The great misconception about a graphic card being "overkill" for a resolution.

[4K_shmoorK]

I want to max out games at 1080p. I don't want a higher resolution monitor because text is already hard for me to read at 1080p. So what GPU should I buy? I suppose you'd say a 970 and stop trying to max the settings.

Asinine indeed.

I'd say buy what you want and can afford. Maximum settings do little to improve upon High or Ultra settings, often at the loss of 30-50% performance. If you want to pay potentially 200% ($300 vs $600) so that you can experience the last tenth percentile of image quality (90% at high/ultra), be my guest. All while stuck at the native resolution of 1920x1080.

The point I was making is that OP linked to some of the most poorly optimized and/or demanding games (probably amount to less than 5% of most games out there) to prove his point. There are plenty of titles that run extremely well. I don't think anyone should spend hundreds of dollars just to play a small group of poorly optimized titles. And if performance is bad just turn down settings, it won't kill ya.

 

[xthetenth]

Any GPU can be overkill if you crank up the max, 8x MSAA, or heck, even 4x SSAA, at 1080p.

I'd argue that if those settings are what it takes for a card to not be overkill, then the card is in fact still overkill because those settings are overkill. That's marching deep into the land of diminishing returns, at which point the GPU probably shouldn't be the priority.

 

[Insomniator]

There is no overkill based on resolution. Its based on games. If all you play is Dota 2 and all you plan to play in the future is Dota 3, then yes, a GTX 1080 is probably overkill even at 4k.

But if play all the new AAA FPS games that come out, even if you are on 1080p it just comes down to what you can afford. There are always new games coming out with higher reqs, ways to increase AA/AF, 144hz monitors... so what if a GTX 1080 gets 100 FPS on every game you play now. Crysis 4 comes out and suddenly it gets 70 while everything else barely cracks 50. Still overkill?

But that Dota player, probably never going to use his GTX 1080 sufficiently... maybe for Dota 5.

 

[Raduque]

All while stuck at the native resolution of 1920x1080.

I already mentioned why I won't consider a higher resolution. I have bad eyes, and to see everything good (ie: text, screen elements, images) I'd have to be sitting within a foot or so. I can still see everything OK at 1080p, so I see no reason to go higher.

And if performance is bad just turn down settings, it won't kill ya.

I don't want to have to. I'm not going to just because somebody says I "don't need to run max settings".

 

[4K_shmoorK]

I don't want to have to. I'm not going to just because somebody says I "don't need to run max settings".

Don't take it so personally, its just a discussion. Use windows display scaling or buy a larger display at 2560x1440. Problem solved.

By all means, people can do whatever they want. And they will do whatever they want. But most people care about what they're spending money on. I'd argue spending hundreds to get the last little bit of IQ on a niche title may not be the best use of that cash. Especially when the money could be spent on a display (higher res or refresh rate) that would improve one's experience beyond just games.

My $0.02

 

[guachi]

While I myself would never spend 500+ on a GPU, I do somewhat agree with the OP's assessment. I have an R9 390 and people keep telling me to upgrade to 1440P (where I'd certainly have to dial down settings to high or medium in most cases) while I'm satisfied gaming at 1650*1050 where I can set everything to Ultra and get decent framerates.

I'd rather have more pixels at lower settings if only because it'll make my non-gaming PC experience better. I can't wait to get a 3840x2160 monitor.

 

[Raduque]

Don't take it so personally, its just a discussion.
My $0.02

I feel like I should take it personally, because you're basically telling me I'm wrong for wanting to play max settings at 1080p.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I still remember when everyone said the 970 and 290 were wastes of money for 1080p. The very first game I played on my 970, Far Cry 4, was just barely staying at mostly above 60 fps at ultra (not max) at 1080p, and I did end up turning a setting or two down from ultra to keep from dips into the mid 50s. And then a few months later Witcher 3 came out and that required turning lots of settings down to high to get mostly 60+ fps at 1080p on my 970. Even now with tons of performance enhancing patches I cannot get the game to play at what I consider an acceptable framerate at 1440p. I get 45-50 fps at 1440p medium with no hairworks. I think that's a terrible framerate to play at on a 60 Hz monitor. I'd personally rather play at a locked 30 fps than a fluctuating 45-50 fps, and if I wanted to play at 30 fps I'd have bought a console. I'm glad I didn't buy into the hype of the 970 being a 1440p card and try to match it with a 1440p 60 Hz monitor back in 2014. Because then I would have had to buy a 980 Ti.

