Upgrading to 144hz and maybe 2K

[Beckers]

Hey guys, I'm gonna upgrade my rig and specially my monitor to a 144Hz Gsync monitor.

I have two monitors that are at my price range, one is from Dell and another from Lenovo. I am not too sure about Lenovo as a brand for a monitor though, I hate their laptops (from experience) and on the other hand I am not too sure about going up to 2K since I want to fully utilize the 144Hz capabilities that they have.

Which one of the two would you rather get if you had the option?

My other dilemma is upgrading my GPU, I currently use a 980ti overclocked from MSI, which is overall nice but I was always very unimpressed with its thermal performance, the card is just hot even while running a test bench in a cold room. I am a rather impatient when it comes to hardware upgrades and if I am gonna go up to 2K I am gonna have to upgrade my GPU specially if I want FPS around 144 at high settings.

There is a sale on a hybrid cooled AIO Evga 1080, which is 200 euro cheaper than an Asus 1080ti strix for example, but the thought of buying something that is not current kind of bugs me, and when I hear "Volta is right around the corner" I get even more impatient since this sounds like vague marketing lingo.

TLDR: My options are 1K gaming 144Hz with a 980ti, 1K gaming 144Hz with an upgraded GPU or 2K gaming 144Hz with an upgraded GPU.

Any insight will be appreciated!

[Cyrops]

First things first, 1080 is current gen, 1080ti is just 'one of the most expensive' current gen
I mentioned this in another thread, going from 24"1080@60 to 27"1440@144 the things that blew my mind was the size and pixel density, refresh rate was MEH (though I do not play FPS)
Your 980ti should be enough for 1440@144 if you don't care about Maxed out settings. I got Shadow of Mordor on sale (something like 4$ for GOTY edition) and going from High to Low doesn't improve my FPS at ALL, for some reason, but it does improve my GPU temps, still using r9 390 that I had before upgrading.

That Lenovo is curved, which is a thing you need to test for yourself, if you like it or not, it's also not on http://www.tftcentral.co.uk (not a single Lenovo monitor is) so I would recommend you to stay away from it.

G-sync is meh in my eyes, but it depends if you notice the tearing or not, the videos I watched I couldn't tell until they froze the frame to specifically show the tearing. If you really want G-sync, there are asus, aoc and acer alternatives.

I have BenQ xl2730z, if you are interested, it's freesync and I do run AMD but I do not use the freesync option.

[Fascinate]

Dell is a far better monitor.

You should try your 980ti with the dell before upgrading, im using the 24" version of the dell on a slower gtx 1060, i can easily tweak settings to where i am over 100 fps in everything i play. Remember with gsync there is no need to always be capped at your panels refresh rate, as long as you are above the point where the smoothness of high hz monitors shows up its all gucci (for me thats around 90 fps and up).

[Beckers]

Thanks for the replies! Those are the only two monitors I can get my hands on at the moment due to availability.

Sadly I do care about high settings, so I do not wanna dip into low just to have a high framerate..

[DeltrusDisc]

The 1080 is still current, it's just not as big as the 1080 Ti. They're from the same family!

Volta very well might be around the corner, if you can stomach waiting, it might be fruitful.

As far as the monitors? The Dell seems okay enough, still, it's not an IPS or even better, a VA panel, so that would detract me from going for it. TN low contrast monitors are a no-go for me. And the Lenovo? Here's a review: http://www.techradar.com/reviews/len...curved-monitor

And frankly, I don't like 1080p@27" and I think that's very backwards thinking of them, and making it curved? You don't need a curve at 27". You need a curve at 34", like with my monitor.

If you have a working monitor, or can get a cheap working monitor, I'd wait and save up your money for a far superior monitor to both of these as well as getting a better GPU. I'm assuming your CPU situation is fine and you just need to replace the GPU? What CPU do you have?

Trust me when I say, you'll be happier if you get a nicer monitor. This Samsung 34" curved 3440x1440 VA panel monitor I got, was what I tried out after the original ASUS ROG Swift proved to be crap, in my eyes (TN panels are gross) and I am so happy I bought this monitor. Even though there is better out there available now (like a 100Hz version of the same thing) etc, I'm still happy I paid $1,200 for this thing when I did... It's a completely different kind of gaming experience! It's breathtaking.

Wait, save up your money, is my advice, if you're in a position to. If I absolutely had to suggest one of the two you're looking at? Dell.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

2k 144hz is great for gaming and a 1080 pushes the modern AAAs well good on it (I have gysnc though). Personally to me it is the sweet spot right now although that spot is ever changing right now since resolution seems to be the new rat race. If you got an nvida card I would go with something with gsync. AMD card freesync. Really adds life to the gaming experince once your hardware ages a bit and it happens to us all. The sacifice you make for all of this great gaming experince though is it is often harder to find IPS panels for this so its not going to be as perfect as a picture (we arent talking BAD picture just not perfect -- some find it terrible most find it hardly noticable so find out which you are). I think their might be some really expensive options out there but I *personally* find it hard to pay over a 1000 bucks for a monitor that likely will be out done in a couple years when 4k or above takes the crown.

