[TBG] Taking the 4K Gaming Challenge with GTX 980 Ti SLI

[wand3r3r]

We took up the 4K challenge because we've seen a lot of gamers making purchasing decisions based on a desire to run at 4K, even though the number of gaming-specific 4K screens is limited. We thought it was important to provide gamers the information they need to determine what it really takes to build a 4K gaming system today, and whether its worthwhile to make the investment.

Well, we took on the 4K challenge, and overall came away pretty impressed at what's possible on today's hardware. With two GTX 980 Ti cards paired up in SLI, all eight of our games were playable at 4K. That being said, SLI scaling was all over the place, ranging from 18% in The Witcher 3 all the way up to 90% in several of our games, and averaging around 70%. Sometimes this was limited by SLI itself, but sometimes it was actually CPU-limited, even on our beefy six-core processor. Still, SLI was critical to achieving great 4K performance, as only half of the games in our test suite were truly playable with a single GTX 980 Ti: Grid 2, Tomb Raider, Crysis 3, and to a lesser extent Far Cry 4. Metro performance was beyond slow, and Battlefield 4 and The Witcher 3 just didn't hit playable framerates with a single GTX 980 Ti at 4K. Thief seemed to be bugged at 4K, exhibiting incorrect rendering, and SLI didn't solve this problem.

They test things like PCIe 3.0 x16 and x8, VRAM usage, and 1440p.
Some more information for those of interested in high resolution to examine.

http://techbuyersguru.com/taking-4k-gaming-challenge-gtx-980-ti-sli

 

[n0x1ous]

nice find - thanks!

 

[Enigmoid]

Someone needs to tell them that placing a permanent ribbon menu across the top 20% of the screen is irritating.

 

[alcoholbob]

If you look at release benchmarks SLI used to scale between 35-40% at launch with the Witcher 3. With successive patches single card performance has increased whereas SLI performance has dropped dramatically. I've noticed with my Titan Xs in SLI my framerate is about 15-30% worse compared to launch, but single card perf is up around 30%.

 

[tential]

If you look at release benchmarks SLI used to scale between 35-40% at launch with the Witcher 3. With successive patches single card performance has increased whereas SLI performance has dropped dramatically. I've noticed with my Titan Xs in SLI my framerate is about 15-30% worse compared to launch, but single card perf is up around 30%.

I've noticed people saying all manner of weird things happening with patches on new games.
This I exactly why my 4k gaming isn't going to touch recent games as I don't want to deal with patches and performance problems related to them.

 

[Aristotelian]

It's an interesting review. One important conclusion that I (as someone itching to upgrade) found relevant is that a number of the games they tested did not have the "assets" to look much better at 4k resolution over 1440p.

 

[sxr7171]

All games look better at 4k it reduces a lot of aliasing even if the AA is borked as in Crysis 3. However, I'd say Far Cry 4 is the only game that is very intensive. They didn't test AC Unity or Watchdogs. I doubt either would be playable at 4k.

Also what's up with the Crysis 3 CPU usage? It's happily pegging 12 cores at 4.4Ghz(6 of those virtual). With that kind of usage I'm wondering how I even manage to run it with my 4 core non-HT CPU. All that CPU to get 43fps? What is that engine doing? I'd be curious to see 8 core usage and if it can get better framerates with.

 

[Termie]

Assuming the 1440p and 4k screens are similar size, and thus the 4k screen has a much finer dot pitch, aliasing will be reduced. But it's a very "expensive" method of anti-aliasing, akin to supersampling. You can achieve a similar effect on a 1440p screen with standard MSAA.

 

[tential]

All games look better at 4k it reduces a lot of aliasing even if the AA is borked as in Crysis 3. However, I'd say Far Cry 4 is the only game that is very intensive. They didn't test AC Unity or Watchdogs. I doubt either would be playable at 4k.

Also what's up with the Crysis 3 CPU usage? It's happily pegging 12 cores at 4.4Ghz(6 of those virtual). With that kind of usage I'm wondering how I even manage to run it with my 4 core non-HT CPU. All that CPU to get 43fps? What is that engine doing? I'd be curious to see 8 core usage and if it can get better framerates with.

Isn't sli broken in watchdogs?
So that would be a great test!

