Should I go for a 4080 or 4090

[RealChickenboy4]

Hello I am planning on doing a build soon I am going to try and play 2k 165hz with maxed out setting and was wondering if I should go for a 4080 or a 4090 for this framerate thank you for any help.

[Vek1313]

What games are you playing?

[Aaron_T]

I'd also ask:
1. How long do you intend to use this GPU. One generation or several years?
2. Do you have a budget, and will GPU choice effect the rest of your system components?

3. Do you do anything important besides game on this machine?

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, RealChickenboy4 said:

Hello I am planning on doing a build soon I am going to try and play 2k 165hz with maxed out setting and was wondering if I should go for a 4080 or a 4090 for this framerate thank you for any help.

If you are trying for maxed out settings, maxed out frame rate, then you're not only going to need a 4090 but also a top-end CPU to go with it.

[Marcii]

10 hours ago, RealChickenboy4 said:

Hello I am planning on doing a build soon I am going to try and play 2k 165hz with maxed out setting and was wondering if I should go for a 4080 or a 4090 for this framerate thank you for any help.

You will be just fine with the 4080 but if you are not using RT that much you might aswell go with the rx7900xtx

[Dedayog]

12 hours ago, RealChickenboy4 said:

Hello I am planning on doing a build soon I am going to try and play 2k 165hz with maxed out setting and was wondering if I should go for a 4080 or a 4090 for this framerate thank you for any help.

4090 if you have the money for it.

[Agall]

13 hours ago, RealChickenboy4 said:

Hello I am planning on doing a build soon I am going to try and play 2k 165hz with maxed out setting and was wondering if I should go for a 4080 or a 4090 for this framerate thank you for any help.

Both cards are overkill for 1440p 165Hz, especially if they're both at MSRP. RTX 4090 is better 'value', but currently the RTX 4090 isn't MSRP. RTX 4080 being far more reasonable of a choice given the circumstances.

 

53 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

4090 if you have the money for it.

RTX 4090 seems more of an investment at this point given the current market. Assuming someone can get it at a normal price.

[Recharged]

4080, if you are not too hooked on RT, 7900 XT is outstanding value with close to 4080 - like performance.

[Alex Atkin UK]

22 hours ago, RealChickenboy4 said:

Hello I am planning on doing a build soon I am going to try and play 2k 165hz with maxed out setting and was wondering if I should go for a 4080 or a 4090 for this framerate thank you for any help.

If you want the best, 4090.  If not, wait a few months given everything suggests a 4080 SUPER is due soon and prices of the 4080 may even come down then.

 

9 hours ago, Agall said:

Both cards are overkill for 1440p 165Hz,

That depends, there are several games right now which can push a 4090 to need DLSS and frame generation to hit 4K 60-120fps.

 

Considering were just starting with current-gen games, I think there will be plenty of titles that need a 4090 for 1440p 120fps+ High/Ultra, especially if you don't want the latency of frame generation, which most PC gamers do not.

[Agall]

13 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

That depends, there are several games right now which can push a 4090 to need DLSS and frame generation to hit 4K 60-120fps.

 

Considering were just starting with current-gen games, I think there will be plenty of titles that need a 4090 for 1440p 120fps+ High/Ultra, especially if you don't want the latency of frame generation, which most PC gamers do not.

4K is also 2.25x more pixels to generate and considering the RTX 4090 is an absolute 4K monster, those titles could be easily defined as 'extremely unoptimized'. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

6 hours ago, Agall said:

4K is also 2.25x more pixels to generate and considering the RTX 4090 is an absolute 4K monster, those titles could be easily defined as 'extremely unoptimized'. 

No, the 4090 is a 4K monster for last-gen console games.  Even ones which added current-gen effects on the PC version give it a run for its money.  When it comes to pushing current-gen graphical effects that's a whole different ball game.  This is precisely why frame generation and DLSS were developed.

 

This shift in PC gaming where people expect Ultra settings to be a solid 4K 60fps is new, that's not how it ever was before and not how it should be.  Ultra used to be what you used years down the line when more powerful GPUs came out, faster than what the game was developed on.  We also only had 60fps or even 30fps to worry about when people are expecting insane frame rates now.  Its why competitive shooters never look as good as single player experiences.

 

People scream unoptimised but everyones expectation of what it should be optimised for is different, and these people have no idea how PC gaming used to be.  We have it easy today compared to say when Crysis launched.  The ambition of game developers were held back by the last-gen consoles being extremely weak and publishers not wanting to spend the money on having a PC build that is vastly different using all the latest bells and whistles.

 

If a PC games is "optimised" to play perfectly across a wide rang of GPUs, then odds are a lot of compromises have been made to get there and the more time they spend doing that, the less its going to get of the newer fancier effects that require a completely different graphics pipeline to get the best out of.

 

There is never such a thing as a 60fps game, only a game where they've artificially capped the frame rate so that it never goes above a certain value and you're leaving performance on the table.  We've seen this on consoles now VRR is becoming common, where a 60fps game might be more like 80-120fps once unlocked.

 

Sure developers sometimes try with real-time resolution scaling, but logically that only goes so far as how do you know you've run out of GPU budget before you actually send that frame to the GPU?  My guess is its a combination of seeing how long it took the last frame to render and a lot of guesswork, it can never be perfect.