Skip 144p for 4k

[Dragonphreak]

I've got 2 970s in SLI and am currently gaming in 1080, but was looking at moving to a newer monitor soon. As I looked at the 144p/144ghz monitors, how much staying power does that format have? Should I wait till pascal and go 4k?

 

[mesyn191]

Are you referring to its aspect ratio? 16:9 will be around for a helluva long time. 1440p is a nice step up from 1080p so you'll see a nice improvement in image quality for PC games. Its pretty much the standard resolution for high end PC gaming systems right now.

4K is still bleeding edge if for only the system requirements you need to get 60fps+ consistently when gaming.

With your system you could probably get well over 80fps consistently in most games at 1440p resolution for a while yet. Certainly higher if you don't mind tweaking IQ down some for some of the more intensive ones. I'd think you'd see some nice improvement in twitchy games and visual quality too over your current monitor with a 144Hz/1440p monitor.

Don't worry about trying to hit 144 or even 90+ fps though unless you're super into competitive twitchy games like high level CS:GO. Honestly just getting above 70fps consistently is a nice improvement IMO and 80-90 is the sweet spot. Above that its just really hard to notice anything.

 

[HeavensCloud]

970 SLI won't have enough gusto for 4K as far as AAA titles are concerned. Get a 144hz 1440P and enjoy. I think 1440P at 27-30" is the sweet spot for PC use.

 

[Criticalhitkoala]

Games look better on my acer xb270hu 1440p over both my xb280hk and BenQ 4k ips display.

 

[silent-circuit]

I suspect I'll get some flack for it, but also consider 21:9 ultrawide. I strongly recommend avoiding the 29"s and smaller, and just go for a 34" that's running 3440 x 1440. Another nice plus is that with VLC or a Chrome extension with Netfiix you can watch CinemaScope movies using the entire panel, no black borders, no crop. Pretty cool.

Yes, some occasional screwing around is necessary. As an example: Dragon Age Inquisition works great in game, but all the cinematics are stupidly letter-boxed at 16:9 and the Flawless Widescreen app that fixes it also causes bluescreens from time to time cause whoever wrote the module can't code too well and is injecting where they shouldn't be.

Many games you have to go in to ini and cfg files and screw around with values for resolution and FOV to get them working properly. Even so, when it works it's a really impressive experience. Probably not that important if you play mostly FPS, but a lot of fun with third person titles and RPGs.

I've only had the Dell Ultrasharp U3415W for a couple days, but after going through a long list of 40-43" 4K TVs I attempted to use as monitors I'm way, way happier with it despite the "difficulty" of getting it to work with some titles and the loss of resolution / screen real-estate vs. a 40" 4K. Considering it cost ~$50 more than the most expensive TV I tried, I'd say that's high praise.

 

[Dragonphreak]

I figured that my 970's wouldn't drive 4k to be playable on, but if given the option of buying now, or waiting for 4k and a new single graphics card, I was debating on waiting. But if the 1440p/144hz would work well for the long run...

I'm still using my 2 1080p Asus monitors I got from 2009, so I would be hoping for that level of longevity from my next monitor upgrade.

 

[HeavensCloud]

Going above 1440 is personal preference. Some people like it, I think it makes the desktop way too small. Stuff like that isn't going to change. If I were to go 4K it would have to be 32"+ and be 3-4 feet from me.

 

[elvn]

I hate when people say higher hz is only for twitch/reaction time.
Motion clarity (blur reduction/elimination) and high motion definition are very aesthetic qualities.
Personally, considering what I'm already running, I'm trying to hold out on upgrading my monitor for a 1440p or higher 21:9 running 120hz-144hz off of dp 1.3 - 1.4 inputs and off of dp 1.3 - 1.4 output gpus in the future.

100fps-hz/120fps-hz/144fps-hz:
~40/50/60% blur reduction
5:3/2:1/2.4:1 increase in motion definition and path articulation
g-sync rides the fps graph +/- without screen aberrations

Even if you have a 120hz - 144hz monitor, when you run lower frame rates you are essentially running a low hz monitor. 60hz and less is the worst(smearing) blur and is low motion definition. At 100fps-hz or so (on a very low response time monitor) you get maybe 40% blur reduction (increase in motion clarity) and a 5:3 ratio of motion definition increase (and motion path articulation, animation cycle definition) vs 60fps-hz. At 120fps-hz you get 50% blur reduction and double the motion defintion vs 60fps-hz. 144fps-hz is 60% increase in motion clarity and a 2.4:1 ratio increase in motion definition/path articulation.