Another problem is I see tons of people saying card X is great for 1440p, and then I see they're playing Overwatch or War Thunder or some other game that doesn't stress modern cards. The kind of games I like are those that really punish GPUs, stuff like Witcher 3, Dragon Age Inquisition, GTA V, Assassins Creed Syndicate, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Dying Light. I like playing old games too, but I want 60 fps in new games. Some of these games I can get running at a locked 60 fps at 1440p by dropping settings to medium, but some I can't, and once you go below medium the image quality usually tanks like hell.

Still, I don't think I'd ever consider the GTX 1080 for 1080p unless it was for gaming on a 144 Hz panel. But the 1070 is a different story.

 

[4K_shmoorK]

I feel like I should take it personally, because you're basically telling me I'm wrong for wanting to play max settings at 1080p.

Not at all. Carry on :thumbsup: Didn't mean to come across that way at all.

 

[Raduque]

Not at all. Carry on :thumbsup: Didn't mean to come across that way at all.

Cool. It's hard to tell intent sometimes on the Internet.

 

[bystander36]

I feel like I should take it personally, because you're basically telling me I'm wrong for wanting to play max settings at 1080p.

While you aren't wrong, it does sound like you, like many others around here, over value what "max" settings give you. Dev's simply give us a ton of settings to use so we can optimize a game to what hardware we have. Many of those options you have are not even perceivable at times, or you'd have to look at two images side by side to find the difference, and often it doesn't necessarily even look better. A lot of headaches and money could be saved if people were more willing to mess with the settings to optimize it to their hardware.

 

[guachi]

People should remember that "lots of pixels" is also a setting, even if we don't change them as often (if ever) like we did with a CRT.

Anyone ever take a 1600x1200 87Hz CRT and reduce the resolution to 800x600 160Hz to play a game at ridiculous frame rates?

 

[2is]

Nobody that knows what they are talking about would say any graphics card is overkill for 1440p. In fact, I don't think I've read any claims to that at all in the time I've been a member here, ever. Usually when one says a card is overkill for somebody it's usually in reference to the rest of their system. Like if they have a very old/weak CPU that won't be able to drive the card adequately.

 

[Thinker_145]

A lot of headaches and money could be saved if people were more willing to mess with the settings to optimize it to their hardware.

Yes God forbid if someone doesn't want to fiddle around with the settings in every game they play. If paying a little more would save me the time and hassle of optimizing my game I would do that. You might find it fun to load your game in different settings to try to see the difference but I certainly don't find that fun. It actually ruins the start and flow of a linear single player game.

Yes this is a major strength of PC gaming but that doesn't mean it can't be avoided. Not having to do that is certainly a luxury I like to have in as many games as financially possible.

And this argument that ultra settings are not worth it is only true for certain games.

 

[Thinker_145]

Nobody that knows what they are talking about would say any graphics card is overkill for 1440p. In fact, I don't think I've read any claims to that at all in the time I've been a member here, ever. Usually when one says a card is overkill for somebody it's usually in reference to the rest of their system. Like if they have a very old/weak CPU that won't be able to drive the card adequately.

Nobody says that what people are saying is that 1080 and 1070 are overkill for 1080p. Which implies that there is no benefit in playing on 1080p versus 1440p which I have demonstrated to not be true even on launch day so you can imagine how much worse it will be in a year's time.

 

[Thinker_145]

I'd rather have more pixels at lower settings if only because it'll make my non-gaming PC experience better. I can't wait to get a 3840x2160 monitor.

But we are talking about gaming here so your point has little relevance.

 

[Silverforce11]

I'd argue that if those settings are what it takes for a card to not be overkill, then the card is in fact still overkill because those settings are overkill. That's marching deep into the land of diminishing returns, at which point the GPU probably shouldn't be the priority.

