4K gaming on GTX970 viable?

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DeMeester

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I am currently running a system with the following specs:


core i7 920
GTX970
6GB of RAM
250GB SATA SSD
27" 1080p monitor.

Since the system is about 6 years old I want to upgrade it.

I mostly use the system for software development but I do occasionally play games (Doom, Crysis, Rise of the Tomb raider and so on)

I want to start with replacing the monitor with a 4K one. Since the GTX970 isn't ideal for 4K gaming I expect some performance issues at the full 4K resolution. Of course, I can simply play at a lower resolution, say 1440p, but I don't know if that has drawbacks. It may not be possible with some games. And it may look like crap because the monitor isn't diplaying on its native resolution.
I can also go for a 1440p monitor but because 4K monitors are coming down in price it seems like a waste of money.

What do you guys think? Should I get a 4K monitor, a 1440P one or simply upgrade the whole system in one go?
Also, I know that the GPU has more impact on gaming performance that the CPU but my CPU is very old. If I get a 1070, do I also need to replace the CPU to get the best out of the video card?
 
You CAN with the 970, just expect to turn down most settings. Honestly, I would look into upgrading the rest of your system. A first gen i7 is getting long in the tooth, especially with 6gb of ram.
I am very biased against 4k. I think its a wasted resolution due to the fact that you need a huge display to make it worth it. I MUCH would have rather seen the new standard move to ultrawide instead. Its an overall better experience, and not as taxing on systems.
 
What's your opinion on slideshows?

Personally I'd agree with AltTabbins, stick with your 1080p or a 1440p and work on a plan to upgrade everything else first.
 
I personally run a 2560x1440 Dell Ultrasharp. If it fell over and broke today, there isn't a chance in hell I'd get a 4k monitor. Even with a GTX 1080 driving it. I would either get another 2560x1440 monitor or an Ultrawide. With my current desk setup, and ultrawide wouldn't work with my 2nd monitor anyways, so its an easy decision.

But honestly, I'd snag an i5 6500k, 16gb of ram, an AMD RX 480 and enjoy the hell out of your system for another couple years at 1080p.
 
So I recently got a Samsung 40" UHD TV to use as a monitor. I really love it, but it needs a LOT of power.

Originally I had a GTX 970 in this machine. I was able to play some games at 4K without an issue. Mostly older games: Left4Dead, DmC (Devil May Cry), Assassin's Creed 2, Ridge Racer Unbounded, etc.

With newer or higher-end games it was a bit of a struggle. Got Crysis 3 at an almost playable 35fps with medium settings on the 970. With all lowest settings, maybe you could get higher FPS.

So, it is possible, but not ideal if you wish to player newer games. You do also have the option of lowering the resolution, to say 1440P or even 1080P, however this makes the image soft and probably worse than looking at a 1440P/1080P native monitor.

In my case, I ended up getting a Titan XP and I upgraded CPU and RAM as well. Mostly because I could not get the new Deus Ex running well. Even with the upgrades and a lot of settings tweaks, I was just barely getting over 60fps. 4K is really intensive.

To be honest, I would not attempt 4K on an old rig like that. I'd stick with 1080P for now until you're ready for a more serious upgrade or replacement system.
 
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cybereality said:
So I recently got s Samsung 40" UHD TV to use as a monitor. I really love it, but it needs a LOT of power.


So, it is possible, but not ideal if you wish to player newer games. You do also have the option of lowering the resolution, to say 1440P or even 1080P, however this makes the image soft and probably worse than looking at a 1440P/1080P native monitor.
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Depends entirely on the TV. I have a Sony 55" 4k that does 4:4:4 and do not have that issue at either 1440p or 1080p. As for what to do, it really depends on what is important to you. Software dev and gaming. Do you need an ultrawide monitor? If not, and you are not professional gamer, I would look at a quality 4k TV to use as a monitor when you come to replacing / upgrading. While the others are right on upgrading, it again depends on your needs / pain point. You can upgrade the monitor and video card without having to replace everything. Once you start down the system upgrade road you are stuck buying a motherboard, CPU, and RAM. I say the latter because I see no point in upgrading if you are not moving to an Intel CPU that supports DDR4.
 
If your primary reason for wanting 4K is due to productivity related your primary usage for software development then you should just a 4K display. Running at 1080p and upscaling is not optimal but it isn't the end of the world either. The LCD scaling issue largely stems from perceptions at a time where people were trying non integer scaling (720p->1080p) and as well as scaling already low resolutions (eg. 720p. 720p already doesn't look good and blurry on a native 720p display due to low resolution).
 
