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Upgrading to a 4K monitor - Pitfalls?

2StepSteve

2StepSteve

2StepSteve

Soldato
Joined
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Location
SE England
I've decided to upgrade to a 32" 4K monitor, the reason being mostly for photography editing.

I currently have a 22" LG IPS 1080 monitor and a 7850 GPU.

I haven't been much of a PC gamer since getting a PS4, but lately I have been sinking in quite a bit of time in to Euro Truck 2, Flight sim (Prepar3d - resource monster), Cities Skylines, DOTA2, RTS and the occasional FPS.

4K is a lot of pixels to push around for a single card but I don't want to go down the SLI route.

So a single card.. I am thinking it needs to be a 580ti? But will a single 580ti it cut @ 4K? My fear is that I'm going to be left with worse FPS than my current 7850 @1080 when I've just shelled out the best part of £500 on a 580ti as I'm now pushing 4K.

How well do these 4k monitors scale? Does anyone out there game at a lower res on their 4K monitor?

Thinking maybe I should adopt a two monitor setup, I do have the desk space for it, where by the 4K is used for everything but gaming, and then use my current 1080 monitor or maybe even a 1440 G Sync for gaming?

Advice?

I have just over £1000 to spend as of this moment.
 
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i take it you mean 980ti lol. A 980ti will play most your games OK at 4k you wont have to run AA at 4k so that will help things out. there is not really a single card that can "handle" 4k gaming to be honest but the 980ti is your best bet imo. you will find running at lower resolutions just looks a little softer but still better than 1080p. Things like Cities skyline will run nicely at 4k. its when it comes to first person games you will struggle. Flightsim is another that will struggle as its so poorly coded.
 
I have a 4k monitor and a 980ti and I cant run every game on max at 4k even with my card/cpu combo - both overclocked - just doesn't cut it for max.

What it can do is generally every setting on max with the exception of msaa/txaa which still looks outstanding!!!!!

For your other question about doenscaling, even this looks fantastic. I run gtav at 1440p insteak of 4k as I play online a lot, and want to have max graphics, with zero drops below 60fps. It looks so much better than 1080p on a 1080p monitor for sure.

Overall, 980ti is worth it imo of course, but just don't expect to max out every game on 4k.

However, running 1440p gaming pn a 4k monitor is still worth the purchase as the workspace you get on the desktop at 4k is brilliant and the visual boost on gaming is great.
 
i think you mean 980Ti not 580ti.
since you are a very casual gamer, and usualy you can't really game at 4k with only a single GPU yet, dont think going for top end gpu would even help.
although the titles you play seem to be fairly easy on the gpu.
i would suggest you just pick a 390 with 8Go that should be fine for what you play, have enough memory for your work, and save enough money to pick a really neat monitor or extra one.
dont know if there is a good 4k freesync monitor out yet.
 
AlamoX said:
i think you mean 980Ti not 580ti.
since you are a very casual gamer, and usualy you can't really game at 4k with only a single GPU yet, dont think going for top end gpu would even help.
although the titles you play seem to be fairly easy on the gpu.
i would suggest you just pick a 390 with 8Go that should be fine for what you play, have enough memory for your work, and save enough money to pick a really neat monitor or extra one.
dont know if there is a good 4k freesync monitor out yet.
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Apart from its cheaper there is no situation the 390 is better. the 390 cannot use its 8gb of Vram it was more of a marketing gimmick due to the 3.5gb 970 vram thing going on at the time imo.

the 980ti will run rings round a 390 at 4k. End of.
 
Randall8686 said:
Apart from its cheaper there is no situation the 390 is better. the 390 cannot use its 8gb of Vram it was more of a marketing gimmick due to the 3.5gb 970 vram thing going on at the time imo.

the 980ti will run rings round a 390 at 4k. End of.
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he said he is gonna use it mainly for work, and software uses memory differently than games, and even when he plays, he does that on fairly low requirement games, and add to that that AMD GPUs handle higher resolution better than Nvidia, the gap in performance gets smaller as the resolution goes higher mainly because AMD GPUs have wider bus.
anyhow the way i see it, since the difference of fps at 4k will usualy be in a single digit, why throw away those 250£ when you can use them to get a decent freesync 4k monitor, or even get crossfire that cranks up fps at 4k way more than single 980Ti, for the same price.
beside it's his money he does whatever he wants with it, am just stating how i would personnaly do it, and i often go for bang on the buck.
 
