Confused Noob GPU Questions...

[Bhvrry]

Planning my first PC build and having issues figuring out what GPU ill need.

 

One of the main issues i'm struggling to get my head around is monitor refresh rates. If i have a 60Hz monitor and play at solid 120FPS surely i will only be seeing 60FPS anyway? So if i spend £5000 on a graphics card that can give me 350FPS and i have a 1440P 144Hz monitor surely I will only see 144FPS.

 

Worried about overkill, how do I prevent this? 

 

How can I calculate what FPS i'm likely to get with a specific graphics card, cpu and ram?

 

Any help appreciated thanks!

 

 

[BarackOBatman]

5 minutes ago, Bhvrry said:

 

 

One of the main issues i'm struggling to get my head around is monitor refresh rates. If i have a 60Hz monitor and play at solid 120FPS surely i will only be seeing 60FPS anyway? So if i spend £5000 on a graphics card that can give me 350FPS and i have a 1440P 144Hz monitor surely I will only see 144FPS.

 

 

 

This is correct

[LordofSavages]

You will only see as many frames as your monitor can display, yes. However, with higher than refresh rate framerates, input lag is reduced. I don't notice it in most games but for competitive games, I definitely can tell the difference between 144 and 300.

To prevent overkill, look for the GPU which fits your budget, then look at the benchmarks for your monitor res and see if it's as high as the refresh rate (though for 144hz+ monitors, 60+ isn't that bad especially in AAA games)

You don't calculate it but you just look up benchmarks

[Wolf ~ IRONI]

5 minutes ago, Bhvrry said:

Planning my first PC build and having issues figuring out what GPU ill need.

 

One of the main issues i'm struggling to get my head around is monitor refresh rates. If i have a 60Hz monitor and play at solid 120FPS surely i will only be seeing 60FPS anyway? So if i spend £5000 on a graphics card that can give me 350FPS and i have a 1440P 144Hz monitor surely I will only see 144FPS.

 

Worried about overkill, how do I prevent this? 

 

How can I calculate what FPS i'm likely to get with a specific graphics card, cpu and ram?

 

Any help appreciated thanks!

 

 

Sooo, what resolution And hertz Will you play on?

[chckovsky]

9 minutes ago, Bhvrry said:

Worried about overkill, how do I prevent this? 

 

How can I calculate what FPS i'm likely to get with a specific graphics card, cpu and ram?

 

You can use services like NZXTs BLD, or use data from userbenchmark. For example, systems with a 6600k and a GTX 1070 get an average FPS of 196 with CSGO on Max 1080p. http://www.userbenchmark.com/PCGame/FPS-Estimates-Counter-Strike--Global-Offensive/3680/141989.32899.Max.1080p.0

 

But benchmarking videos on youtube has become so big of a thing that I'd be surprised if you couldn't find what you're looking for there.

 

[Carbide X]

6 minutes ago, Bhvrry said:

Planning my first PC build and having issues figuring out what GPU ill need.

 

One of the main issues i'm struggling to get my head around is monitor refresh rates. If i have a 60Hz monitor and play at solid 120FPS surely i will only be seeing 60FPS anyway? So if i spend £5000 on a graphics card that can give me 350FPS and i have a 1440P 144Hz monitor surely I will only see 144FPS.

 

Worried about overkill, how do I prevent this? 

 

How can I calculate what FPS i'm likely to get with a specific graphics card, cpu and ram?

 

Any help appreciated thanks!

 

 

Correct and the most easy way to prevent this to make sure what games you are going to play...

For example: you know that you are gonna play AAA games like the witcher 3 idk, and you want to get at least 120 fps, get a gtx 1080.

Just look on YT for example: the witcher 3 gtx 1080 i7 6700 and then you will see how much fps he gets.

This way you can get and idea of which components you need to have

[Bhvrry]

10 minutes ago, Wolf ~ IRONI said:

Sooo, what resolution And hertz Will you play on?

I think i'm going to look at some bench marking on youtube and decide if 4k is in budget. If not it will be 1440P 144Hz. 

 

There doesn't seem to be any clear indication of what each graphics card is capable of but i assume that's down to the mass of variables involved

[Bhvrry]

18 minutes ago, YaqinHasan said:

You will only see as many frames as your monitor can display, yes. However, with higher than refresh rate framerates, input lag is reduced. I don't notice it in most games but for competitive games, I definitely can tell the difference between 144 and 300.

To prevent overkill, look for the GPU which fits your budget, then look at the benchmarks for your monitor res and see if it's as high as the refresh rate (though for 144hz+ monitors, 60+ isn't that bad especially in AAA games)

You don't calculate it but you just look up benchmarks

So if I run 144FPS on a 60Hz monitor i will still only actually get 60FPS but that 60FPS will be smoother than 60FPS on 60Hz?

 

You said you can tell the difference between 144 and 300 I'm assuming thats FPS? What Hz is that on?

[chckovsky]

CPU and GPU are the most critical components for determining the gaming performance of your build, both models and speeds (if overclockable). Benchmark videos always contain this info, so you should be covered here.

