1440p 144hz freesync monitor with 2xRX480 or GTX 1070?

[Silverforce11]

As has been noted by many, FS/GS vs 144hz makes the difference much smaller.

The point is 60 hz FS/GS is achievable in most games on modest GPU. To get 144hz consistent at 1440p, you need 2x 1070 or 1080.

The frame variance, min vs avg vs max, will not make it as smooth as a FS/GS 60hz experience. Games do not have consistent 144hz, take for example, Fallout 4, you enter Diamond City or walk around there, GG, goodbye 144 fps, CPU bound.

 

[wilds]

Fallout 4, you enter Diamond City or walk around there, GG, goodbye 144 fps, CPU bound.

And when that happens, wouldn't it be a good thing to have Freesync enabled?

 

[bystander36]

The point is 60 hz FS/GS is achievable in most games on modest GPU. To get 144hz consistent at 1440p, you need 2x 1070 or 1080.

The frame variance, min vs avg vs max, will not make it as smooth as a FS/GS 60hz experience. Games do not have consistent 144hz, take for example, Fallout 4, you enter Diamond City or walk around there, GG, goodbye 144 fps, CPU bound.

I did not say 144 FPS, I said 144hz. You can have 60 FPS on a 144hz monitor without v-sync, and have far less noticeable tearing than 60 FPS at 60hz. At such a high refresh rate, v-sync becomes far less needed. You then don't have to worry about the latency issues either.

The reason that 144hz helps so much is that it not only wipes the tears off the screen in half the time, but the time gap between tears makes the offset of images much smaller. The result is that many people swear there is no tearing, but at the very least, it is far less noticeable.

 

[RyanRazer]

While FPS do help, simply having 144hz helps greatly reduces how perceptible tearing is. If you use Vsync, it also greatly reduces how much vsync stutter you get. I'm sure Freesync and Gsync are better, but from reports, I don't think it out weighs the problems of CF/SLI.

I can provide a good advice because I have 1440p 144Hz freesync monitor (Acer XG270HU) and GTX 980 Ti

I had R9 390 before, and with and without freesync the difference was very very small in smoothness.

AT 144Hz, perception of tearing is greatly reduced or eliminated.

I was in the same boat as you are, I wanted AMD GPU to utilize freesync, but AMD doesn't have anything at this point to drive 1440p with all maximum settings and 60+ fps.

So I bought a used 980Ti and I couldn't be happier, everything is super smooth at 144Hz and I don't miss Freesync.

Hopefully VEGA would be on par with 1080Ti then I would upgrade to it.

For you 1070 will be perfect, trust me, Freesync and Gsynca are a bit overrated IMO, specially if the monitor is already at high refresh rate as 120 or 144Hz.

Don't buy RX 480 and don't use CF or SLI, get 1070 and wait till VEGA comes out and if its performance and price are worth it, sell the 1070 and upgrade to VEGA.

I did not say 144 FPS, I said 144hz. You can have 60 FPS on a 144hz monitor without v-sync, and have far less noticeable tearing than 60 FPS at 60hz. At such a high refresh rate, v-sync becomes far less needed. You then don't have to worry about the latency issues either.

The reason that 144hz helps so much is that it not only wipes the tears off the screen in half the time, but the time gap between tears makes the offset of images much smaller. The result is that many people swear there is no tearing, but at the very least, it is far less noticeable.

I think these comments made me lean toward gtx 1070. With it i can play on 1440p every game with respectable FPS. I said to myself I'll treat myself this time around and try out high end gaming for the first time in my life. I spent big buck on this monitor, why cheap out on gpu now. I want that high fps and resolution. I decided rx 480 in CF isn't worh it and one rx 480 isn't going to cut it. I've read your comments and saw yt explanation about high refresh rate monitors and it makes sense. I think and hope that i won't miss freesync with that card, since it'll be able to push games at high fps. I wont let it dip below 80-90 (ill lower game details).
Plus i got a good value of aib gtx for 500€. Rx 480 for 280€ is not a bad deal but fps/$ is still better with gtx.
Ofc I'll wait till aib rx480 come out, few more weeks, till end of jully. I doubt they'll change my mind. They would have to OC like crazy to be able to push 1440p at high enough fps, but i doubt it. I'll wait anyways and hope for gtx 1070 to drop few bucks as well since they are not abond on market.

As of now I'm 70/30 leaning toward gtx 1070 vs single rx480 (480cf is out of the game).

Guys thanks for now. If anyone has some more ideas or experience to share, please do always good to hear more first hand.


PS: video "explanation" frame latency: https://youtu.be/hjWSRTYV8e0?t=1m43s

 

[RyanRazer]

What about getting the 1070 and selling it off when something worthwhile from AMD comes around? If you're gonna settle on power with the 480 (comparative to the 1070) why not consider doing without freesync for 6-8 months and going with the 1070. The high refresh rate will still give a good experience and the card will do fine til Vega arrives. The 1070 should hold its value relatively well for when you need to send it down the line.

+1

 

[Bacon1]

+1

I'd honestly consider the 480. I've been running 2560x1600 on my 290 4GB for years. You should have no issues with gaming on the 480 8GB @ 1440p, and having freesync vs tearing on the 1070 will be welcomed benefit. Obviously its up to you, but I'd save the cash and enjoy freesync.