Gaming at 4K needs a lot of GPU power... and like like others have said, it's pretty much wasted unless you have a fairly large monitor, I personaly wouldn't run 4K on anything smaller then a 32" display. And to really do 4K justice, you need at least a Titan X or SLI'ed 1080's. Anything less and you'll be turning settings down quite a bit for acceptable frame rates.

Your CPU and RAM will also need upgrading to handle 4K gaming. To be honest, unless you plan to lay out some serious cash, I'd recommend upgrading to a 1440 monitor, a better CPU, more RAM and a 1070. Won't break the bank and will be a significant improvement over where you are now.
 
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If you're planning on upgrading, I recommend you check out this thread for your CPU needs:

1366 x58 Xeon Enthusiast overclocks club

I'm also on a 6-7 year old X58 system. I recently did a round of upgrades and dropped in a Xeon CPU and a GTX 1070. I also picked up a 4k 40" Samsung TV to use as a monitor. It sounds like you play more games (or at least more demanding games) than I do, as the only game I've been playing lately is Overwatch. The 1070 does 4k quite nicely - the only setting I have to turn off is ambient occlusion and I average ~55-60 fps with everything else maxed out (DSR at 100% obviously). I doubt a 1070 can do 4k maxed for any AAA games though.
 
I'm really confused why more people don't recommend 2 x 980 Ti's in SLI. They can be bought for next to nothing imho. $250 to $300 each.

I have a 2 month old KS8000 that is absolutely fking amazing but it needed more horsepower.

A 2nd 980 TI did the trick.

You can get a pair of 980 Ti's for under $600 no tax. We are talking 14 Gbps or horse power in SLI. Yes, I know some games don't support SLI but most do. And yes I understand it's not a automatic 50% increase but it is an increase.

Any game I play is well above 60fps at 4k. In fact a lot of games are 80 - 90 - 100+ @ 4k
 
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Yes, a pair of 980Ti's will handle 4K. (Not all that far behind a pair of 1080's actually) A pair of 1070's will also do the job, but to be honest, having come from a pair of water cooled 980Ti's, I MUCH prefer a single Titan XP for 4K gaming. :D
 
4k is currently just about the only resolution I'd even consider SLI, MAYBE 3440x1440, but anything lower than that, I'd stick to single GPU's, at least for Pascal lineup.

Titan XP was the only GPU on my radar for a long time because it offered close to 1080 SLI performance at 1440p (at 4k, 1080 SLI blows Titan XP out of the water, assuming SLI works), unfortunately, the US exclusivity of the Titan XP and my planned trip to the US went side ways, meant that I settled on 1080 instead.

Depending on the 4k monitor (if it is not too large), downing the resolution to 1440p actually looked surprisingly good (on my monitor at least, and bizarrely it looked better than 1080p), but at 1440p, 970 still isn't quite enough for more demanding games, hence why I pulled the trigger on 1080 instead of waiting for the 1080ti, I got sick of 970 pulling back on my games.

That, and given the trend that Pascal has shown, I am not terribly convinced that 1080ti, if it comes, is going to be as big of bombshell as 980ti was.

That being said, I have not yet understood why SLI scaled well during Maxwell days, but Pascal it suddenly fell off the cliff. I feel if lower resolutions was deliberately scaled badly...
 
Thanks for the input. I didn't expect so many replies so fast.

I want to switch to a higher resolution than 1080P because I sometimes notice the individual pixels in the monitor. Especially after using my Phone which has a very high resolution oled display it is clear that my monitor has a much lower resolution. Also as a software developer I need more screen real estate.

So at first I was looking at a 1440P monitor because the 4K displays were still too expensive, But since they have come down in price a lot i decided to look into buying one. Getting a 1440P display to me feels like getting yesterdays technology.

So far I haven't upgraded the rest of my ageing system because it still works fine and I was afraid that I wouldn't notice much of an improvement. I already swapped my hdd for an ssd which relieves the no1 performance bottleneck. And for gaming the GPU is far more important than the CPU. But I don't know when the system will become CPU limited. So I thought that replacing my mobo/cpu/ram would be a big hassle with little return on investment.

So I can forget about 4K gaming on a GTX970 (I am used to setting all the options to max) which means that I have to find a 4K display that is gooed at upscaling 1080p and/or 1440p input. Or I have to get a 1440p display.

