Does 4k@60Htz or 1440@144Htz need more GPU power? (#OutOfIdeas)

[Gram]

What setup takes more GPU power to run (on average)?

• 4k with average FPS of ~60
• 1440 with average FPS of ~144

 

Depending on the answer it may change the screen I choose as 4k screens are getting cheap now and I could see the benefit in both. I could be mistaken but I would expect that in slow games (like Civ) FPS is less important and with faster games (like CS:GO) FPS is more important.

Either way I think this would be a cool video idea, what does the LTT form community think?

 

Gram

[Stardar1]

1 minute ago, Gram said:

What setup takes more GPU power to run (on average)?

• 4k with average FPS of ~60
• 1440 with average FPS of ~144

 

Depending on the answer it may change the screen I choose as 4k screens are getting cheap now and I could see the benefit in both. I could be mistaken but I would expect that in slow games (like Civ) FPS is less important and with faster games (like CS:GO) FPS is more important.

Either way I think this would be a cool video idea, what does the LTT form community think?

 

Gram

in a game like CS:GO, 4K would probably need more GPU power. 

Civ... not sure.

 

Either way, if those are the hardest games you'd be playing a GTX 1080 would easily handle either. 

[EunSoo]

Answer is pretty easy. Lets look at some Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmarks for the 1080ti

 

1440p: 117fps

4k: 62fps

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/03/nvidia-gtx-1080-ti-review/

 

Therefore, 4k60hz is easier to run than 1440p144hz. Just look at reviews for your GPU and the games you play and the answer is there.

[Bananasplit_00]

144Hz 1440p is going to be harder to run but id rather have that then 4K but i would take 4k 75Hz over both any day lol

[knightslugger]

1440p@144Hz is much MUCH more demanding than 4K60Hz

[Pandora]

its straight up just more pixels per second at 1440p 144hz vs 4k 60hz.

so yes 1440p 144hz is more demanding.

[Minty269]

In order to hit 1440p 144Hz you need a fast GPU and CPU. The GPU to handle the resolution and the CPU to handle the call rate.

 

Higher resolutions (4k+) will be limited by the GPU. CPU will be waiting for the GPU to be done with a frame before asking it to render another frame.

 

Lower resolution (1080p) high refresh rate (144Hz+) will be CPU bound due to the rate at which the CPU can request frames. GPU will be waiting for the CPU to tell it to render another frame.

 

1440p 144hz is smack dab right in the middle. Requiring lots of both GPU and CPU power. In this situation a 7700k with a 1080 Ti both will be maxed out. GPU wont be waiting on the CPU and the CPU wont be waiting on the GPU. Well not quite, more like they will trade off who is waiting on whom. 

 

Now 4k 144Hz will come in the future when stronger GPUs come around (Volta and beyond). At that point we may see the CPU limiting the GPU at 4k gaming. Maybe hit somewhere around 120FPS at 4k in current gen game titles (new game titles may not) IMO.

 

So to answer your question 4K and 1440p gaming will both max out a GPU at the moment. But the 1440p high refresh rate will also max out the CPU.

 

Now lets get to the point: You want to know what kind of monitor to buy right? Well it all comes down to what you want to use it for. Do you want to play FPS games? MMORPGs? STRAT? ect.

 

If you play lots of both then (her comes my opinion) I would get the 1440p 144Hz monitor because you will get a better experience in FPS games and you wont get a bad experience in MMORPGs or any other game that doesn't need a high refresh rate. It scales well and the overall experience will be nice.

[pyrojoe34]

Purely based off pixels/second 4k60 is 497,664,000 and 1440p/144 is 530,841,600 so based off of that 4k/60 renders only 94% of the pixels per second that 1440p/144 has to render. However, you can't just base demand off of pure pixels rendered per second otherwise you would always see that 4k framerates in games are exactly 1/4 of the 1080p framerates or 4/9th 1440p framerates. In reality there are factors to consider that contribute to overhead demand. For example, some processes like AI do not usually depend on framerate or resolution. Other calculations, like physics, do not depend on resolution but do depend on framerate.

 

The general rule of thumb is that higher framerates place a higher demand on the CPU and higher resolutions place a higher demand on the GPU but beyond that it's a game by game basis and there's no good way to be sure without testing each game individually.

[Gram]

Thank you all for your replies they were all informative, I had thought it would be a close battle but it seems like it is fairly cut and dry.

 

I guess this was common knowledge, I am glad I am up to speed now.

 

4 hours ago, SCGazelle said:

Answer is pretty easy. Lets look at some Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmarks for the 1080ti

 

1440p: 117fps

4k: 62fps

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/03/nvidia-gtx-1080-ti-review/

 

Therefore, 4k60hz is easier to run than 1440p144hz. Just look at reviews for your GPU and the games you play and the answer is there.

Side note:

Although maybe not as informative I like this approach, using it I should be able to just look at different benchmarks of popular games to get an idea of some real world examples.