4K gaming is still expensive, but mid-range adoption is just around the corner.
The price of a 4K gaming rig
Beware the dreaded 30Hz panel, though. While the likes of Dell's P2815Q can be had for as little as £220 (~$350) refurbished, using a 30Hz panel isn't a great experience. Even if you only plan on running games at 30 FPS, a 60Hz panel gives you much better response times and less annoying flicker, while also giving you a smoother desktop experience. Besides which, if you decide to upgrade your GPU later on, better to have a monitor that can handle all those extra frames now than having to buy a whole new one later on.
As for the price of a complete 4K system, be prepared to spend a hefty chunk of cash on components, even without taking into account the cost of the GPU(s) and the screen. You don't have to go totally nuts and buy an 8-core Haswell-E processor, but eliminating bottlenecks and making sure the system can feed data to the GPUs as fast as possible is important, particularly when you're trying to make the most out of high-end cards. To that end, we'd recommend no less than a quad-core Intel i5 processor—something along the lines of the 4690K if you're purchasing a new system.
Given that most games still aren't massively multithreaded (Battlefield 4 being one of the few exceptions, and even there there's evidence to suggest the game is GPU-limited), you should ideally buy a CPU with superb single-threaded performance. Unfortunately, AMD can't match Intel's per-core performance, making its CPUs less than ideal for 4K. Overclocking is also a good option, to squeeze out as much single-threaded performance as possible.
Elsewhere, opt for a good quality motherboard like the Asus Z97-PRO or MSI's Z97 Gaming 5, or something from the H97-series if you don't plan on overclocking. Make sure you get a suitably fast SSD to avoid any storage bottlenecks. There may be some small gains to be had from using a super-fast M.2 PCIe SSD, too—but it's certainly not a necessity for 4K gaming.
Recommended system
Our recommended 4K system isn't an exhaustive list of possible configurations, but rather highlights some of the basic components you'll need to get the most out of your games in 4K without spending insane amounts of money. For a more in-depth look at some of the different options for the rest of the system, including smaller micro-ATX and mini-ITX for factors.
- Monitor: Dell P2415Q Black 24", 8ms, 60Hz - £353 - $599
- CPU: Intel i5-4690K 3.5GHz - £183 - $224
- GPU: AMD R9 295X2 - £500 - $619
- RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR3 2133MHz - £100 - $139
- MB: Asus Z97-PRO - £143 - $190
- PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 G1 80+ Gold - £119 - $159
- SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 500GB - £150 - $225
- HD: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200RPM HD - £81 - $89
- Case: NZXT S340 - £60 - $69
- Cooler: Corsair H100i GTX 240mm Liquid CPU Cooler - £98 - $109
- Total: £1787 - $2422
For the purposes of our recommended 4K system, we aimed for a configuration that would get as close as possible to running demanding games (i.e. not just League Of Legends) at 3840×2160 @ 60 FPS. To that end, a Crossfire or SLI system gives you the best bang for buck, with AMD's R9 295X2 being particularly good value. Stepping up to two GTX 980s will give you a nice boost in performance, if you're willing to stump up the extra cash (£450 or$560 each).
The only good option for a single-GPU configuration is the GTX Titan X, but you'd need to sacrifice some visual fidelity in favour of resolution, and be prepared to stump up £840($1049) for one GPU. Those wanting to get the most out of those extra pixels have the option of upgrading to a larger 28-inch 4K panel like the Acer XB280HK G-Sync monitor for a hefty £500 ($759).
If 4K isn't your bag, you could instead opt for a 21:9 monitor. While these are actually more expensive than 4K panels right now (at least for a 1440p model), 21:9 does give you something of a different experience, particularly those with curved displays. Perhaps most importantly, they don't require a dual-GPU setup to drive games at 60 FPS. Keep an eye out for Acer's upcoming XR341CK, a 34-inch 21:9 monitor that will be the first to support G-Sync.
If you're not totally convinced by 4K right now and want to save some cash, but still want something better than full HD, it's worth considering a 1440p monitor. These have dropped in price considerably, and if you're the ultra-competitive type, features like 144Hz refresh rates and 1ms response times are available. 1440p is currently the sweet spot for GPUs, and you don't need anything near as powerful as a Titan X to drive that resolution, with something like a single GTX 970 doing the trick for most games.
Should you invest in 4K gaming right now?
With prices for monitors lower than ever and with standards finally stabilizing, 4K is a far more tempting proposition. Problems like tiny UI elements in games that don't scale are finally being resolved, too—even if it's unlikely that older games will get patched.
You still need an enormous amount of graphical power in order to play games at such a high resolution—4K is over 8 million pixels per frame, or four times as many as 1080p—and outside of the $1000 Titan X, there isn't a single-GPU solution out there that can marry high settings with desirable 60 FPS performance. That's not to mention that you'll need to pair your top-of-the-line GPU with some similarly pricey components in order to get the best out of it.
That said, things should improve considerably once Microsoft's DirectX 12 and Khronos Group's Vulkan APIs make their way into games. Both promise to give developers much lower level access to the hardware, and thus dramatically better performance for consumers. There are a lot of improvements in DirectX 12—many of which Ars has detailed here—but the most exciting in terms of raw performance are command lists and much-improved multithreading.
Under DirectX 11, commands are sent from the CPU to the GPU in a serial fashion, and worked through sequentially, essentially limiting performance by the speed at which the CPU can send the commands. With DirectX 12, these are sent as lists that bundle up all the required commands into a single package, with the GPU executing them in a single clock cycle. Like AMD's Mantle, this dramatically decreases CPU overhead, and when coupled with DirectX 12's other features can result in a huge boost in performance. AnandTech's early tests showed as much as a 50 percent improvement.
DirectX 12's ability to finally pool graphics memory across multiple cards in SLI and Crossfire will also have a tangible effect on 4K and its need for lots of VRAM.
DirectX 12 alone probably won't be enough to take 4K out of the the early adopter/enthusiast space, but as the API matures and high-end GPU tech trickles down to cheaper cards, mid-range 4K gaming might finally be within reach by 2016. Until then, we'll be keeping an eye on the latest GPU and API developments through the year, and will update this guide as and when those tasty technologies arrive.
This post originated on Ars Technica UK
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