[Cyrops]

Thanks for the replies! Those are the only two monitors I can get my hands on at the moment due to availability.

Sadly I do care about high settings, so I do not wanna dip into low just to have a high framerate..

Then don't go 144hz, get 4k 60hz

[TripleZero]

If you want to enjoy high fps with high details on a 1440p screen you will need a SLI setup. A single card will barely reach 50-60 FPS if you go easy on the anti aliasing in newer titles so if youre unwilling to spend the extra $$$ for a multi GPU setup you might as well stay with a 60 hertz screen, although i would rather recommend getting 1080p@144hz because hertz and fps > resolution imho.

And just fyi. I am a SLI user for many years now ( I remember buying 2 GTX 8800s for crysis back then... God i am getting old)

While the amount of FPS you can get combined with high Details are awesome when it works you will often run into games that simply dont get SLI support, it depends alot on the developers of the game in question. Sometimes SLI will only work months after release when the developers finally bother to make a profile, sometimes it will never work.

Not to mention that you might need a better PSU and then theres the cpu lane issue which has started to rear its ugly head in recent games (no its not a myth...)

Im not going to go into more detail.

TLDR: You might end up spending a great deal more money than you thought.

https://youtu.be/rRyFGoDVr28

It's a video about the difference of 8x/8x and 16x/16x pci lanes. But its going to provide you a good deal of information about the FPS you can expect with a SLI setup for different resolutions. Expect about 60% as much fps with a single card. (Regarding lanes it gets interesting around 3m20s when they go for witcher 3, but thats whole different (even more expensive) topic)

Feel free to ask me questions via PM.

[Beckers]

Then don't go 144hz, get 4k 60hz

Kinda misses the point doesn't it?

If you want to enjoy high fps with high details on a 1440p screen you will need a SLI setup. A single card will barely reach 50-60 FPS if you go easy on the anti aliasing in newer titles so if youre unwilling to spend the extra $$$ for a multi GPU setup you might as well stay with a 60 hertz screen, although i would rather recommend getting 1080p@144hz because hertz and fps > resolution imho.

And just fyi. I am a SLI user for many years now ( I remember buying 2 GTX 8800s for crysis back then... God i am getting old)

While the amount of FPS you can get combined with high Details are awesome when it works you will often run into games that simply dont get SLI support, it depends alot on the developers of the game in question. Sometimes SLI will only work months after release when the developers finally bother to make a profile, sometimes it will never work.

Not to mention that you might need a better PSU and then theres the cpu lane issue which has started to rear its ugly head in recent games (no its not a myth...)

Im not going to go into more detail.

TLDR: You might end up spending a great deal more money than you thought.

https://youtu.be/rRyFGoDVr28

It's a video about the difference of 8x/8x and 16x/16x pci lanes. But its going to provide you a good deal of information about the FPS you can expect with a SLI setup for different resolutions. Expect about 60% as much fps with a single card. (Regarding lanes it gets interesting around 3m20s when they go for witcher 3, but thats whole different (even more expensive) topic)

Feel free to ask me questions via PM.

Thanks for the detailed answer, but I have seen lots of 1080ti benchmarks for 1440p that are well above 100 fps, is that not the case?

Edit: Source: https://www.digitalfoundry.net/2017-...40p-benchmarks

[Shinzai]

Kinda misses the point doesn't it?



Thanks for the detailed answer, but I have seen lots of 1080ti benchmarks for 1440p that are well above 100 fps, is that not the case?

Edit: Source: https://www.digitalfoundry.net/2017-...40p-benchmarks

Pay no attention to this nonsense. You're correct in thinking a single 1080 or 1080ti will more than do the job. What he said may have been relevant back when the 980ti was the fastest card around, but no more.

A single 1080 will run pretty much all games at 60-90 fps in 1440p, max settings. The 1080ti is preferable when aiming for 100-144 fps ranges however.

[Acelius]

Kinda misses the point doesn't it?



Thanks for the detailed answer, but I have seen lots of 1080ti benchmarks for 1440p that are well above 100 fps, is that not the case?

Edit: Source: https://www.digitalfoundry.net/2017-...40p-benchmarks

Even the 1070 handles 1440p perfectly fine. With the founders edition in DOOM, I get 100+ fps with everything maxed on 1440p. Of course if you insist on pushing 144 fps, you might need a 1080.