I have another question. Suppose I were to upgrade my mobo/cpu/ram to a Z170 / 6700k / 16GB combo, would I see a performance increase using my GTX970 on 1080P?
 
DeMeester said:
I have another question. Suppose I were to upgrade my mobo/cpu/ram to a Z170 / 6700k / 16GB combo, would I see a performance increase using my GTX970 on 1080P?
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probably not enough to make a difference , i think 2560x1440 is the best gaming resolution for now
 
buhbuhfet said:
probably not enough to make a difference , i think 2560x1440 is the best gaming resolution for now
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My question was: will upgrading to a z170/6700k/16gb system give me a reasonable performance performance gain @1920x1200 using my GTX970?
 
DeMeester said:
My question was: will upgrading to a z170/6700k/16gb system give me a reasonable performance performance gain @1920x1200 using my GTX970?
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If you turn down settings and your framerate does not go up, you are limited by your CPU. Quickest way to know if you are not monitoring usage of both CPU and GPU in game. Another way to know if you are using monitoring software is if the GPU is not at 100% usage and you are not hitting your desired FPS, unless vsync is turned on and you are hitting that. If any of those things are happening, you are being limited by your CPU.

If you see you are limited by your CPU in the games you play, the yes that upgrade should help.
 
At 1920x1200 6700k will give higher fps but it won't matter much unless you have a high refresh monitor. Personally I'd spend the money on 1070 and upgrade the rest later.
 
I personally wouldn't get anything less then a Titan X (Pascal) for 4k.
 
DeMeester said:
My question was: will upgrading to a z170/6700k/16gb system give me a reasonable performance performance gain @1920x1200 using my GTX970?
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and i answered it, "probably not enough to make a difference", you need a good video card for 4k gaming, aka top of the line previous or current gen, it's better to have a high end card that gets bottlenecked by cpu than to have a good cpu with a weak gpu
 
I would second the 6 core xeon upgrade for your x58 platform, those extra 2 cores will make a huge difference in stuff that can use them. Also if you can get the clocks up you are not that far off of the skylake performance. Personally 6gb of ram would get sucked up so maybe max that out if cheap enough. One problem that I have had on the x58 boards is running 6 sticks of ram, but 3 8gbs would be nice.

Also I just made the jump to a 4k 40inch wasabi mango zen, from a 1440p hp 27 inch and really moving the monitor back about a foot, it is really enjoyable for productivity, and about the same ppi with a lot more realastate. Also gaming is pretty decent on a single 980ti, but there are some lowering of settings that makes games fun. I would think a 970 would be in the same ballpark except the 3.5gb ram limits. Also make sure you get a 4 4 4 panel if you plan on doing any kinds of text work.
 
DeMeester said:
I want to start with replacing the monitor with a 4K one. Since the GTX970 isn't ideal for 4K gaming I expect some performance issues at the full 4K resolution
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I was gaming at 4K with a GTX 780 Ti. Newer games will require lower settings, but older games will run at max settings.
 
DeMeester said:
Thanks for the input. I didn't expect so many replies so fast.

I want to switch to a higher resolution than 1080P because I sometimes notice the individual pixels in the monitor. Especially after using my Phone which has a very high resolution oled display it is clear that my monitor has a much lower resolution. Also as a software developer I need more screen real estate.

So at first I was looking at a 1440P monitor because the 4K displays were still too expensive, But since they have come down in price a lot i decided to look into buying one. Getting a 1440P display to me feels like getting yesterdays technology.

So far I haven't upgraded the rest of my ageing system because it still works fine and I was afraid that I wouldn't notice much of an improvement. I already swapped my hdd for an ssd which relieves the no1 performance bottleneck. And for gaming the GPU is far more important than the CPU. But I don't know when the system will become CPU limited. So I thought that replacing my mobo/cpu/ram would be a big hassle with little return on investment.

So I can forget about 4K gaming on a GTX970 (I am used to setting all the options to max) which means that I have to find a 4K display that is gooed at upscaling 1080p and/or 1440p input. Or I have to get a 1440p display.

I have another question. Suppose I were to upgrade my mobo/cpu/ram to a Z170 / 6700k / 16GB combo, would I see a performance increase using my GTX970 on 1080P?
Click to expand...
Your system is already cpu limited. Upgrade the cpu. Then the monitor, then the gpu. Also 4k is noticeable even at 28 inches. I've got a 4k and an ultra wide 34 and i prefer the 4k.