There is no single card to do this at high settings, it does not exist.

980ti is probably the best choice, obviously Titan X marginally better for a boatload of money.

Reality is you will be better served waiting for the next round of cards, or going SLI.
 
AlamoX said:
he said he is gonna use it mainly for work, and software uses memory differently than games, and even when he plays, he does that on fairly low requirement games, and add to that that AMD GPUs handle higher resolution better than Nvidia, the gap in performance gets smaller as the resolution goes higher mainly because AMD GPUs have wider bus.
anyhow the way i see it, since the difference of fps at 4k will usualy be in a single digit, why throw away those 250£ when you can use them to get a decent freesync 4k monitor, or even get crossfire that cranks up fps at 4k way more than single 980Ti, for the same price.
beside it's his money he does whatever he wants with it, am just stating how i would personnaly do it, and i often go for bang on the buck.
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Well in that case he can save even more cash and stick with his 7850 as photo editing has basically no VRAM requirement.

The gap between the 390 and the 980ti is massive, there is only 2GB VRAM in it, and according to AMD 4GB is enough for 4k.

If you'd said Fury X you'd be contributing to the discussion but a single 390 is not a good choice for 4k gaming.
 
4gb isn't enough for 4k gaming at good settings. I utilise 4gb vram at 1440p with the settings I run on GTA. 4k I can push that to 6gb with the same settings, but then I get frame drops due to the card not having enough grunt for max settings on that game.

It really depends op on how you want games to look. If you want to play 4k, either card, if you want to experience 4k to the best you can on current single card capabilities, then go for ti.
 
i got a 4K Monitor and 980s.

GTA V Ultra No AA - 58-60fps 3.7GB VRAM used
Witcher 3 High/Ultra no AA - 45-60fps 3.9GB VRAM used.

4GB is enough, but more would be better.
 
Dude for the games you play a 980ti won't even break a sweat, 4K or no 4K. Hell, DotA 2 4K can be done with a 7950 easily. In truth, you'd probably be better served by going for the sapphire 390x on offer for <£280.
 
Poneros said:
Dude for the games you play a 980ti won't even break a sweat, 4K or no 4K. Hell, DotA 2 4K can be done with a 7950 easily. In truth, you'd probably be better served by going for the sapphire 390x on offer for <£280.
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Agree. for what you want even 980ti is overkill at 4k. Saying that it will last you a long time.
 
2StepSteve said:
If I was to go for a 980ti which one is the one to get?
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Considering the budget, I would go for the EVGA hybrid.

I went for the reference cards as I plan to go SLI and put them under water so wasn't bothered about the extra money for hybrid at the time.
 
I have a 28" 4K monitor and the only two negativities I have found are:

- Lots of games are hard to drive at 4K of course, you can play them at 1080P, but that seems a shame when you have a 4K screen - and 1440P looks a little blurry as it doesn't scale perfectly.

- Some software doesn't scale correctly, so text and menu's are either so very small that you have to lean in close to read/use them, or they are the correct size, but blurry.
 
Just thought I'd mention that I went for a 980ti (EVGA FTW) and a 4K monitor (Benq 3201 pt).

I cannot believe how much of an upgrade this has been! Totally stunned.

The 980ti has no problems running at this 4K res with the games I play, am no longer interested about purchasing a smaller 1440 144hz monitor as I'm blown away with this setup.
 
Evga was a good choice, would only have picked evga or msi myself. I use a MSI 980ti and it's awesome. If you want to start gaming playing more demanding games even the 980ti may struggle at 4k. Picking up a Rog Swift 165 Hertz IPS 1440p myself tomorrow rather than 4k.
 
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