 

[lixlax]

One more con for 480 is that its perfomance tanks at 1440p compared to the cards (Hawaii, GM104) it is competing at 1080p.
I guess if you want high framerate and good picture quality on this resolution then 1070 is the way to go at the moment.

I have a 144Hz 1440p freesync monitor as well and the 480 doesn't seem like enough of a upgrade over my current 380. Waiting for AIB cards though to make the final judgement.

 

[Bacon1]

I don't see performance tanking at all...

The 380 is only 63% of the performance of a single 480 @ 1440p

 

[SolMiester]

%'s dont run games, try showing FPS

 

[atticus14]

%'s dont run games, try showing FPS

graphs are obviously in reference to

One more con for 480 is that its perfomance tanks at 1440p compared to the cards (Hawaii, GM104)

 

[lehtv]

One more con for 480 is that its perfomance tanks at 1440p compared to the cards (Hawaii, GM104 GM204) it is competing at 1080p.

Nope

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/RX_480/24.html

1080p:
GTX 970 = 95%
R9 390 = 97%
R9 290X = 97%
RX 480 = 100%
GTX 980 = 110%

1440p:
GTX 970 = 94% (-1% compared to 1080p)
R9 390 = 101% (+4%)
R9 290X = 102% (+5%)
RX 480 = 100%
GTX 980 = 109% (-1%)

Performance doesn't tank against GM204, it improves by an insignificant 1% (within margin of error). Against R9 390 and 290X, there's a measurable few percent penalty, hardly what I would call "tanking".

 

[bystander36]

The only tanking that the rx 480 is doing, by the reviews I've seen, is with AA. The more AA you add, the worse it performs.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Could just get a single aftermarket 480, it's not a slow card. Freesync should compensate for some of the ~33% lower framerates compared to a 1070.

We're expecting way faster gpu's by the end of the year.

 

[Kenmitch]

If it was me I think I'd go for the higher fps and try out the GTX 1070. Maybe find one with a good return policy so you really wouldn't have much to loose in the end if it doesn't work out.

I have a 1080p 144Hz monitor and the higher the fps the better for me at least. Sweat spot for me is anything above 80fps or so depending on the game.

I just ordered the Zotac AMP Edition GTX 1070 for $449.99 shipped this AM from B&H photo. Don't really care if I get some crazy overclock out of it or not. Looks like a decent deal for me. Free expedited shipping and no sales tax triggered the impulse buy in me.

I was going to post the link but it currently shows more coming soon. Guess I got one of the last ones in stock.

 

[digitaldurandal]

The only tanking that the rx 480 is doing, by the reviews I've seen, is with AA. The more AA you add, the worse it performs.

I think this is likely due to the ROPs yea?

 

[RyanRazer]

If it was me I think I'd go for the higher fps and try out the GTX 1070. Maybe find one with a good return policy so you really wouldn't have much to loose in the end if it doesn't work out.

I have a 1080p 144Hz monitor and the higher the fps the better for me at least. Sweat spot for me is anything above 80fps or so depending on the game.

I just ordered the Zotac AMP Edition GTX 1070 for $449.99 shipped this AM from B&H photo. Don't really care if I get some crazy overclock out of it or not. Looks like a decent deal for me. Free expedited shipping and no sales tax triggered the impulse buy in me.

I was going to post the link but it currently shows more coming soon. Guess I got one of the last ones in stock.

Well I'm from EU so prices are higer here. Please let me know how you like the card!

 

[bystander36]

I think this is likely due to the ROPs yea?

Probably. You can look here for their explination: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-480-polaris-10,4616.html

The Hawaii and Fiji SEs have four render back-ends each, capable of 16 pixels per clock (or 64 across the GPU). Polaris 10 cuts that figure in half. Two render back-ends per SE, each with four ROPs, total 32 pixels per clock. This is a significant reduction compared to the Hawaii-based Radeon R9 290 AMD needs to beat with its RX 480. To compound matters, Polaris 10 employs a 256-bit memory bus—much narrower than Hawaii’s aggregate 512-bit path. A 4GB version of Radeon RX 480 will include 7 Gb/s GDDR5, enabling 224 GB/s of bandwidth, while the 8GB model we’re testing today utilizes 8 Gb/s memory, boosting throughput to 256 GB/s. Still, that’s a lot less than R9 290’s 320 GB/s.

Some of the deficit is offset with improved delta color compression, which reduces the amount of information transferred across the bus. AMD now supports 2/4/8:1 lossless ratios, similar to Nvidia’s Pascal architecture. Polaris 10 also benefits from the larger 2MB L2 cache first seen on Fiji. This can help dial back on trips to GDDR5, further reducing the GPU’s reliance on a wide bus and high data rates.
Still, leaning out the GPU’s back end must have an impact on performance as resolution and anti-aliasing utilization increases. Curious about how Polaris compares to Hawaii as the workload intensifies, we fired up Grand Theft Auto V at a modest 1920x1080 with Very High detail settings, then started scaling up anti-aliasing.