144hz 1080p Overwatch gaming. Looking for video card and display recommendations

[tracerit]

The only game I'm playing is Overwatch and probably Battlefield 1 when it comes out. I'm interested in max detail 1080p gaming at high refresh rate.

Would the AMD R9 480x 4GB + ASUS VG248QE 24" be the best choice without going overkill?

 

[nitromullet]

A 480x will probably be enough for 144hz @1080p in overwatch, but I'd be surprised if it would be enough for battlefield 1. battlefield 1 will most likely be playable with a 480x @1080p, but just not 144hz. granted it is really tough to say considering the 480x and bf1 haven't launched yet.

 

[Rezist]

This really depends on how were BF1 runs on the CPU side.

 

[Bacon1]

BF1 will be using DX12, so I'd go for 480 at this point with a nice freesync monitor.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009910 maybe?

http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/technologies-gaming/freesync for the full list

 

[Silverforce11]

Do we know for a fact BF1 will be DX12?

 

[IEC]

Overwatch favors nV cards, though we have yet to see if that's true with the RX480 or not. Anecdotally, we've seen some streams of people playing with RX480 review samples and it looks buttery smooth at 1440p (and one guy even claimed 4K...), so it would *seem* that 1080p high refresh should be doable.

Considering a GTX 980 gets close to 140 fps average @ 1080p Ultra and a RX480 is expected to be around that performance level, maybe higher once OC'd, it would seem like the best option for your desired quality/performance levels, provided the peformance pans out as expected.

Custom cards are expected mid-July so we'll have to wait on those to see what typical overclocks will run on a RX480.

Battlefield 1 is too much of an unknown quantity at this point, though traditionally the Battlefield games have run quite well on AMD cards.

 

[sirmo]

If you get an rx480 and you're also buying a monitor might as well get one with FreeSync support.

 

[frozentundra123456]

What do you mean by high refresh rate? You may need to overclock that cpu for high FPS gaming, or move to a newer platform with faster stock clocks.

 

[richaron]

The monitor OP listed is not even a variable refresh screen. If you're putting decent money down for a monitor these days you want a Freesync one, and one with Freesync LFC.

AMD has a pretty good list of Freesync monitors (click monitors tab at bottom).

The advantage of a variable monitor is that you don't need to be pushing full frame rates for it to look good, in fact I consider it a waste to have my GPU to be able to render at much above max. With a 30-144 Freesync monitor I would be more than happy with 80-100 fps average which would leave leeway for spikes and dips.

 

[IllogicalGlory]

Do we know for a fact BF1 will be DX12?

The graphics options in the latest Digital Foundry video show that it's running under DX12. Hopefully the game ships with it unlike DOOM (Vulkan) and Total War.

 

[Silverforce11]

The graphics options in the latest Digital Foundry video show that it's running under DX12. Hopefully the game ships with it unlike DOOM (Vulkan) and Total War.

Oh yes, sweet news. Thanks!

 

[Bacon1]

Oh yes, sweet news. Thanks!

Yeah its labeled with a temp label, like OPTION_DX12 or something (slightly longer) but its in the game. I was honestly surprised they didn't release it with either PvZ2 or Mirrors Edge Catalyst. Figures they'd want to wait for BF1 since its their bread and butter release, but hopefully that means they aren't still working on the engine.

 

[DigDog]

+1 freesync

 

[Silverforce11]

Yeah I totally forgot, during AMD's computex stream, they actually showcased BF1 as a premium DX12 game.

https://youtu.be/fBHYdoSYMZk?t=16m43s

Featuring Async Compute & DX12 mGPU support.

 

[ul256]

Given that the RX 470 was getting 121 fps in Overwatch at 1080p max, you should be able to get around the 144 fps you're targeting with the 480.

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/radeon-rx-470-benchmarks.html

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Overwatch seems to have a strong correlation to mouse latency and framerate. When I drop from 150 to around 100 fps, mouse latency increases. Anything below 100 just exacerbates the issue.

