everyone,

Current specs:
Intel i7 6700K
48GB RAM 3000Mhz
Asus Maximus VIII Ranger
ZOTAC GTX 1070 AMP!
BenQ XL2420T

As the other half likes to play Anno 1800 and Planet Zoo. She now wants to upgrade to 4k. So, I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for a monitor and a graphics card (would a 1080Ti or 2070Ti/2080Ti cover it and what price should I be looking at as the GPU prices are all over the place?)

Not sure of a budget on the monitor itself, but maybe around 600 if that's possible or can stretch depending on what it is.

Also, would the CPU cause any kind of bottleneck?

Thanks
 
Soldato
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Getting gaming grade 4K monitor will be hard.
While 60Hz models are dirt cheap, 100+ Hz costs lot.
And there are very little even higher up models available.
So who knowns when this one will be actually available.
Gigabyte 28" M28U 3840x2160 4K SSIPS 144Hz 1ms HDR400 A-Sync Widescreen LED Backlit Gaming Monitor= £629.99

Anno 1800 seemse to be quite CPU demanding.
https://technical-news.net/anno-1800-in-the-test-cpu-benchmarks-and-conclusion1613902037
Though 3840x2160 is lots of pixels to render per frame.
And GPU prices are sky high.
 
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Have you considered 1440p? Or 3440x1440p this is the sweet spot still imo, won't require as expensive GPU and there are a lot more alternatives at those prices
 
Soldato
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Getting gaming grade 4K monitor will be hard.
While 60Hz models are dirt cheap, 100+ Hz costs lot.
And there are very little even higher up models available.
So who knowns when this one will be actually available.
Gigabyte 28" M28U 3840x2160 4K SSIPS 144Hz 1ms HDR400 A-Sync Widescreen LED Backlit Gaming Monitor= £629.99

Anno 1800 seemse to be quite CPU demanding.
https://technical-news.net/anno-1800-in-the-test-cpu-benchmarks-and-conclusion1613902037
Though 3840x2160 is lots of pixels to render per frame.
And GPU prices are sky high.

I was just looking at the Gigabyte M28U as it seems to meet all the requirements, that and the 144hz helps if she ever decides to switch over to other types of games. Although like you said, there is no date and seems to be that way across all the sites.
In terms of being CPU intensive, if I get a new GPU and monitor, but still notice an impact then can potentially look at changing over to a better systems but at least these 2 will move over too :D

Have you considered 1440p? Or 3440x1440p this is the sweet spot still imo, won't require as expensive GPU and there are a lot more alternatives at those prices

TBH, I've not as she just started looking at some 4k gameplay and fell in love with how it looks on those games (without the price it takes to get that kind of gameplay haha). If I was to go down that route, what GPUs would I be looking at and potential monitor? From looking at prices at the moment, the 2080Ti seems to be going for 500 - 700 (500 if I get lucky), but dont know if its a good deal or not.

Thanks so far!
 
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Associate
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I was just looking at the Gigabyte M28U as it seems to meet all the requirements, that and the 144hz helps if she ever decides to switch over to other types of games. Although like you said, there is no date and seems to be that way across all the sites.
In terms of being CPU intensive, if I get a new GPU and monitor, but still notice an impact then can potentially look at changing over to a better systems but at least these 2 will move over too :D



TBH, I've not as she just started looking at some 4k gameplay and fell in love with how it looks on those games (without the price it takes to get that kind of gameplay haha). If I was to go down that route, what GPUs would I be looking at and potential monitor? From looking at prices at the moment, the 2080Ti seems to be going for 500 - 700 (500 if I get lucky), but dont know if its a good deal or not.

Thanks so far!
I have a 2080ti and it's, if anything, overkill for standard 1440p. Now if you're looking at 1440p 144hz or 3440x1440p 120hz that's a different story but the 2080ti would be more than up for the task. I would say getting a 2080ti for £500 in this market is a "good deal" although less so in a normal market. Are you hell bent on upgrading now during the current market conditions?
 
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Soldato
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I have a 2080ti and it's, if anything, overkill for standard 1440p. Now if you're looking at 1440p 144hz or 3440x1440p 120hz that's a different story but the 2080ti would be more than up for the task. I would say getting a 2080ti for £500 in this market is a "good deal" although less so in a normal market. Are you hell bent on upgrading now during the current market conditions?

The main reason at looking to upgrade is that the current monitor is finally on its way out after 9 years of use. So, thought I might as well look at the full upgrade instead of going to a temporary monitor just to eventually go over to 4k anyway. Although if it does work out cheaper with current specs (something the 1070 can handle), then im all for it until/if the market gets better.
 
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The main reason at looking to upgrade is that the current monitor is finally on its way out after 9 years of use. So, thought I might as well look at the full upgrade instead of going to a temporary monitor just to eventually go over to 4k anyway. Although if it does work out cheaper with current specs (something the 1070 can handle), then im all for it until/if the market gets better.