[Beckers]

Pay no attention to this nonsense. You're correct in thinking a single 1080 or 1080ti will more than do the job. What he said may have been relevant back when the 980ti was the fastest card around, but no more.

A single 1080 will run pretty much all games at 60-90 fps in 1440p, max settings. The 1080ti is preferable when aiming for 100-144 fps ranges however.

Even the 1070 handles 1440p perfectly fine. With the founders edition in DOOM, I get 100+ fps with everything maxed on 1440p. Of course if you insist on pushing 144 fps, you might need a 1080.

Thank you! I thought I was going crazy and that 1440p gaming didn't happen yet and I imagined the whole thing...

I am about to buy the Dell monitor to use it with my 980ti with un-maxed settings and upgrade to a 1080ti or a 2080, depending on what will be announced in august.

[TripleZero]

Kinda misses the point doesn't it?



Thanks for the detailed answer, but I have seen lots of 1080ti benchmarks for 1440p that are well above 100 fps, is that not the case?

Edit: Source: https://www.digitalfoundry.net/2017-...40p-benchmarks

It seems like I was actually misinformed regarding 1080ti performance, apologies. Id recon in the real world (benchmark results are usually not reproducable in actual gameplay)you can expect around 80-90 FPS with a 1080ti. Stable 100+ is bullshit imo. A normal 1080 will be 50-60 though, i can guarantee you that.

I uploaded some screenshots for dishonored 2 quite a long time ago. It was about a custom SLI profile. However i also made screenshots with a single card to outline the performance difference.

http://imgur.com/a/LpE7s

As you can see, a single 1080 = ~60 fps. Spiking to 74 in that one screenshot but thats literally looking at a wall with nothing going on.

Even the 1070 handles 1440p perfectly fine. With the founders edition in DOOM, I get 100+ fps with everything maxed on 1440p. Of course if you insist on pushing 144 fps, you might need a 1080.

Doom is using vulcan API and is unusually well optimized. This is not a good example.

DOOMs performance was nowhere near this before they added vulcan 2 months after release.

[Beckers]

It seems like I was actually misinformed regarding 1080ti performance, apologies. Id recon in the real world (benchmark results are usually not reproducable in actual gameplay)you can expect around 80-90 FPS with a 1080ti. Stable 100+ is bullshit imo. A normal 1080 will be 50-60 though, i can guarantee you that.

I uploaded some screenshots for dishonored 2 quite a long time ago. It was about a custom SLI profile. However i also made screenshots with a single card to outline the performance difference.

http://imgur.com/a/LpE7s

As you can see, a single 1080 = ~60 fps. Spiking to 74 in that one screenshot but thats literally looking at a wall with nothing going on.



Doom is using vulcan API and is unusually well optimized. This is not a good example.

DOOMs performance was nowhere near this before they added vulcan 2 months after release.

Witcher 3 without hairworks at about 80 FPS with a 980ti, 1080ti will bet twice that, easy... Just tested it.

What I linked is not benchmarks, it's real life performance in games..

The image you linked is from 4k isn't it?

[TripleZero]

The image you linked is from 4k isn't it?

No its 1440p.

[Beckers]

No its 1440p.

No idea what is he doing then, I get steady high FPS with a 980ti.. So a 1080ti will destroy most things easily..

[Fascinate]

Like i said, im running a 165hz 1440p monitor with a 1060. Most games look nearly as good on medium/high as they do on ultra, best settings are usually auto detect....they want as many people to play their games as possible.

Beyond that, gsync allows you to not have to worry about pegging the refresh rate of you monitor at all times, anything above ~90 (for me) looks great. I doubt i could tell a difference between 100 and 165 if i didnt have a FPS counter to look at.

[TripleZero]

No idea what is he doing then, I get steady high FPS with a 980ti.. So a 1080ti will destroy most things easily..

You do realise different games produce different results? Anyway done talking here you seem to know everything better.

[Beckers]

Like i said, im running a 165hz 1440p monitor with a 1060. Most games look nearly as good on medium/high as they do on ultra, best settings are usually auto detect....they want as many people to play their games as possible.

Beyond that, gsync allows you to not have to worry about pegging the refresh rate of you monitor at all times, anything above ~90 (for me) looks great. I doubt i could tell a difference between 100 and 165 if i didnt have a FPS counter to look at.

Yeah it works like a charm

You do realise different games produce different results? Anyway done talking here you seem to know everything better.

Why so salty? You were wrong, showed proof and then leaned on one anecdotal experience to try to sway things back rather than show something concrete. I mean, thanks for replying but just learn from others experience without the attitude..

[TripleZero]

Yes i showed proof while you didnt...

But anyway enjoy the new screen.