Gpu Advice

Kudros

Recently bought an Alienware AW3418DW 34’ monitor. My current GPU is a GTX TITAN X 12Gb, processor is i7 4770k & 16gb Ram. Will my current system struggle to come anywhere near close to playing at 120hz & 3440 x 1440p. Trying to figure out if I absolutely have to upgrade GPU & CPU. Many thanks.

Azza

What version of the GTX Titan X is it, The 2015 version (Maxwell) or 2016 version (Pascal)?

The resolution is not quite as demanding as 4K. Given that the 2016 version was very close to the GTX 1080Ti which was the first card that could realistically play 4K@ 60FPS at max or very close to max settings without the add of a second card in SLI in most games, that card should mostly allow for 60FPS gaming in modern games at high to max settings, but 120 FPS is out unless its an old game your playing (to be honest 120fps is very difficult to achieve even with better hardware).

If your using the older card I think your going need to start turning your settings down to medium or medium/high combination to hit 60FPS at that resolution

Kudros

2015 Maxwell version. Consensus online seems to be to buy an RTX 2080 Ti, but I’m on the fence about this, some YouTube videos seem to suggest that an 1080ti will run that resolution & 120hz no problem.

Azza wrote: »

What version of the GTX Titan X is it, The 2015 version (Maxwell) or 2016 version (Pascal)?

The resolution is not quite as demanding as 4K. Given that the 2016 version was very close to the GTX 1080Ti which was the first card that could realistically play 4K@ 60FPS at max or very close to max settings without the add of a second card in SLI in most games, that card should mostly allow for 60FPS gaming in modern games at high to max settings, but 120 FPS is out unless its an old game your playing (to be honest 120fps is very difficult to achieve even with better hardware).

If your using the older card I think your going need to start turning your settings down to medium or medium/high combination to hit 60FPS at that resolution

dreamers75

2080ti cant be justified imo for the increase in performance vs cost.

The 2080 Super would be the better option.

Azza

Well the RTX 2080 TI is the fastest card on the market with the exception of RTX Titan but you would want to be insane to buy that card for gaming given its cost, the 2080Ti is crazy expensive as is.

I think you need to temper your expectations with regards to 120fps gaming.

It depends what your playing really. If your playing something old like CS:Go than your current GPU will probably be more than enough to hit 120fps. Some older single player games as well.

But even a RXT 2080Ti struggles to reach 120fps on low settings on modern games @1080p never mind the resolution you are looking to play at.

PC Gamer benchmarked an overclocked i7 8700k and a stock i9 9900 with an RTX 2080TI on Hitman 2, Assassins Creed Odessey and Monster Hunter World @ 1080p low settings (Hitman 2 was medium) and were just about able to get over 120fps average in all 3 games but still had some dips below that.

None of those where Ray Traced games either, so if you turn that feature on your likely going have to go back to 1080p @ 60FPs anyway.

Retr0gamer

Azza wrote: »

(Titman 2 was medium)

Is that game on steam? Asking for a friend.

Azza

Alas its an Epic Game Exclusive!

You need 2x Titans to render the game at max settings. One for each tit!

TerrorFirmer

Well it's not as if it has to be either 120hz or 60hz. The benefit of such a monitor is that you can play >60hz, not that you'll get 120mhz in everything.

I think you really do need a new card, the original Titan X isn't very powerful by modern standards at all and most definitely not for a 120mhz 3440x1440 monitor.

I'd say an RTX2070 Super is a major upgrade, 2080 Super would be an even bigger one, but I'd steer clear of the 2080Ti really, price is crazy.

Also consider while your CPU is still pretty decent, but realistically it's from 2013.

Ideally to get the most out of that monitor, something like Ryzen 3600, 16GB DDR4 3200mhz and an RTX2070/2080 Super would be ideal starting points.

Probably not a bad shout to consider selling your current PC entirely and building from scratch.

If I had to chose just one upgrade though it would be a new GPU most definitely. You can help your 4770K out by a) overclocking it and b) fast DDR3 ram would be a bonus, eg 2133mhz or 2400mhz v the standard 1600.

Retr0gamer

Digital Foundry have been saying that at frame rates of 120Hz the CPU becomes a big bottleneck so I'd also be recommending a CPU upgrade.

Robert ninja

As Azza said try turning down settings as well. Post processing things should be the first to turn to min or disable outright. I also find shadow settings eat a lot of frames unnecessarily without adding much of anything so I often turn them to minimum too.

Azza

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Well it's not as if it has to be either 120hz or 60hz. The benefit of such a monitor is that you can play >60hz, not that you'll get 120mhz in everything.

I see his monitor has G-Sync so yeah he can take advantage of a frame rate between 60fps and 120fps and not have to deal with screen tearing.

I have a 120hz 1080p screen but it doesn't support either G-Sync or Freesync and as I generally dislike playing games with screen tearing its either has to be 60FPS or 120FPS for me, but I don't think I've played a single game in the last few years where I could hit 120FPS.

ShadowHearth

I am a bit out of loop with all pc gaming. It was a lot of years ago I built my PC. It's 2500k, yes that old lol.

Tried to look in to the whole thing now, and it looks like a bit of nice change in CPU world, but complete mess in GPU world.

2080ti is stupidity overpriced with Ray tracing tech no one asked or want. 2080S is does not really make sense to be an actual separate GPU.
The most interesting offering from Nvidia is 1660ti.
What's going on in AMD world? What's their latest cards as I am a bit confused with their naming tactics.

Azza

AMD latest cards would be their Navi cards the 5700 and 5700XT. There is also a limited edition XT anniversary card that's slightly faster and more expensive.

They where originally designed to compete against the 2060 and 2070 series cards and are a little bit faster than them while consuming slightly more power and lacking ray tracing features. Nvidia brought out the Super series cards to counter Navi. AMD cut their prices before release in reaction to that. Navi was basically considered decent but still the cards are at least €50-100 overpriced.

AMD's highest spec card is the Vega VII which was really a stop gap solution and may have gone EOL already even though it was only released a few months ago. Its slightly slower than 1080ti/2080 series cards while consuming more power and not having any ray tracing features.

When you look at AMD's top cards they would go Vega 56, Vega 64, 5700, 5700XT and Vega VII. They are good 1440p cards but at 4K some compromises would be needed with settings to hit 60FPS. Then again the same would go for Nvidia cards with the exception of the 2080 series up and that's before ray tracing is factored in.

Venom

dreamers75 wrote: »

2080ti cant be justified imo for the increase in performance vs cost.

The 2080 Super would be the better option.

The 2080 Super is the one Super card every single review has said to avoid like the plague, as it's just a little bit better performance-wise than the regular 2080 compared to the 2070 super which almost matches a 2080 but cost's 200-300 quid less.