And that's my point. You can make any GPU run crippled if you over do it with 8x MSAA or SSAA.

Now with VSR/DSR, it's even easier for 1080p players to run native SSAA even in games that don't support it.

As for diminishing returns, I find that in most games, the visual from High -> Ultra is very small. As long as Texture Quality is maxed out, the game looks great already on Med/High. But moving to Ultra, you often tank in performance for very little gains.

 

[HeXen]

You're not making much of an argument here. There is clearly such a thing as overkill. A 980ti for a 1366x768 screen is clearly overkill. Hell, some people still use 1024x768.

And what if it's for VR? High framerate can have it's advantage. What about future proofing ...games only get more demanding as time goes on. I don't see how anything can be overkill when in a couple or so yrs you'll have games getting 30fps with it if that with it.

I remember when My 970 never had a game dip below 30fps. Now that I modded GTA 5, I get a max framerate of around 30 lol.
I think some forget, it's the frame rate drops that matter most because those are the most immediately noticeable, especially if your at 50fps and suddenly it drops to 28, then 42, then 30...screw that noise.

 

[Thinker_145]

I'd say buy what you want and can afford. Maximum settings do little to improve upon High or Ultra settings, often at the loss of 30-50% performance. If you want to pay potentially 200% ($300 vs $600) so that you can experience the last tenth percentile of image quality (90% at high/ultra), be my guest. All while stuck at the native resolution of 1920x1080.

The point I was making is that OP linked to some of the most poorly optimized and/or demanding games (probably amount to less than 5% of most games out there) to prove his point. There are plenty of titles that run extremely well. I don't think anyone should spend hundreds of dollars just to play a small group of poorly optimized titles. And if performance is bad just turn down settings, it won't kill ya.

And what exactly is wrong in being "stuck" at 1080p? IPS glow actually gets worse with size so it can argued that the smaller 1080p monitors are actually better than the bigger ones in terms of IQ.

I find this elitist attitude of the 1440p race pretty funny. You guys play down the importance of ultra settings and yet pixels are everything.

"If you can buy a $600 card then why not a better monitor?"
Well why should I when the more expensive monitors offer virtually no IQ improvements and just gives me bigger size and resolution? Is it really inconciebable that people might be happy with gaming on a certain size?

I have a 24" 1080p 60Hz IPS screen and believe me resolution and size are the very last things I would like to upgrade. I would like to have 120hz yes but apart from that the things I want are not provided by any of these high end monitors. So if I have to accept mediocrity I'll rather do it at a lower price.

Give me an OLED screen or even a very fast VA screen and that's what I would call a real high end display.

 

[HutchinsonJC]

I see what OP's saying, kinda, but I see bench results with what looks like average fps.

For me, the minimum fps, or what the fps dips down to in various parts of the game... THOSE are the areas that I think for many gamers break the immersion. THOSE are the areas of the game that I'd prefer to keep above 45fps at LEAST.

If I play a game and my resolution is 1080P 1200P or whatever and I have DIPS that break the immersion for me, I don't care what anyone else says about what's a waste of money when I upgrade.

I think at the end of the day if you buy hardware to satisfy other people's opinion of what's a waste vs what's not... then you didn't really research your need for an upgrade and/or you don't understand your need. Need to research and understand your limitations/bottlenecks and don't worry about other people's opinions of what a waste of money is.

 

[bystander36]

Yes God forbid if someone doesn't want to fiddle around with the settings in every game they play. If paying a little more would save me the time and hassle of optimizing my game I would do that. You might find it fun to load your game in different settings to try to see the difference but I certainly don't find that fun. It actually ruins the start and flow of a linear single player game.

Yes this is a major strength of PC gaming but that doesn't mean it can't be avoided. Not having to do that is certainly a luxury I like to have in as many games as financially possible.

And this argument that ultra settings are not worth it is only true for certain games.

I didn't say it's wrong to not want to, just that "max" settings are over valued among many around here. Sure, you can buy the ability to not mess with settings, but it's not that difficult to reduce a couple settings and get 99% of the same appearance.

