i9 9900X vs AMD Threadripper 2920X

[ChrispyjBMW]

The memory controller on the 9900K only handles dual channel even with 4 sticks of RAM and while quad channel platforms like the 2066skt increased bandwidth significantly it's at the expence of latency.

Separate to dual channel\quad channel there is single rank and dual rank RAM for example 8GB sticks of samsung B die are single rank while 16GB sticks are dual rank which brings a small performance boost to the CPU but 16GB dual rank sticks usually don't reach the high clock speeds of 8GB single rank sticks although in a MB like Asus Apex they come close, However 4 single rank stick offer the same performance advantage as two dual rank sticks and with a high quality MB can hit higher clock speeds.

Very interesting. still got lots to learn

 

[Topweasel]

I am going to be a slight disagreeer here.

The 2920 and 2950 have AMD's fastest Dies in them. Already closing the rift. On 90% of the games out there, it isn't really till you are trying to push ~ 13-150 FPS. Chances are though you will probably find yourself running a 1440p or 4k screen. You will probably find yourself more GPU bottlenecked then CPU bottle necked and you will gain more in productivity then you will lose in games. There is a trade off, but I don't think it's enough to give up these things.

Multiple NVME drives
60 Free PCIE lanes.
4 Cores and 8 threads.
4 Channel memory
And the kicker, the ability to upgrade later. That platform for the 9900k is already dead. If not you will have 1 upgrade later and that is a 10c Comet Lake. Go threadripper and you could find yourself able to toss in a 64c CPU later.

 

[kawi6rr]

I am going to be a slight disagreeer here.

The 2920 and 2950 have AMD's fastest Dies in them. Already closing the rift. On 90% of the games out there, it isn't really till you are trying to push ~ 13-150 FPS. Chances are though you will probably find yourself running a 1440p or 4k screen. You will probably find yourself more GPU bottlenecked then CPU bottle necked and you will gain more in productivity then you will lose in games. There is a trade off, but I don't think it's enough to give up these things.

Multiple NVME drives
60 Free PCIE lanes.
4 Cores and 8 threads.
4 Channel memory
And the kicker, the ability to upgrade later. That platform for the 9900k is already dead. If not you will have 1 upgrade later and that is a 10c Comet Lake. Go threadripper and you could find yourself able to toss in a 64c CPU later.

This right here, you wont see any difference in gameplay between the two.

 

[ChrispyjBMW]

I am going to be a slight disagreeer here.

The 2920 and 2950 have AMD's fastest Dies in them. Already closing the rift. On 90% of the games out there, it isn't really till you are trying to push ~ 13-150 FPS. Chances are though you will probably find yourself running a 1440p or 4k screen. You will probably find yourself more GPU bottlenecked then CPU bottle necked and you will gain more in productivity then you will lose in games. There is a trade off, but I don't think it's enough to give up these things.

Multiple NVME drives
60 Free PCIE lanes.
4 Cores and 8 threads.
4 Channel memory
And the kicker, the ability to upgrade later. That platform for the 9900k is already dead. If not you will have 1 upgrade later and that is a 10c Comet Lake. Go threadripper and you could find yourself able to toss in a 64c CPU later.

I see.. Why do you say the 9900K platform is already dead?

 

[ChrispyjBMW]

This right here, you wont see any difference in gameplay between the two.

Which do you advise?

 

[Topweasel]

I see.. Why do you say the 9900K platform is already dead?

Long story short Intel keeps a platform a bare minimum amount of time (2 years). Even with Coffee lake they made some lame excuse of needing a new chipset so that they could spec it for more power (looking at the 160w that the 9900k can actually consume at defualt it doesn't seem as wierd). So you have Coffee-Lake and Coffee Lake -r. There is a slight chance that due to the delay of Icelake that Comet Lake might just might slide in and for the first time in like 15 years have the consumer socket last more than 2 years I doubt it. They will give Commet lake a new socket/Chipset, then say yet another new one was needed for the new Process with Icelake eventually shows up.

So it's either a 9900k is top dog. Or The 10c Comet Lake replacement next year. But no more than that.

 

[ChrispyjBMW]

Long story short Intel keeps a platform a bare minimum amount of time (2 years). Even with Coffee lake they made some lame excuse of needing a new chipset so that they could spec it for more power (looking at the 160w that the 9900k can actually consume at defualt it doesn't seem as wierd). So you have Coffee-Lake and Coffee Lake -r. There is a slight chance that due to the delay of Icelake that Comet Lake might just might slide in and for the first time in like 15 years have the consumer socket last more than 2 years I doubt it. They will give Commet lake a new socket/Chipset, then say yet another new one was needed for the new Process with Icelake eventually shows up.

So it's either a 9900k is top dog. Or The 10c Comet Lake replacement next year. But no more than that.

