Should I make an incremental upgrade to my GPU for new games or should play new games on my console

[deaddudaman31122]

Here's the story, I want to upgrade my PC graphics card from the GTX 770 2gb to the GTX 1060 6gb graphics card to play some new titles. Titles that I am interested in are Gears of War 4, Forza Horizon 3, and Battlefield 1. After Microsoft announced that certain games would be under the "Xbox play anywhere" initiative I have been contemplating upgrading my graphics card and playing more Xbox games on my PC. The only problem is all the games I wanted to play needed more power than I have. I had already plan to upgrade my whole rig soon after the GTX 1080 Ti would be released, but on top of unexpected financial issues and this asynchronous compute debate with Nividia pascal and beyond graphics cards, I was just going to sit out the whole 1000 series and wait until Volta dropped with the 1100 series. The plan was to continue to play certain games on my PC and other games on my Xbox. Then competition in the graphics card market brought forth $200 dollar graphics cards that can run games with high fidelity and frame rates. I started to thinking "Now I don't have to pay for Xbox live and I can play my Xbox games". Not to mention a lot of the problems I have with playing on consoles like, sub-par resolution and frame rates, NAT type issues(I am in college), and Xbox live issues are all gone now. To be fair, free games every month is a lost, but most of those games I never would have purchased and even though there free I still would have most likely not played them. All in all losing Xbox live is a trade-off I am willing to except. However, I started to ponder was it worth it to upgrade my PC when I plan to upgrade it again soon after graduating in 2019? I know that sounds crazy because that is about two and half years from now, but my PC so far has mostly played indie titles and a couple AA and AAA titles at 1440p 60 fps, it was not until I tried to play Doom(2016) that I saw real game play issues. Plus, the next time I wanted to pay over a $1000 for a PC was for a new standard of game resolution and frame rate: 4K 60fps solid on most titles. My thought process was to then save my money and wait it out. However great games are out now, and I want to play them on my PC. After some research I have determined that my 8gb of 1600MHz DDR3 ram, i7-4820k 3.7 GHz CPU will not bottle neck my performance for at least one to one and a half years maybe two. Next I needed to see if this card would card would run at my screen's native resolution of 1440p, and in most cases I think I will be fine.Therefore I will see a performance boost from just adding a graphics card. Or, I could pay $60 for Xbox live buy my games and know they will at least run even if there not at a favorable resolution or frame rate. So for 3 more years of Xbox live I am looking at $180 and for upgrading my PC I am looking at $250. Now there are somethings I can do to save money on both sides, but right now it is more expensive to play on my PC. Plus, is this upgrade I am doing going to hold me over until I get a serious upgrade or am I paying $250 to play games from this year; then next year my CPU bottle necks me, or games run better on GDD4 RAM, or the new AAA game I wanna play can't run at my screen's resolution. I do not want to pay $250 to turn around and find out my computer won't run a game well, so I have to go purchase Xbox live again and waste money to play a game the runs well, but isn't smooth and looks sub-par. Or I could just continue to deal with the sub-par console, and slowly decaying PC. To put in to perspective I could purchase Xbox live and all of the games listed above right now for still less money it would take to upgrade my graphics card and buy NO games. In the end I would just like honest opinions and advice from you ladies and gentlemen on whether or not you believe it is worth it, thank you and have a nice day.

[Mike Soda]

Wow...

 

Ask yourself what means more to you, playing at higher detail sooner at the expense of paying more money or dealing with lower graphics to save for a more appropriate time to upgrade. Personally I'd wait because well if I had what you did, even if it wasn't optimal I'd still be more than happy lol. Check my system specs on my profile to see the horror. I'd say wait unless you have the money then switch to PC & never look back. Even if intially it's more expensive, you've then got 1 box instead of 2. Can sell the Xbox & have just one system for everything you do, especially if it's a mATX or smaller.

[mapegl]

Personally I would consider a gpu upgrade. Your cpu and RAM are great and you will be good for more than just two years. Obviously not everything at 60 fps ultra, but that wouldn't be close on Xbox. Also games tend to available cheaper on PC after a short while compared to console games staying high priced longer. 

 

I have had many consoles and always a PC along side and imho it has never been this good to have a PC (with a matching controller).

[Nineshadow]

I can still play games on my GTX 560. You should be fine, just wait a little.

[SydneySideSteveSomewheres]

If you are currently playing games using an Xbox One then I assume that you are using a TV for a screen ?

 

What type of screen are you playing on 720p HD, 1080p Full HD, Quad HD and 4K Ultra HD ? The original Xbox One (not the S) came out with "theoretical" support for 4K if you think 30Hz out of an HDMI 1.4a port would be something to call useful in a gamer's sense of the word.

 

Regardless, the current AAA titles still play very well at 1080p in which case I would suggest doing what I am doing and that is waiting for graphics cards to have HBM memory, as you said likely the next iteration. Really all you need is some Dual Link DVI-I, HDMI 2.0, 3x DisplayPort 1.2  with some DirectX 12 (love).

 

Look out for a used GeForce GTX 960 2GB at a current cost of a little over double the Xbox live thing that you spoke of (BTW isn't that a subscription service?). I bought one of these reference cards new for my recent machine build because my current monitor would have needed to be upgraded as well cutting into the total build cost. At least this way the 4K screen cost will have dropped significantly by the time that HBM graphics cards launch, hopefully soon but likely next iteration.

 

Performance testing for the GeForce GTX 960 2GB (slotted against GTX 660)

 

Nb: Doom and Fallout 4 both play smooth and tear free on my BenQ 2420HD monitor...and you have a nice day too 

 

[deaddudaman31122]

Thanks for the opinions everyone I really do appreciate it.