GPU's for 4K Gaming

josh3190 · 13 Jul 2016 at 16:17

Hey everyone,

With 4K being a bit more prevalent now and the fact I've just bought a 4K TV, what are the current graphics cards that really give a decent 4K gaming experience?

I've seen the 1070/1080 cards but they are the really high end, if I just wanted to use a single GPU what are the best options?

Any help would be great,

Thanks!

VincentHanna · 13 Jul 2016 at 16:27

Unfortunately you do really need a very high end graphics card as you are pushing 8 million pixels around the screen at 3840x2160

Compared to 2 million pixels at 1080p

Even a single GTX 1080 isn't enough for Max graphics settings, you need SLI.

josh3190 · 13 Jul 2016 at 17:31

Okay thanks a lot for the update, so suffice to say without spending well over £1000 it's not really feasible, I hear a lot of people talking about running at '1440p' what does this actually mean?

Is it that much of a step up from 1080p?

r7slayer · 13 Jul 2016 at 17:33

josh3190 said:
Okay thanks a lot for the update, so suffice to say without spending well over £1000 it's not really feasible, I hear a lot of people talking about running at '1440p' what does this actually mean?

Is it that much of a step up from 1080p?

Well 4k is like 4x the pixels where as 1440p is more like 1.5x the pixels than 1080. It's a step up but not as great as 4k. 1440p is a nice res to play at and certainly is a much better gaming experience than 4k on a single card.

Gerard · 13 Jul 2016 at 17:36

Even gtx 980 ti sli can struggle in 4k, games like BF4 on ultra, even taking off fsaa you can still get situations on some maps where it will dip into the 40-50fps range. Gpu utilisation in that game is a bit ropey though, can be 70% on one card and 50ish on the other, rarely are both cards in the 90% range.

AlamoX · 13 Jul 2016 at 19:38

GTX 1080 would be your best single GPU for 4K, but it doesnt mean you will have good 4K, but thats the best you will get for now.

josh3190 · 13 Jul 2016 at 20:18

And what kind of cards at the minute are running games at 1440p 60 fps+ on high/ultra settings?

Do you really need to spend the money on something like a 1080 to get that kind of performance?

Gerard · 14 Jul 2016 at 19:27

After having played with sli for a few weeks now i'm of the opinion that its not really suited to 4k either. A few games work well in 4k but some see very average scaling with each cards core only being taxed around 60% at best.

Just realise my bf issues were to do with some random vsync setting.,.

Bf4 seems to work well in terms of usage but as said above some maps like oman, shanghai etc you will dip below 60 fps quite a bit.

RanxZy · 14 Jul 2016 at 19:58

josh3190 said:
And what kind of cards at the minute are running games at 1440p 60 fps+ on high/ultra settings?

Do you really need to spend the money on something like a 1080 to get that kind of performance?

980Ti and 1070 perform well enough at 1440p High/Ultra in most recent games and fly in older games. 1440p and Gsync goes together really well with those cards and the extra smoothness over 40fps lowers the need for the 1080.

Newbfail · 14 Jul 2016 at 22:37

Dependent on the game a single 1080gtx will do

However not on all games, you will need sli

oldestgregg · 14 Jul 2016 at 23:36

josh3190 said:
And what kind of cards at the minute are running games at 1440p 60 fps+ on high/ultra settings?

Do you really need to spend the money on something like a 1080 to get that kind of performance?

Yes you do. Im running a 1080 @3440x1440 and wouldnt want to go any lower than that.

Also if its a 4k TV you want to run everything at 4k which is the native res or just wont look good. Running 1080p on a 1400p monitor looks dreadful so I cant imagine what 1400p would look like on a 4k TV

Rofflay · 14 Jul 2016 at 23:37

Being honest Titan Pascal will be the first 4K gpu.

Poneros · 14 Jul 2016 at 23:51

Everyone's blowing the requirements out of proportion. Fact is a 980 ti oc'ed (or even better, 2!) will give you a good 4K experience BUT it requires you to TWEAK settings. When people just push sliders to the max without thinking about it that just wrecks the framerate and doesn't necessarily add much visually. So yes, you absolutely can have a good 4K experience, especially on a TV (because being farther away from it allows even more tweaking - which allows better performance) without selling your house - just gotta be smart about it. And that's for new and upcoming games - older ones are going to be buttery smooth (2014 and older).

Quartz · 14 Jul 2016 at 23:56

I was playing at 4K with a GTX 780 Ti two years ago. I was running Borderlands 2 at max details and Tomb Raider at a mix of Medium and High. Sure you can't max out the graphics details on the newest games.

Rofflay · 15 Jul 2016 at 00:02

A 980 can if you are on 60hz my 4770K 980 will get around 70-90fps in BF4 with 4K DSR. That is with the drivers settings maxed out for IQ and ingame 3840x2160 16XAF and everything else set to off or lowest but still looks fantastic compared to the mess called 1080p 4XMSAA. This was in 64p MP too no single player crap but it is still lowest settings.

I have every intention of repeating this with a 1080/Titan to nail the 120fps mark.

geordiejc · 15 Jul 2016 at 00:23

1080 ti / Titan P

dafadau · 15 Jul 2016 at 08:58

Poneros said:
Everyone's blowing the requirements out of proportion. Fact is a 980 ti oc'ed (or even better, 2!) will give you a good 4K experience BUT it requires you to TWEAK settings. When people just push sliders to the max without thinking about it that just wrecks the framerate and doesn't necessarily add much visually. So yes, you absolutely can have a good 4K experience, especially on a TV (because being farther away from it allows even more tweaking - which allows better performance) without selling your house - just gotta be smart about it. And that's for new and upcoming games - older ones are going to be buttery smooth (2014 and older).

This. I've been doing it for a few years.

jennidc · 15 Jul 2016 at 09:06

Dark souls 2 runs great in 4k on my r9 290

mahius · 15 Jul 2016 at 09:09

I'd say wait till the big cards of this gen launch. Current GPUs can't consistently do 4k60fps in all titles with the best settings, but they sure do get close. Close enough that the 1080ti/Vega will most likely be able to do 4k60 consistently on a single card. Unless you want to go SLI/crossfire, keeping in mind that not all games support multi-GPU that well.

Those who say you can do 4k on current GPUs, they aren't wrong. It's just that you won't be able to do it for every game (each game is optimised differently) and you'll have to reduce certain settings. Again, that depends on each game, some games you may have to reduce settings considerably and that also depends on what one person is willing to put up with. E.g. I won't run 1440p if I have to reduce too many settings. More than 4GB of VRAM is beneficial for 4k, so 6GB+ is a good idea.

Gerard · 15 Jul 2016 at 10:03

Poneros said:
Everyone's blowing the requirements out of proportion. Fact is a 980 ti oc'ed (or even better, 2!) will give you a good 4K experience BUT it requires you to TWEAK settings. When people just push sliders to the max without thinking about it that just wrecks the framerate and doesn't necessarily add much visually. So yes, you absolutely can have a good 4K experience, especially on a TV (because being farther away from it allows even more tweaking - which allows better performance) without selling your house - just gotta be smart about it. And that's for new and upcoming games - older ones are going to be buttery smooth (2014 and older).

When people say 4k on here they generally mean with all the bells and whistles enabled, easy enough to turn some things down but thats not how people regard running 4k for the most part.