 

[Comixbooks]

Just get a ASUS swift 1440P play all games on that monitor
Then if you want the 4K experience buy that for some games =) Get both 4k and 1440P I want to use a 4K for Top Down games that don't require alot of GPU.

I don't own a 4K but I want to experience one for some games.

 

[Rahkeesh]

970 SLI won't have enough gusto for 4K as far as AAA titles are concerned. Get a 144hz 1440P and enjoy.

144 fps 1440p requires more pixels/second than 60 fps 4K. If smoothness while maxing detail is a goal for said games, you really need g-sync for either format.

 

[elvn]

I play most games on high or high+ (custom) , or ultra minus depending on how you look at it

On more demanding games, with dual 780ti sc, I usually am 100 - 120 fps-hz running around and it swings up/down to 70 - 90 and high 130's on a 144hz 2560x1440 g-sync monitor.

For desktop/app use there is no comparison desktop real-estate wise but for gaming at high enough frame rates for 100fps-hz + I think 1440p is going to be the limit for me (at non ultra at that) for quite some time. Game complexity is only going to go higher even as newer cards are released. The graphics ceilings are arbitrary anyway.

That's only if you blindly chase the arbitrary "ultra" ceiling rather than tune your graphics settings for higher motion excellence. With sli 780ti , 980, or titans you can get a common playing frame rate of 100 or even 120 on some demanding games on very high settings, sometimes higher.

The ultra ceiling of today often includes massive downsampling/supersampling among other things. There are screenshot forums/threads dedicated to extreme downsampling and rendering mods which go way "over" the stock 'ultra' ceiling on games. Other texture mods, etc can also go above the stock 'ultra' ceilings. It makes for pretty still art screenshots - but games, especially 1st/3rd person games, are about motion as well as still image and fx quality. The challenge of devs is to whittle games down to "fit" real-time gaming, not the other way around. Devs could easily make the "ceiling" 3x, 6x, 10x higher and more, until you are waiting on the next frame to render for a long time. :-b

Even if you have a 120hz - 144hz monitor, when you run lower frame rates you are essentially running a low hz monitor. 60hz and less is the worse(smearing) blur and is low motion definition. At 100fps-hz or so (on a very low response time monitor) you get maybe 40% blur reduction (increase in motion clarity) and a 5:3 ratio of motion definition increase (and motion path articulation, animation cycle definition) vs 60fps-hz. At 120fps-hz you get 50% blur reduction and double the motion defintion vs 60fps-hz. 144fps-hz is 60% increase in motion clarity and a 2.4:1 ratio increase in motion definition/path articulation.

Note that frame rate really means average frame rate and that means there is a roller-coaster of frame rates going higher and lower than your common playing frame rate, usually shown in reviews as a frame rate graph. G-sync allows you to ride the varying rates without any screen aberrations.

Also please note that screen blur and increased motion clarity applies to the whole game world in 1st/3rd person games. You are continually mouse-looking and movement-keying the entire game world around in your viewport relative to your viewpoint. So the entire game world suffers blur at speed. The entire game world's movement relative to you also benefits from increased motion definition making the path articulation and overall smoothness increase.

A hypothetical game video settings panel mockup I made where the game "knows" your resultant average frame rate based on your other settings.
http://www.web-cyb.org/images/lcds/video-settings-hypothetical.jpg

Unfortunately you can't show motion excellence and motion clarity to people with incapable monitors so you instead get people infatuated by graphics settings in still images, and sites promoting still shots (And 4k 60hz at lowfps, etc) over motion excellence. I gathered some examples/simulations awhile back and put them on this page with some info to try to explain to people though. http://www.web-cyb.org/hardware-info/120hz-fps-compared.htm

This link is also useful to show people what g-sync can do: http://www.blurbusters.com/gsync/preview/