 

RAM size+speed+timings does affect gaming performance as well, but to a lesser extent. Check the benchmark videos on ram usage and buy enough if you can. For a budget PC, usually 8GB is fine and 16GB is more than enough unless you're doing content creation or serious multitasking (this can benefit from as much RAM as you can have). IMO, RAM speed+timings can mostly be disregarded or counted as a small hit to gaming performance (except Ryzen, which loves faster memory).

 

When it comes to SSDs VS HDDs, that mostly affects load times and system responsiveness, IF you have enough RAM. HDDs are still ok if you're really trying to save money IMO.

 

Note that if you don't have enough video memory, the system may try to offload info to system memory, which can cause stutters. If the system memory is full as well, it may try to offload info to the system disk, which will greatly impact your gaming performance.

 

However, you must consider future proofing your machine. There's no point in settling for a GTX 1030 that gives you just about enough FPS today if you know you're gonna want to play future (and probably more demanding) titles at a later point.

EDIT: Also keep thermal performance in mind. Most modern CPUs and GPUs offer a boost to clock speeds if there is sufficient thermal headroom (turbo speeds).

[LordofSavages]

7 minutes ago, Bhvrry said:

So if I run 144FPS on a 60Hz monitor i will still only actually get 60FPS but that 60FPS will be smoother than 60FPS on 60Hz?

 

You said you can tell the difference between 144 and 300 I'm assuming thats FPS? What Hz is that on?

If you get 144fps on 60hz then it'll feel smoother in certain games, but as a general rule, try to hit your refresh rate and anything higher won't hurt.

Yeah, on my 144hz XL2730Z, on csgo only, I can noticeably tell the difference between 144 and 300fps

[Rhoban]

13 minutes ago, Bhvrry said:

So if I run 144FPS on a 60Hz monitor i will still only actually get 60FPS but that 60FPS will be smoother than 60FPS on 60Hz?

 

You said you can tell the difference between 144 and 300 I'm assuming thats FPS? What Hz is that on?

It won't feel smoother, it will feel more responsive. 

 

 

 

[Bhvrry]

3 minutes ago, chckovsky said:

CPU and GPU are the most critical components for determining the gaming performance of your build, both models and speeds (if overclockable). Benchmark videos always contain this info, so you should be covered here.

 

RAM size+speed+timings does affect gaming performance as well, but to a lesser extent. Check the benchmark videos on ram usage and buy enough if you can. For a budget PC, usually 8GB is fine and 16GB is more than enough unless you're doing content creation or serious multitasking (this can benefit from as much RAM as you can have). IMO, RAM speed+timings can mostly be disregarded or counted as a small hit to gaming performance (except Ryzen, which loves faster memory).

 

When it comes to SSDs VS HDDs, that mostly affects load times and system responsiveness, IF you have enough RAM. HDDs are still ok if you're really trying to save money IMO.

 

Note that if you don't have enough video memory, the system may try to offload info to system memory, which can cause stutters. If the system memory is full as well, it may try to offload info to the system disk, which will greatly impact your gaming performance.

 

However, you must consider future proofing your machine. There's no point in settling for a GTX 1030 that gives you just about enough FPS today if you know you're gonna want to play future (and probably more demanding) titles at a later point.

Brilliant thanks, I plan on using a Ryzen 5 with 16GB of ram 1/2TB HDD and anywhere from 120-500GB SSD. As I'm using Ryzen a faster ram would be beneficial for gaming from what you've said?

 

 

[Rhoban]

1 minute ago, Bhvrry said:

Brilliant thanks, I plan on using a Ryzen 5 with 16GB of ram 1/2TB HDD and anywhere from 120-500GB SSD. As I'm using Ryzen a faster ram would be beneficial for gaming from what you've said?

 

 

Yes. 

But for gaming I would recommend the i5 8400. 

It's currently the budget king. 

Intel also doesn't rely on RAM speeds as much as Ryzen. 

[chckovsky]

5 minutes ago, Bhvrry said:

Brilliant thanks, I plan on using a Ryzen 5 with 16GB of ram 1/2TB HDD and anywhere from 120-500GB SSD. As I'm using Ryzen a faster ram would be beneficial for gaming from what you've said?

 Hardware Unboxed has a really useful video here. It's not life or death, but it does affect gaming performance.

 

Also:

 

Edited April 10, 2018 by chckovsky
additional useful video

[Bhvrry]

5 minutes ago, chckovsky said:

 Hardware Unboxed has a really useful video here. It's not life or death, but it does affect gaming performance.

Very useful much appreciated

[Biggerboot]

If you want an absolute emphasis on high hz and nothing else, maybe consider the i3 8350k.  Somewhat controversial suggestion because you can get two extra cores for almost the same money, and that's going to be way more versatile for you in the long run.  But as far as quad core CPUs go that i3 is going to push the most frames.  It's a CS:GO killer but mainly just that.

Same philosophy applies to the gtx 1060 3gb.  Not hugely versatile but pushes frames the best for the $.