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Assuming the 1440p and 4k screens are similar size, and thus the 4k screen has a much finer dot pitch, aliasing will be reduced. But it's a very "expensive" method of anti-aliasing, akin to supersampling. You can achieve a similar effect on a 1440p screen with standard MSAA.

4k comes in a range of sizes which really exceeds the size ranges we've seen before with smaller monitors, I'm running a 32" and also have my older 2560x1600 at 30", so yes the dot pitch (or rather, pixels per inch) is much higher.

The trade off between actual resolution and AA is not quite what you think it is, something like 1080p with 2xSSAA (same res as 4k) doesn't look anything like near as good as native 4k because 4k has 4x more information on the screen.

It's true that as PPI goes up you have a subtle decrease in the need for AA, that's not the only metric here, the actual amount of information on the screen is higher, more information per area which means you see more detail out to a greater distance and you can appreciate texture detail at higher angles to the normal. Games like GTAV are great showcases for 4k because in the city the level of detail blows you away.

Thinking about 4k in terms of just how much it combats aliasing is an incomplete way of thinking of a general increase in PPI, smoothing out jagged lines is a separate issue to increase data density which is the primary benefit of 4k. And of course you can still use AA at 4k although generally for new games nothing more than FXAA, I used 2xMSAA for Wolfenstien Old blood which looked absolutely stunning.

 

[Termie]

For an increase in detail to be observed, the game had to have been designed to take advantage of the resolution. Most current games have not been, especially console ports, and they'll therefore have no increase in data density at 4K. A greater number of pixels can't create data where there is none.

 

[sxr7171]

Isn't sli broken in watchdogs?
So that would be a great test!

I didn't know that. Watchdogs barely runs properly at 1080p with a single GPU same for AC Unity. I doubt anything in the world currently even if SLI worked could run those games at 4K. I tried SLI once and vowed to never do it again. It adds a whole new world of complexity and troubleshooting and things that can go wrong.

I still want to see an 8 core CPU running Crysis 3. Which at this point and I know people will hate me for saying is overrated graphically when clearly CryEngine 4 based Ryse Son of Rome looks better and runs better. It seems more efficient than Crysis 3 and looks amazing. In fact I'd call it a big upgrade over Crysis 3 graphics.

 

[sxr7171]

For an increase in detail to be observed, the game had to have been designed to take advantage of the resolution. Most current games have not been, especially console ports, and they'll therefore have no increase in data density at 4K. A greater number of pixels can't create data where there is none.

True. It amounts to SSAA which I like, but the cost is very high.

 

[guskline]

Termie, I eventually will go to a 4K monitor but right now 1440p seems to be the sweet spot for me.

 

[alcoholbob]

All games look better at 4k it reduces a lot of aliasing even if the AA is borked as in Crysis 3. However, I'd say Far Cry 4 is the only game that is very intensive. They didn't test AC Unity or Watchdogs. I doubt either would be playable at 4k.

Also what's up with the Crysis 3 CPU usage? It's happily pegging 12 cores at 4.4Ghz(6 of those virtual). With that kind of usage I'm wondering how I even manage to run it with my 4 core non-HT CPU. All that CPU to get 43fps? What is that engine doing? I'd be curious to see 8 core usage and if it can get better framerates with.

I get 60fps stone steady with Max Details & FXAA at 4K with Assassin's Creed Unity.

Assassin's Creed Unity is mostly CPU bound. In the city when the crowds build up I see CPU load going up to the mid 60%s on my 5820K @4.6GHz. That's basically 100% CPU load on a stock 4790K.

 

[boozzer]

meh, wake me up when a single card can do 4k.

 

[sxr7171]

I get 60fps stone steady with Max Details & FXAA at 4K with Assassin's Creed Unity.

Assassin's Creed Unity is mostly CPU bound. In the city when the crowds build up I see CPU load going up to the mid 60%s on my 5820K @4.6GHz. That's basically 100% CPU load on a stock 4790K.

That's a great result. The game must look amazing at those settings. With my single Titan X I get 60fps with dips at 1080p but 4x MSAA with MFAA enabled. With the Dead Kings DLC that 60 fps is rock stable.

I take it the game hit your cores evenly? I wonder if my 4.8GHz 3570K is CPU bottle necked. I sort of doubt we're there yet, but 6 cores is looking more tempting as time progresses.