Such thing as budget 4k 60fps?

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I had a laptop with a gtx 1080 and also an egpu with a gtx 1080 at one point Neither could do 4k smoothly even on medium. Now I'm looking into a dedicated pc instead. I've bern hearing what a big performance jump the rtx cards are and that we can finally get true 4k gaming at 60fps. I was overjoyed that I could finally use my year old 4k oled TV to its fullest potential. It has been blurry 1080p up until now. (I still don't know why perfect scaling is so hard.) Then I saw the benchmarks. The only card that could even hit a sustained minimum of 4k 60fps ultra in most games was the $$$ rtx 2080 ti.

Now I don't know how important 60fps minimum is for the smoothness of a game (non competitive) or whether 60fps average is good enough for me or not I'm actually fine with high or even medium settings, but I don't know how they scale down from all the ultra benchmarks being shown. Can I still achieve what I want with an rtx 2070 or even 2060? What would be the minimum or lowest cost option?
 
The RTX 2070 is more or less your laptop's GTX 1080 with RT/DLSS, so if you get that, it will be just like your laptop's performance + a little higher due to better temps resulting in higher clocks + more OC headroom.

The RTX 2080 is a 1080ti, which allows for many games to go 4k60 (or really close) with pretty high/max settings.

The RTX 2080 Ti is beyond 4k60 in most titles, but yeah, very pricey.

Projecting performance gain by lowering settings is difficult because it depends on the game - some can gain ~30% just by disabling 1 or 2 features while others scale poorly with settings. You have an advantage because your GTX 1080 is a good baseline - you can extrapolate your own data from your own experience.

A safe bet would be a RTX 2080 (or a used 1080 Ti). The 1080 Ti was previously the 4k60 standard until the 2080 Ti showed up. The 2080 is selling for $699 from some stores, a far gap from the $1200+ of the 2080 Ti.
 
I had a laptop with a gtx 1080 and also an egpu with a gtx 1080 at one point Neither could do 4k smoothly even on medium. Now I'm looking into a dedicated pc instead. I've bern hearing what a big performance jump the rtx cards are and that we can finally get true 4k gaming at 60fps. I was overjoyed that I could finally use my year old 4k oled TV to its fullest potential. It has been blurry 1080p up until now. (I still don't know why perfect scaling is so hard.) Then I saw the benchmarks. The only card that could even hit a sustained minimum of 4k 60fps ultra in most games was the $$$ rtx 2080 ti.

Now I don't know how important 60fps minimum is for the smoothness of a game (non competitive) or whether 60fps average is good enough for me or not I'm actually fine with high or even medium settings, but I don't know how they scale down from all the ultra benchmarks being shown. Can I still achieve what I want with an rtx 2070 or even 2060? What would be the minimum or lowest cost option?

You would need a 2080 or 1080ti for 4k. So no there is no budget option for it and a 2070 wont cut it.
 
The RTX 2080 and 1080 Ti (and likely now the Radeon VII) are the minimum I'd recommend for 4K/60 at mostly high settings. But as others said, these are far from budget cards.

But you mentioned you are fine with lowering graphical settings so you may be able to get away with lesser cards in some games.
 
Even with a 1080Ti/2080, you're going to have to ease up on some settings for 60fps in most newer games.
 
Would some kind of Crossfire/SLI solution with a 1070 or R580 produce acceptable results for 4K?

A
 
Only if all the games you care about support it.

Otherwise, no, not acceptable. Actually, screw that, it's not acceptable at all since support is already very small, even after DX12 was introduced.
 
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Use 3200 x 1800 and get a 1080ti. You won't be able to tell the difference sittng a couple feet from the TV and you should be able to get 60fps on high detail in almost all games. Don't bother with 8GB VRAM or less (such as 2060) cards as I am seeing >8GB usage in actual gameplay with 1080ti at 1800p.
 
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couldn't play @ 4k with 1080 @ medium settings?

then wtf have i been doing? I guess all those games (some maxed out, bf1, overwatch, diablo3, etc etc etc) are all imaginary.
 
60 fps is considered the standard for smooth game play from yesterday, believe 3dfx started that.

VRR monitors takes out the jerkiness, tearing and lower framrates can feel much smoother than much faster rates without it.

I would not worry about slower than 60 fps rates if using FreeSync or GSync. With much better framrates my 1080Ti"s have, I end up playing more games with my Vega' s because they give a better gaming experience with FreeSync in general.
 
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