Just looking for some opinions. When the tax refund eventually comes up I'll be looking to get a new gaming system - i7 4790k / dual GTX 980ti in SLI. Just torn on what monitor to get - looking at either the Acer Predator 4K with Gsync or the Asus ROG Swift Gsync. While the system will be used primarily for gaming I am far from a pro gamer I am coming from a laptop (GTX 850M / 13 inch 1366x768) hooked up to a 32inch tv 1920x1080 @ 60hz
I own a pair ofDell P2715Q screens. These are 4K 60Hz screens and I love them. They're not gaming specific screens so they're something like 6ms screens and not the 1 or 2ms. For me the big thing is color accuracy and in particular what I notice with TN screens is the color shift from top to bottom of the screen which I find very noticeable on larger screens. I never saw it on my old 15" but on the 19" it was very noticeable. I guess what I'm saying is unless you know what to look for or are very sensitive to certain things you may not notice the tearing etc which a 1ms Gsync screen will help to eliminate. I'd say go have a talk with the guys down at Scorptec as they have a bunch of stuff on display and may be able to demonstrate the differences between screens to you before you sink that kind of cash.
I think the shift from 60hz to anything greater, is FAR more noticeable than the increase in res from 1440p to 4k. Also, higher resolutions take exponentially more VRAM, so even with multiple gpu's your still stuck with the 4gb/6gb vram limit. You'll be forced to run lower graphics settings @ 4k for the sake of staying under your vram limit. Yes this could change with future dx12 games, that doesn't help much for your existing games. For this reason I went for the 1440p @ 144hz route. Actually got three of them now so testing out 4320*2560@144hz, but it's a bit of a joke trying to get any game to run well at those specs.
Well I intend on making this upgrade last a while and will be using 1 monitor only (maybe dual with old lcd tv, but won't be running more than 1 quality monitor)
I would take a 4k monitor over any 1440p screen but of course that depends on the quality of the 4k monitor itself. Check for reviews of it and then decide whether or not you want it. But then again, 1440p at 144Hz, doesn't sound bad either.... Reason for me going 4k/UHD over 1440p is mainly for screen estate, and if it's an IPS - even better, a bonus for colour accuracy and you will enjoy your game far better with pretty graphics than the ones on TN which don't reproduce colours as accurate and thus may look washout or not as colour not as intended. On the other hand, having 144fps at 1440p is great too for FPS games, like CS GO and Battlefield you really need, overall you will get a smoother and hopefully quicker response than the larger 4k/UHD monitor. Summary: 4K/UHD for games that will take advantage of higher resolution or and colourful games(if it's IPS panel) and 1440p @ 144Hz for quick paced games
fluid game play in 4K resolution is still 1-2 GPU generations away, even with 980Ti SLI you will be getting only around 40fps in Witcher 3 for instance, considering newer AAA titles will be get only more demanding resulting in even lover fps...I don't consider 40fps my playable standard even for slow paced games and will take 1440p and high refresh rate and smooth game play any time over 4k slow refresh and choppy game play. Another point is VRAM usage in 4K resolution. Here is a good graph on memory usage in 4k in current AAA games, as you can see even 6GB VRAM is not enough for few games already, not sure how exactly the Windows 10 sharing VRAM on SLI/X-fire setups will work but got this feeling that there will be some catch and won't be simple 2x6GB = 12GB shared ram 4k VRAM usage
I run 4k @ 60Hz on overclocked GTX 670FTW's in SLI and I have to say the results are surprising, the resolution isn't as demanding on the cards as many would necessarily believe it to be. About the only game I noticed a drop in performance was GTA V, everything else actually ran faster than my old 5760 x 1080 surround setup - The only thing I can put that down to is that maybe surround has higher overheads, as I'm rendering more pixels at 4k than I was at 5760 x 1080....
What about using freesync or gsync? I hear it better than going for 120 or 140hz? Any thoughts on that? I spotted a sweet 60hz 4k monitor with freesync, just waiting for prices to drop somewhat
Put it this way, there's no disadvantage in opting for a gsync/freesync monitor over a standard 60hz model. The only thing yout need to research is the max refresh rate possible at max UHD resolution over display port as the bandwidth of the connection may end up becoming a bit of an issue.
This is what I'm torn between. My 2xDell 27" are too big for me, especially if I wanted to go for 3 monitors. They take up so much bloody room! 3x24" 1440p 144Hz monitors would kick ass, but would need ridiculous power. 24" 1080p/1200p just doesn't do it for me anymore though. Maybe I should just try for a 27" 4K monitor and use the Dells as flanking ones.
