4K gaming tested at Hexus

[SiliconWars]

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/displays/57849-asus-pq321q-4k-gaming-tried-tested/

Titan is surprisingly only 18% ahead of the much cheaper 7970 GHz edition, and Nvidia is having some Windows 7 driver issues.

 

[boxleitnerb]

No surprise. At higher resolutions, AMD has less problems with utilizing their ALUs to full capacity. Titan@950 MHz (don't know how high it boosts in the review) has 5100 GFLOPs. The 7970 GHz has 4300 GFLOPs. So that's only 19% more for the Titan

 

[Silverforce11]

Whats rather surprising is how weak current GPUs are. Its like they are made for 1080p and at higher res they all facepalm. We have a long way to go before there's enough GPU grunt to tackle 4K gaming smoothly.

 

[Golgatha]

Once I got to the part about the panel costing $3,500 I quit reading.

 

[BrightCandle]

I can't think of another point in the history of graphics cards where we have flat out asked them to pump out 4x as many pixels between generations of monitors. Its always been more progressive than that, with options typically being 50-70% larger on each step at the same price point.

Going to 4x the resolution is a huge jump in comparison and its no surprise that GPUs are not ready for that, not with high settings and such anyway. It wont even get fixed with the next generation of GPUs, it will have to be at least 2 generations because we aren't going to see better than 2x performance on any process change at best.

 

[Stuka87]

Its going to be years before 4K becomes a consumer resolution. So nVidia/AMD have several years to advance their GPU's to meet the performance requirements.

 

[Thor86]

Once I got to the part about the panel costing $3,500 I quit reading.

LOL. Yeah with any new tech, this is "luxury" level hardware until costs to manufacture come down.

 

[UaVaj]

per anandtech. for enjoyable/playable fps. titan trisli is the minimum gpu setup for 4k.

-----

also 32" is a waste of 4k ppi. need ~46" to make use of 4k's ppi.

 

[KingFatty]

also 32" is a waste of 4k ppi. need ~46" to make use of 4k's ppi.

Wouldn't it depend on your viewing distance? At 2 feet away, the 32" would appear to be the same size as a 46" that is further away, I just don't recall the exact viewing distances for 32" 4K. It could be ridiculously close, who wants to view their screen from 4 inches away?

 

[PrincessFrosty]

I can't think of another point in the history of graphics cards where we have flat out asked them to pump out 4x as many pixels between generations of monitors. Its always been more progressive than that, with options typically being 50-70% larger on each step at the same price point.

Closest that comes to mind is when Eyefinity became a reality on single GPUs, suddenly people were jumping 3x the pixels from 1 to 3 panels.

Honestly that was mostly down to the fact that we'd had years and years of gaming stagnation due to console ports and lowest common denominator development. While hardware kept up its fast paced development we had more and more excess power available to us.

The next few years (generations of cards) will probably contend with the consoles quite nicely at 1080p, but assuming consolization of PC titles continues it won't be very long before PC video cards have grossly outpaced the consoles GPUs and we're looking to "spend" that additional GPU power on something meaningful, that will give 4k a chance to shine. Hopefully by then we'll see the panels drop in price making 4k gaming a reality for many of us.

My prediction is 2-3 years, a good 2 generations of GPUs. Or sooner if you're willing to do GPUs in SLI/Crossfire.

 

[UaVaj]

kingfatty

yes. it does depend on your viewing distance.

at 2 feet which is desk top placement.
the typical human eye cannot detect the differences in sharpness until the screen size goes beyond 46". which is 0.265ppi.
for the most discriminating human eye - 38". which is 0.25ppi.
anything less than that. you are fooling to yourself.

 

[Fallen Kell]

I don't get all the people complaining about the $3.5k price on the panel. Only 5-6 years ago, a decent quality 46" TV cost that much.

 

[wand3r3r]

I can't think of another point in the history of graphics cards where we have flat out asked them to pump out 4x as many pixels between generations of monitors. Its always been more progressive than that, with options typically being 50-70% larger on each step at the same price point.

Going to 4x the resolution is a huge jump in comparison and its no surprise that GPUs are not ready for that, not with high settings and such anyway. It wont even get fixed with the next generation of GPUs, it will have to be at least 2 generations because we aren't going to see better than 2x performance on any process change at best.

Exactly. $1k GPU and it just falls on it's face. The price and value are not quite in line in the NV lineup (well known, done here).

I've been thinking the same thing though, how in the world are they going to whip up a GPU capable of handling 4k when current games can bottleneck them at the piddly resolutions such as 1080p? It's going to be a long time before 4k is playable with max settings. I can't wait until it's possible though, it will mean there has been some true advancements.

