will dual GTX680s handle 4k?

[dgingeri]

I'm now seriously considering getting Dell's new 4K 27" screen, and one that can run 4K at a full 60Hz. It's running $699 right now, which is the price I paid for my last monitor, but I'm not sure my graphics cards will handle it well enough. My current monitor is a QHD (2560X1440) screen, and the SLi setup handles that very well with 4X MSAA. I doubt I'd need the AA with a UHD screen, though.

So, without AA, how would a dual GTX 680 SLi setup handle a 4k UHD screen?

 

[clonazepam]

With nVidia's latest drivers, you now have the option in the control panel to run games at 4K resolution on your 2560x1440 monitor. Once set up in the Control Panel, the 4K resolution should be a selectable option within most, if not all games. Give it a whirl!

 

[dgingeri]

oh, yeah, I forgot about that feature. I believe the 1.5X setting is equal to 4k on that. I'll check it out tonight when I get off work.

 

[Entomber]

you would have to make sure that your two GTX 680s both have at least 4GB of VRAM. If so, that would likely work.

 

[dgingeri]

They're both 2GB versions. Would that present a problem for 4k graphics?

 

[Entomber]

yes, since 2GB of VRAM is not going to be enough to hold all the textures for 4K.

 

[dgingeri]

Well, STO and WoW aren't very texture heavy, so they should be fine. SC2 is very light on the textures, so it should do well. The only game I play that might have issues with that would be Diablo 3, but I doubt it would hit very hard. I'll just tune down the AF setting if it does.

In any case, I'll learn more this evening. I'll try out using DSR to crank it up to 4k and test my games.

 

[dgingeri]

I did try out the DSR 1.5 setting last night, and all my games worked just fine at that res. The big problem was the scaling. Everything was just too small or too big, depending on settings. I knew it would look bad because it wouldn't be the native res of the monitor, so I didn't consider that part in evaluating. I initially saw that the icons and text would be too small to work with, so I tried Win 8.1's scaling to 1.25 and 1.5. 1.5 simply made everything too big. 1.25 bade things just a tad too small. I didn't know that STO would use the Windows scaling for it's UI as well, and that just made things more frustrating. I really didn't like it.

That 27" UHD screen is roughly 153ppi, which I think is just going to be too small for anything I do, and the Windows scaling just doesn't work right for what I need. I'm going to stick with a 108ppi screen, which means sticking with what I have for now, and getting the Dell U3415W whenever they decide to bring it to market.

 

[RobCrezz]

yes, since 2GB of VRAM is not going to be enough to hold all the textures for 4K.

It should be fine as long as you keep the texture quality sensible. Ive seen GTX 690 run 4k quite well (as long as you dont use AA, or go too crazy on certain settings).