Long story short Intel keeps a platform a bare minimum amount of time (2 years). Even with Coffee lake they made some lame excuse of needing a new chipset so that they could spec it for more power (looking at the 160w that the 9900k can actually consume at defualt it doesn't seem as wierd). So you have Coffee-Lake and Coffee Lake -r. There is a slight chance that due to the delay of Icelake that Comet Lake might just might slide in and for the first time in like 15 years have the consumer socket last more than 2 years I doubt it. They will give Commet lake a new socket/Chipset, then say yet another new one was needed for the new Process with Icelake eventually shows up.

So it's either a 9900k is top dog. Or The 10c Comet Lake replacement next year. But no more than that.

I see... thank you for the insight, now do you see why I have such a hard time deciding on which route to go with? I know parts become obsolete, but I want a rig thats going to last for more than a hot minute...

 

[Topweasel]

I see... thank you for the insight, now do you see why I have such a hard time deciding on which route to go with? I know parts become obsolete, but I want a rig thats going to last for more than a hot minute...

Here you have basically have to ask yourself a quick question.

Do you A.) Want the absolute fastest Gaming CPU that also happens to be a great multitasking CPU. But armed with the knowledge that it will never be better than it is today in the future. You don't have flexibility in the PCIe slots. So no multi GPU (not reasonably so) no CPU upgrades. If you fill up all four slots today you will have to replace memory later. All throughput in everything else is fed through 4x PCIe 3.0 lanes (so 1 NVME drives fills up IO).
B.) Get a CPU that you lose about 5-8% off the top in most games. But you get 50% more compute power for (Video edditing and any other Pro-sumer work). Endless Flexibility with 60 free lanes, including most boards supporting 3 NVME drives, which can be Raid O'd without a silly dongle. An update path that will give you 2 more generations for a total of 4 on the platform. With the next one offering upwards of 64 cores. 8 Ram slots, where yeah you want to use 4 right away. But lets say you went 64GB right away. You could go 128GB without trashing your previous sticks.

It really isn't fair as the TR platform is miles ahead of AM4 or Z390. But this is what happens when you don't really treat competition as competition. The X299 platform is a bit of a mess and a comparable CPU is much more expensive. X399 or X499 is bit more expensive for the boards but the CPU's are much cheaper then their direct competitors.

So yeah if the choice was mine I'd get the 2920. Well really if I was building a system right now I'd get the 2950 personally but that's just me.

 

[Markfw]

Here you have basically have to ask yourself a quick question.

Do you A.) Want the absolute fastest Gaming CPU that also happens to be a great multitasking CPU. But armed with the knowledge that it will never be better than it is today in the future. You don't have flexibility in the PCIe slots. So no multi GPU (not reasonably so) no CPU upgrades. If you fill up all four slots today you will have to replace memory later. All throughput in everything else is fed through 4x PCIe 3.0 lanes (so 1 NVME drives fills up IO).
B.) Get a CPU that you lose about 5-8% off the top in most games. But you get 50% more compute power for (Video edditing and any other Pro-sumer work). Endless Flexibility with 60 free lanes, including most boards supporting 3 NVME drives, which can be Raid O'd without a silly dongle. An update path that will give you 2 more generations for a total of 4 on the platform. With the next one offering upwards of 64 cores. 8 Ram slots, where yeah you want to use 4 right away. But lets say you went 64GB right away. You could go 128GB without trashing your previous sticks.

It really isn't fair as the TR platform is miles ahead of AM4 or Z390. But this is what happens when you don't really treat competition as competition. The X299 platform is a bit of a mess and a comparable CPU is much more expensive. X399 or X499 is bit more expensive for the boards but the CPU's are much cheaper then their direct competitors.

So yeah if the choice was mine I'd get the 2920. Well really if I was building a system right now I'd get the 2950 personally but that's just me.

I concur. 2920x or any TR. The older 1950x can be had for as little as $420 on sale. I paid $450, just 2 weeks ago.

 

[ChrispyjBMW]

Here you have basically have to ask yourself a quick question.

Do you A.) Want the absolute fastest Gaming CPU that also happens to be a great multitasking CPU. But armed with the knowledge that it will never be better than it is today in the future. You don't have flexibility in the PCIe slots. So no multi GPU (not reasonably so) no CPU upgrades. If you fill up all four slots today you will have to replace memory later. All throughput in everything else is fed through 4x PCIe 3.0 lanes (so 1 NVME drives fills up IO).
B.) Get a CPU that you lose about 5-8% off the top in most games. But you get 50% more compute power for (Video edditing and any other Pro-sumer work). Endless Flexibility with 60 free lanes, including most boards supporting 3 NVME drives, which can be Raid O'd without a silly dongle. An update path that will give you 2 more generations for a total of 4 on the platform. With the next one offering upwards of 64 cores. 8 Ram slots, where yeah you want to use 4 right away. But lets say you went 64GB right away. You could go 128GB without trashing your previous sticks.