At this point the xeon isn't worth it.
 
had the 970 super clocked and was able to push 60 frames in 4k while playing WOW. in the city i was getting low 40's. All settings set to max.

again. this was me playing world of warcraft.
 
rhansen5_99 said:
I would second the 6 core xeon upgrade for your x58 platform, those extra 2 cores will make a huge difference in stuff that can use them. Also if you can get the clocks up you are not that far off of the skylake performance. Personally 6gb of ram would get sucked up so maybe max that out if cheap enough. One problem that I have had on the x58 boards is running 6 sticks of ram, but 3 8gbs would be nice.

Also I just made the jump to a 4k 40inch wasabi mango zen, from a 1440p hp 27 inch and really moving the monitor back about a foot, it is really enjoyable for productivity, and about the same ppi with a lot more realastate. Also gaming is pretty decent on a single 980ti, but there are some lowering of settings that makes games fun. I would think a 970 would be in the same ballpark except the 3.5gb ram limits. Also make sure you get a 4 4 4 panel if you plan on doing any kinds of text work.
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When I original switched from a i7 920 to a 5820k, the 920 was overclocked to 4.3GHz there was a large boost in performance. You need to realize not many games even take advantage of 4 cores, never mind 6. There is about a 40% IPC improvement between an x58 part and an x99 one. There is even a larger gap in IPC performance with the newer Skylake/Kabylake parts. Not to mention you also get all the newer tech like USB 3.1, PCIE 3.0 and NVME/SATA 3.
 
I agree to the new techs being a huge plus, but I don't think the differences from an overclocked 6 core westmere say in the 4ghz range to the stock 5820k are as big as you are thinking. The closest kind of comparison I could find is on the anandtech bench page (say a 990x witch is close to what you would get ocing a xeon 6c, and a 5820k) here but take it with a grain of salt. Sure you could then oc the crap out of the 5820k, but you have to factor in the platform cost vs a cheap xeon drop in. This also might be more of a factor in newer game engines, just my 2c though ;)
 
rhansen5_99 said:
I agree to the new techs being a huge plus, but I don't think the differences from an overclocked 6 core westmere say in the 4ghz range to the stock 5820k are as big as you are thinking. The closest kind of comparison I could find is on the anandtech bench page (say a 990x witch is close to what you would get ocing a xeon 6c, and a 5820k) here but take it with a grain of salt. Sure you could then oc the crap out of the 5820k, but you have to factor in the platform cost vs a cheap xeon drop in. This also might be more of a factor in newer game engines, just my 2c though ;)
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Yeah I am comparing both begin overclocked also. But if you took both CPUs at stock the 5820k would still be a significant jump in IPC performance. I am going by first hand experience with games that are very CPU bound and I was experiencing large jumps in the minimum FPS.
 
{NG}Fidel said:
Your system is already cpu limited. Upgrade the cpu. Then the monitor, then the gpu. Also 4k is noticeable even at 28 inches. I've got a 4k and an ultra wide 34 and i prefer the 4k.

At this point the xeon isn't worth it.
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I doubt that I am already cpu limited. I used perfmon to monitor cpu load while playing Doom for a bit. Perfmon showed 60-80% load across all cores. That said, I am now looking into getting a z170 system. My current system is about 6 years old. It is time for a new one.
 
970/4K here. I have no issues with just running more demanding games at 1440, and sticking with 2160 where I can. Older games can hit 60 fps no problem. Just buy a large 4k tv for super cheap and enjoy big screen real estate for productivity stuff, and enjoy gaming on a big screen the rest of the time :p win/win
 
Yes, if you stick to games a few years old, or indie titles, you *can* run 4K on a 970. The OP mentioned some really demanding games, though, like Rise of the Tomb Raider, which is why I thought that would not be the case.

A 4K TV is a nice option. I'm using the Samsung KU6300 and it's really great for the price. I see some deals now people are getting it for around $350 for the 40"er (I paid $500 and I'm still happy with it). Might be worth looking into.
 
DeMeester said:
I doubt that I am already cpu limited. I used perfmon to monitor cpu load while playing Doom for a bit. Perfmon showed 60-80% load across all cores. That said, I am now looking into getting a z170 system. My current system is about 6 years old. It is time for a new one.
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I moved up from a setup similar minus a better proc than yours. Trust me i felt the upgrade and this was before upgrading gpu.
 