So if you're not getting a steady 130+ frames per second you're going to be amazed when you do.

 

[David_k]

Given that the RX 470 was getting 121 fps in Overwatch at 1080p max, you should be able to get around the 144 fps you're targeting with the 480.

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/radeon-rx-470-benchmarks.html

We don't know what settings AMD "considered" as "Max". acording to their numbers a 270X is doing 76, when according to other benches a 7950 (~ 270X in performance at stock give or take) is doing 40-50FPS, so we don't know how really the 480 will do, you need a 980 Ti to run it at max settings with locked 144FPS.

 

[Nhirlathothep]

gtx 1080 or wait for 1080 ti, but with single card it s impossible to handle with 144fps min every game atm.


consider i ll buy the new TITAN for 1080p 120hz

 

[Raising]

Absolutely disgusting recommending a 480 for 144fps 1080p

Either get a 1070 or a 980ti, also make sure the cpu can clock high, doesn't need to have more than 4 cores.

 

[guachi]

He isn't looking to play every game, just one at the moment. And it looks like the 480 will be sufficient for Overwatch. I'd imagine it'd be one of the games widely benchmarked in two days so the OP should have a much better answer then.

 

[IEC]

OP could read through this performance guide to get an idea:
http://www.logicalincrements.com/games/overwatch/

The two settings to note which are "free" performance boosts:

Improve FPS considerably with little to no impact on visuals
Set Dynamic Reflections to Medium or Low
Set Local Fog Detail to Low

Using the "Ultra" preset and changing those two settings gives me >144 fps average @ 1080p on a Radeon 290, which is expected to be weaker than the RX480. And I can't tell the difference between Ultra and Epic when I'm playing except in nerfed framerates (YMMV). Note that my typical resolution is 3440x1440p @ 75Hz. But I swapped my resolution to 1080p to verify it was playable at high refresh 1080p.

 

[sm625]

The only game I'm playing is Overwatch and probably Battlefield 1 when it comes out. I'm interested in max detail 1080p gaming at high refresh rate.

Would the AMD R9 480x 4GB + ASUS VG248QE 24" be the best choice without going overkill?

Yes I believe it would be the best choice, simply because the next option is 1070 and that would be overkill. But you may not be able to hit absolutely max detail and / or 144Hz. Is there a reason 120Hz isnt good enough?

 

[IEC]

With data to back up my claims of 1080p Ultra @ 144Hz is doable with two settings changes:

Improve FPS considerably with little to no impact on visuals
Set Dynamic Reflections to Medium or Low
Set Local Fog Detail to Low

This is using a Radeon 290 @ 1050MHz with a stock i7-6700K. Resolution was set to 1920x1080 @ 120Hz with Vsync off, using the Ultra preset with Dynamic Reflection and Local Fog set to low. Run was with a full Temple of Anubis match, live, 6v6 humans.

Results:
2016-06-27 10:01:31 - Overwatch
Frames: 53298 - Time: 372172ms - Avg: 143.208 - Min: 107 - Max: 210

Summary file:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/c358c7r8kcdgrzt/FRAPSLOG.TXT?dl=0

FPS CSV:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fw7dfu3p8k5djto/Overwatch 2016-06-27 10-01-31-76 fps.csv?dl=0

Frametimes CSV
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wpbpu89ezb65rzl/Overwatch 2016-06-27 10-01-31-76 frametimes.csv?dl=0

Min/Max/Avg CSV
https://www.dropbox.com/s/stbvjof1ic84sd5/Overwatch 2016-06-27 10-01-31-76 minmaxavg.csv?dl=0

 

[Grooveriding]

I get 120fps @ 1440p on Overwatch at its highest settings with a single 980ti 1.5ghz. You don't need that much for power for doing the same FPS at 1080p. BF1 is going to be more demanding though. No one knows right now as there are no benches, the game is still in alpha.

 

[Nhirlathothep]

1080p need more aa than 1440p or 4k.