GTX 1070 has only 30% of the performance of RX 6800 XT 16GB.
These top enthusiast cards are now 2 times faster or offer 300% the performance of that old GTX 1070.
 
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The main reason at looking to upgrade is that the current monitor is finally on its way out after 9 years of use. So, thought I might as well look at the full upgrade instead of going to a temporary monitor just to eventually go over to 4k anyway. Although if it does work out cheaper with current specs (something the 1070 can handle), then im all for it until/if the market gets better.
You could always get the new monitor and game at slightly lower resolutions if the game demands it at your specs. If you've got the disposal income though the 2080ti at £500 isn't awful, it's pretty much what the 3070 was on release and they're very close to the same performance
 
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You could always get the new monitor and game at slightly lower resolutions if the game demands it at your specs. If you've got the disposal income though the 2080ti at £500 isn't awful, it's pretty much what the 3070 was on release and they're very close to the same performance

That's true and considering the only monitor mentioned here is on pre-order, I guess it gives the graphic cards time to miraculously lower in price haha. Are there any monitors that come close to the M28U?

GTX 1070 has only 30% of the performance of RX 6800 XT 16GB.
These top enthusiast cards are now 2 times faster or offer 300% the performance of that old GTX 1070.

Given its price, its still works out cheaper than the 3080 series cards and probably wouldnt need to upgrade it anytime soon. Would a card that powerful be bottlenecked by something like the CPU?

Thanks for all the suggestions so far everyone! Its been a big help
 
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I'd recomend a 3080FE but will need a bit of forward planning and patience to get one although at just £650 your not getting a better deal elsewhere this generation.
 
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A 3060 gets 12gb of VRAM and is nowhere near fast enough to make use of it, but the 3080 is only available with 10gb of VRAM and that is nowhere near enough. Can someone explain this to me?
 
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It is to do with the width of the memory BUS each card has. The 3060 can only have either 6 or 12 gb and the 3080 can go for 10 or 20 gb, there were rumours that they were going to release a 20gb version but it never happened. 3060 has 192bit bus and 3080 is 320 bit bus, I do not fully understand why this limits them to certain memory configs but it is the reason we do not get sensible memory amounts on certain cards.

They could give each card any amount of memory they liked but to do that they would need to get custom modules from Samsung or Crucial or whoever makes them and they would be more expensive than just putting double the ram on anyway.
 
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@OP

The Gigabyte monitor that is being recommened is apparently excellent according to reviews. If you did buy it and do not have a PC powerful enough to run at 4k then just lower it to 1080p. You certianly do not need 144hz and high FPS to enjoy the games you mention, anything over 60fps @1080p will be fine for strategy games.

A good monitor will be good when you buy it and also good when you get a better PC to run it at a higher res with higher FPS.
 
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A 3060 gets 12gb of VRAM and is nowhere near fast enough to make use of it, but the 3080 is only available with 10gb of VRAM and that is nowhere near enough. Can someone explain this to me?

Incompetence at Nvidia. This is why I have always been staying away from their products.

In all honesty, AMD had a similar case with the 4GB Radeon Fury X but hey, no one forced them to use inappropriate memory type. There are certainly other engineering decisions.
AMD showed well how it works with slower memory but another cache structure like Infinity Cache.
 
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Soldato
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It is to do with the width of the memory BUS each card has. The 3060 can only have either 6 or 12 gb and the 3080 can go for 10 or 20 gb, there were rumours that they were going to release a 20gb version but it never happened. 3060 has 192bit bus and 3080 is 320 bit bus, I do not fully understand why this limits them to certain memory configs but it is the reason we do not get sensible memory amounts on certain cards.

They could give each card any amount of memory they liked but to do that they would need to get custom modules from Samsung or Crucial or whoever makes them and they would be more expensive than just putting double the ram on anyway.

I don’t think so, I don’t have much experience with graphic card circuitry, but I don’t see why you couldn’t outfit the cards with 5,10 and 15gb if required. Or 6,9 and 12gb. Or any combination of memory.
 
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I don’t think so, I don’t have much experience with graphic card circuitry, but I don’t see why you couldn’t outfit the cards with 5,10 and 15gb if required. Or 6,9 and 12gb. Or any combination of memory.

It is also marketing. They put more VRAM on slower cards in order to lie the customer to buy the product.
Because the customer doesn't know that more memory doesn't necessarily mean anything.
 
Soldato
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It is also marketing. They put more VRAM on slower cards in order to lie the customer to buy the product.
Because the customer doesn't know that more memory doesn't necessarily mean anything.

But isn’t that anti-marketing? Low end card fitted with 12gb, top end card has 17% less, so more expensive 17% less good… buy lower end card.
 
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