I think someone has posted on these forums before that taking the load as an indication of CPU bottleneck is not always accurate. The CPU could still be bottlenecking your system as a whole.

I think either grab a 2560x1440 or 3440x1440 for productivity purposes. A GTX 970 is strong enough for 1440p that it'll be okay to run most titles at high settings (not very or max), as I was using a 970 for a long while just fine at this res. Ultrawide obviously requires a fair bit more horsepower, but you'll get a reasonably large amount of real estate for productivity purposes.
 
DeMeester said:
I just ordered an Asuz Z170 Pro gamer, a 6700K, 16GB of DDR4 and a 850 evo 500GB. Once I get that installed I will determine if I still want a better monitor. Maybe I'll upgrade the monitor and vid card at a later date.
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You should be very happy with that setup, will be a nice upgrade. I do have an LG 34in 3440x1440 monitor and after moving to the ultrawide I wouldn't go back. Its a nice to have a large screen without the bezels of multiple monitors when gaming. I still do have a second 27in monitor so I can put stuff up while gaming.
 
raidflex said:
Yeah I am comparing both begin overclocked also. But if you took both CPUs at stock the 5820k would still be a significant jump in IPC performance. I am going by first hand experience with games that are very CPU bound and I was experiencing large jumps in the minimum FPS.
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it doesn't make much difference for gaming, not gonna even notice, overclocked x58 xeons are still a lot of horsepower for any game out to date
 
buhbuhfet said:
probably not enough to make a difference , i think 2560x1440 is the best gaming resolution for now
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Maybe I'm an old fart, but 2k is fine for me, too. It seems to be the current sweet spot while still allowing the settings to be cranked. I do second the folks that mentioned a pair of used 980Ti's - those ARE going to last for quite a while, and if you already have one, just grab another one for cheap. The latest and greatest is wonderful, but the cheapest and still workhorse performance is a very good selling point, as well!
 
Having used both 4k and 1440p, I agree that 1440p is currently the best sweetspot for gaming in general, but ultimately depends on your gaming suite.

The more older games you play, the better 1440p becomes, resolution related issues are less exaggerated in general for 1440p than at 4k. Also 1440p has a good usable monitor size ranges, I personally believe 24"~32" are all usable for 1440p, 1080p gets too blocky on the big ones, and 4k feels a little wasted with smaller monitors. They also have better panel type and refresh rate choices (both sync types and refresh rate choice). Also you have better bottom line performance.
 
buhbuhfet said:
it doesn't make much difference for gaming, not gonna even notice, overclocked x58 xeons are still a lot of horsepower for any game out to date
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No man I'm sorry. They can still run games, sure. But they feel old once you move on up. I had a 950 at 4ghz and even the stock 4790k felt like an amazing jump up. The x58 were great and lasted a long time, but they're done now. Time to upgrade.
 
OP mentions screen real estate.

- I have my GTX970 running dual 1920 x 1200, 24", monitors. I can put four documents up a time, full size, and readable. That's more space than my 27" 2560 x 1440. A 4k display would have to be pretty big to beat the dual 24" displays. Shrug.


OP also mentions pixel density.

- 4k is the non plus ultra of pixel count; you may want to dig into some reviews/specs to find pixel density. (FWIW, my 27" 1440 is noticeably crisper than the 24" 1920 x 1200.)


IMHO....

- 4k is not ready for prime time. The horsepower requirement to drive any type of game is too high. It can be achieved, but only with a lot of expense.
- SLI was mentioned. I would not advise running SLI. (Yes, I know...but I also know that SLI is not always supported and brings a raft of potential headaches. A single card solution is always best.)



Advice

- OP wants a 4k display. I would pick up another monitor and run dual. However, if the OP just wants a 4k display to have a 4k display (nothing wrong with that and there is some future-proofing there), then game at 1080. The pixel ratio is a perfect 4:1 for no pull-down issues. Just realize that the rest of your machine would take a lot of expense to be able to eventually drive the 4k display at its native resolution while gaming. For coding? Sure, no problem right now...


Let us know what you decide.

Ken
 
{NG}Fidel said:
No man I'm sorry. They can still run games, sure. But they feel old once you move on up. I had a 950 at 4ghz and even the stock 4790k felt like an amazing jump up. The x58 were great and lasted a long time, but they're done now. Time to upgrade.
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not really, look at the benchmarks, in many games you won't even get a 5fps gain, and when you're already running over 100fps even if u get a 10fps boost it makes no difference
 
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