I've long been a believer in two things.
1. There is no such thing as enough GPU power. Every GPU upgrade I have made has disappointed me. Yes it is better than my last but no, it is not the perfectly smooth experience I had been expecting.
2. Never believe reviews. Reviews quote accurate data but don't tell the full story. The true picture is what it actually feels like to the user, not the numbers you see on the charts.
1 is now invalid. I have a 1920*1200 display (60 Hz) and 2*GTX 980. There is no setting in any game that gives me better performance in SLI mode than single GPU mode. This tells me that a single 980 basically maxes out a 1080p 60 display. First GPU I have had that has done so.
Time for a new display! I will probably get a gsync one.
My dilemma is this: should I get 4k or 1440p? Bear with me and my reasoning.
One 980 gives the same performance as two in 1080p. 1440p is twice as many pixels as 1080p. This means I should get the same smoothness in 1440p as in 1080p. This is the safe option.
Can I push it to 4k? The reviews say yes. They say two 980s are plenty for 4k and trounce a single Titan X and deliver impressive FPS at 4k resolutions.
But really? My real concern is the 4GB frame buffer. A too-small frame buffer will often deliver good average results but slow down so much in the more complex scenes that you would not really consider it adequate. 4k resolution is 4 times the pixels as 1080p. I have no idea whether memory requirements scale linearly with resolution. If they did then 4k and 4GB is the same as 1080p and 1GB. 1GB at 1080p is nowhere near enough so it follows that 4GB and 4k isn't either. But how does memory requirement scale with resolution? I suspect it is less than linear.
My question is therefore this. If you have 980SLI and 4k, how are you finding it? Can it deal with 4k settings comfortably in the real world?
Your answers will influence whether my display upgrade is 1440p or 4k.
Thanks!
1. There is no such thing as enough GPU power. Every GPU upgrade I have made has disappointed me. Yes it is better than my last but no, it is not the perfectly smooth experience I had been expecting.
2. Never believe reviews. Reviews quote accurate data but don't tell the full story. The true picture is what it actually feels like to the user, not the numbers you see on the charts.
1 is now invalid. I have a 1920*1200 display (60 Hz) and 2*GTX 980. There is no setting in any game that gives me better performance in SLI mode than single GPU mode. This tells me that a single 980 basically maxes out a 1080p 60 display. First GPU I have had that has done so.
Time for a new display! I will probably get a gsync one.
My dilemma is this: should I get 4k or 1440p? Bear with me and my reasoning.
One 980 gives the same performance as two in 1080p. 1440p is twice as many pixels as 1080p. This means I should get the same smoothness in 1440p as in 1080p. This is the safe option.
Can I push it to 4k? The reviews say yes. They say two 980s are plenty for 4k and trounce a single Titan X and deliver impressive FPS at 4k resolutions.
But really? My real concern is the 4GB frame buffer. A too-small frame buffer will often deliver good average results but slow down so much in the more complex scenes that you would not really consider it adequate. 4k resolution is 4 times the pixels as 1080p. I have no idea whether memory requirements scale linearly with resolution. If they did then 4k and 4GB is the same as 1080p and 1GB. 1GB at 1080p is nowhere near enough so it follows that 4GB and 4k isn't either. But how does memory requirement scale with resolution? I suspect it is less than linear.
My question is therefore this. If you have 980SLI and 4k, how are you finding it? Can it deal with 4k settings comfortably in the real world?
Your answers will influence whether my display upgrade is 1440p or 4k.
Thanks!