I won't say that going with a GTX 1080 is a waste for 1080p, just that it isn't necessary.

Edit: I might add that I might consider a GTX 1080 for myself at 1080p, but then I also have a 120hz monitor and enjoy high FPS. I'd most likely reduce settings in order to maintain 85+ FPS at all times.

 

[4K_shmoorK]

And what exactly is wrong in being "stuck" at 1080p? IPS glow actually gets worse with size so it can argued that the smaller 1080p monitors are actually better than the bigger ones in terms of IQ.

I find this elitist attitude of the 1440p race pretty funny. You guys play down the importance of ultra settings and yet pixels are everything.

"If you can buy a $600 card then why not a better monitor?"
Well why should I when the more expensive monitors offer virtually no IQ improvements and just gives me bigger size and resolution? Is it really inconciebable that people might be happy with gaming on a certain size?

I have a 24" 1080p 60Hz IPS screen and believe me resolution and size are the very last things I would like to upgrade. I would like to have 120hz yes but apart from that the things I want are not provided by any of these high end monitors. So if I have to accept mediocrity I'll rather do it at a lower price.

Give me an OLED screen or even a very fast VA screen and that's what I would call a real high end display.

I find 1440p to be the sweet spot. You don't and that's fine. YOU made the thread, not me. Simply expressing my opinion. You certainly do NOT need a GTX 1080 to max 85% of games out there at 1080p.

And I will stand by the notion that the concept of "maxing" a game is a bit asinine. Maybe not for you. But the general population does not care about buying a $600 card to play Assassins Creed: Syndicate at max settings at 1080p. Think you'd have a hard time arguing that to anyone.

As for downplaying the importance of Ultra settings, well, yeah. They aren't that important.

EDIT:
2560X1440 does offer image quality improvement, not sure why you would think otherwise.

 

[Thinker_145]

I find 1440p to be the sweet spot. You don't and that's fine. YOU made the thread, not me. Simply expressing my opinion. You certainly do NOT need a GTX 1080 to max 85% of games out there at 1080p.

And I will stand by the notion that the concept of "maxing" a game is a bit asinine. Maybe not for you. But the general population does not care about buying a $600 card to play Assassins Creed: Syndicate at max settings at 1080p. Think you'd have a hard time arguing that to anyone.

As for downplaying the importance of Ultra settings, well, yeah. They aren't that important.

EDIT:
2560X1440 does offer image quality improvement, not sure why you would think otherwise.

lol going by the general population it seems most people don't care about high resolution monitors so let's not go there.

1440p on a 27" screen offers IQ improvements but not on a 32" screen. However even at 27" the increase in PPI isnt exactly earth shattering certainly not worth the enormous performance penalty. See what I did there.

 

[4K_shmoorK]

lol going by the general population it seems most people don't care about high resolution monitors so let's not go there.

1440p on a 27" screen offers IQ improvements but not on a 32" screen. However even at 27" the increase in PPI isnt exactly earth shattering certainly not worth the enormous performance penalty. See what I did there.

Its fine friend :thumbsup:

I leave you with a link to 1080p GTX 1080 benchmarks. There's not a title on the bench that the 1080 gets less than 60FPS. Good luck with your argument, whatever it may be.
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Nvidi...5598/Specials/Benchmark-Test-Video-1195464/2/


Not sure why you reference me using the general population as a metric. You are the one arguing a GTX 1080 is insufficient for 1920x1080. GTX 1080 owners represent less than 1% of the GPU population.

 

[Thinker_145]

Its fine friend

I leave you with a link to 1080p GTX 1080 benchmarks. There's not a title on the bench that the 1080 gets less than 60FPS. Good luck with your argument, whatever it may be.
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Nvidi...5598/Specials/Benchmark-Test-Video-1195464/2/


Not sure why you reference me using the general population as a metric. You are the one arguing a GTX 1080 is insufficient for 1920x1080. GTX 1080 owners represent less than 1% of the GPU population.

Where did I ever say it's insufficient for 1080p? I said it's insufficient for 1440p which leaves us no option but to go for 1080p. I would not want to game on anything less wide than 16:9.