 

[RussianSensation]

Take a game like Crysis 3 that kills the Titan at 1080P. It's not out of the question that once PS4/XB1 hit their mid-life, by 2016-2017, the best looking PC games will be 2x more advanced than Crysis 3. 4K is 4x the resolution, which means you'll have 8x the workload. In the best case, nowadays GPU increase in speed 80% every 2-2.5 years. By 2017, we might have a single GPU with 3.2x the power of the Titan. People aren't accounting for the fact that games will also get more complex in the next 3-4 years by the time 4K panels are more affordable. What this means is you'd still need 3x Volta GPUs by 2017 to play the best looking PC games.

I think the market would benefit a lot more from 30 inch 1600P monitors dropping to $400-500. This would result in a lot of people buying more expensive GPUs and boost the market for graphics cards. 4K will continue to remain very niche for a long time.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2274733

Drop in the bucket by 2017.

 

[thilanliyan]

Once I got to the part about the panel costing $3,500 I quit reading.

Expect Adamk47 to have 3 shortly

 

[boxleitnerb]

4K is 4x the resolution, which means you'll have 8x the workload.

4K = 3840 x 2160 = 2 x 1920 x 2 x 1080 = 4x 1080p
So just 4x, not 8x. It's squared, not just double.

 

[wand3r3r]

4K = 3840 x 2160 = 2 x 1920 x 2 x 1080 = 4x 1080p
So just 4x, not 8x. It's squared, not just double.

You missed the 2x more advanced part which he obviously included in the 8x.

"the best looking PC games will be 2x more advanced than Crysis 3"

 

[boxleitnerb]

Oops
Never mind, then.

 

[Grooveriding]

I should of had my PQ321 by now but Amazon.com said I should expect duties/brokerage fees on top of the taxes they charged me because it would be coming UPS ground... Cancelled my preorder from them because that would of been an additional $500 or more with the rape UPS lays down on customs fees.

Once it shows up on amazon.ca or newegg.ca I am getting one. I think two Titans is going to handle it just fine other than in games like Metro:LL, Crysis 3 etc, where I expect disabling AA will still allow me to run the games maxed out. Looking forward to posting some results. :biggrin:

 

[Skurge]

You missed the 2x more advanced part which he obviously included in the 8x.

"the best looking PC games will be 2x more advanced than Crysis 3"

Except 4x the resolution isn't 4x the workload. Everyone knows this. 1600P is double the pixels that 1080p is, but your FPS doesn't halve when you move from 1080p to 1600P

 

[Smoblikat]

Wouldn't it depend on your viewing distance? At 2 feet away, the 32" would appear to be the same size as a 46" that is further away, I just don't recall the exact viewing distances for 32" 4K. It could be ridiculously close, who wants to view their screen from 4 inches away?

I do.............im pretty blind though

 

[tential]

Wouldn't it depend on your viewing distance? At 2 feet away, the 32" would appear to be the same size as a 46" that is further away, I just don't recall the exact viewing distances for 32" 4K. It could be ridiculously close, who wants to view their screen from 4 inches away?

According to Cnet and other graphs on AVSforum:
To notice the benefits of 4K, you'd need to be sitting 6 feet away from an 80 inch television.

When comparing Sony's brand new 4k 85 inch (I think 85) vs a similar 1080p competitor, they had a hard time telling the difference from normal 10-12 foot viewing ranges. Only when within 6 feet or so could they see differences. IMO, that's the biggest problem with 4K.

Like said before on many video forum's I'd rather see LCD screens that do motion better, have better contrast, black levels, white levels, etc. before I see 4K. But 4K is an easy sell so that's what we'll see. At least 4K will spur graphics card innovation though.

 

[AdamK47]

Titan is surprisingly only 18% ahead of the much cheaper 7970 GHz edition, and Nvidia is having some Windows 7 driver issues.

Classic AnandTech opening narrative.

"Lets put a positive spin on <Company A> and a nagative one on <Company B>. Discuss!"

 

[cmdrdredd]

Once I got to the part about the panel costing $3,500 I quit reading.

lol right now that is the biggest sticking point for most. Of course if you want to get near 60fps you need multiple Titan/780 level cards which is another $1200/$2000

 

[x3sphere]

I don't get all the people complaining about the $3.5k price on the panel. Only 5-6 years ago, a decent quality 46" TV cost that much.

Since monitors are something you stick with for awhile, I would be wiling to shell out $3.5k on the panel but I'm not going to spend $3k on GPUs every year to get things playable at 4K. Will stick with 1600p for the foreseeable future.