It really isn't fair as the TR platform is miles ahead of AM4 or Z390. But this is what happens when you don't really treat competition as competition. The X299 platform is a bit of a mess and a comparable CPU is much more expensive. X399 or X499 is bit more expensive for the boards but the CPU's are much cheaper then their direct competitors.

So yeah if the choice was mine I'd get the 2920. Well really if I was building a system right now I'd get the 2950 personally but that's just me.

#Mindblown

that's a lot to process with 100% of my brain.. I will think this through.. Thank you so much for your perspective. I really appreciate it

 

[epsilon84]

Disagree with the TR 2920X recommendations for a system that is PRIMARILY used for gaming. If the OP's priority was video editing and encoding, I would recommend a TR, but the 1950X rather than the 2920X. It's cheaper, and will crush it in any core heavy workload like video encoding. 16 slightly slower cores >>> 12 slightly faster cores for MT throughput. The 9900K actually holds its own in terms of productivity vs the 2920X, see here for Premiere Pro performance, it actually outperforms the 10C / 12C SKL-X and TR platforms: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/a...2018-Core-i7-9700K-i9-9900K-Performance-1254/

However, all of the above is rather moot since the OP has clearly nominated gaming as the primary use of the machine, and I think a 2920X wouldn't be the best choice for that. In fact, it doesn't even outperform mainstream CPUs that cost 1/3 the price, and the 9900K crushes it in any CPU bound gaming scenario, for a lower price.

The main reason I disagree with the 2920X recommendations for a gaming focused PC is that it is already a bottleneck for current top end GPUs like the 2080 Ti, even at 1440P. Compared to the 9900K, the difference in CPU bound AAA games like BF:V is about 35% when it comes to the all important min fps, or 1% lows: https://www.techspot.com/review/1754-battlefield-5-cpu-multiplayer-bench

Generally, in a gaming system, the GPU is upgraded far more often than a CPU. If a 2920X is already a bottleneck TODAY, how will it fare with future GPUs? The bottlenecks are only going to get worse. You'll be forced to upgrade your $650 CPU in a year just to avoid seriously limiting any next gen GPU.

Threadripper is not, and never will be, the optimal platform for a GAMING focused build. It costs more, especially considering platform costs, and is slower than cheaper, mainstream class CPUs. Going by the OP's use case, I agree with the earlier recommendations of the 9900K. It is clearly the best CPU for gaming while still having good multi-threading performance. It offers the ideal balance in this regard.

TR does offers higher pure MT throughput, but not by enough to sway my recommendation of the 9900K due to the deficit in pure gaming performance, and the fact that the 9900K is better able to leverage current high end GPUs (and future GPUs) as well as 144Hz gaming panels (assuming the OP owns one, if not, I would highly recommend that upgrade! Once you go 144Hz for gaming you will never go back to 60Hz, the difference in fluidity is immense)

 

[DrMrLordX]

If OP is going for 144 MHz or higher at 1440p (or 144 MHz @ 4k, which will be a thing soon if it isn't now) using a 2080Ti or some future card, then the 9900k might deliver while the Threadripper will certainly not. At least not in its current iteration.

If OP is okay with 60 MHz/60 minfps then Threadripper should be fine.

 

[PotatoWithEarsOnSide]

What is the relative performance when streaming whilst gaming?

 

[BigDaveX]

Not sure I agree with the comments that Socket TR4 is going to have a lot more longevity than LGA1151 v2. There's a very good chance that by the time a chip comes out that's a worthwhile upgrade (bearing in mind that a 4-die ThreadRipper isn't really a viable option, as NUMA overheads will absolutely tank gaming performance), odds are we'll be on DDR5.

 

[ChrispyjBMW]

Disagree with the TR 2920X recommendations for a system that is PRIMARILY used for gaming. If the OP's priority was video editing and encoding, I would recommend a TR, but the 1950X rather than the 2920X. It's cheaper, and will crush it in any core heavy workload like video encoding. 16 slightly slower cores >>> 12 slightly faster cores for MT throughput. The 9900K actually holds its own in terms of productivity vs the 2920X, see here for Premiere Pro performance, it actually outperforms the 10C / 12C SKL-X and TR platforms: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/a...2018-Core-i7-9700K-i9-9900K-Performance-1254/

However, all of the above is rather moot since the OP has clearly nominated gaming as the primary use of the machine, and I think a 2920X wouldn't be the best choice for that. In fact, it doesn't even outperform mainstream CPUs that cost 1/3 the price, and the 9900K crushes it in any CPU bound gaming scenario, for a lower price.

The main reason I disagree with the 2920X recommendations for a gaming focused PC is that it is already a bottleneck for current top end GPUs like the 2080 Ti, even at 1440P. Compared to the 9900K, the difference in CPU bound AAA games like BF:V is about 35% when it comes to the all important min fps, or 1% lows: https://www.techspot.com/review/1754-battlefield-5-cpu-multiplayer-bench

Generally, in a gaming system, the GPU is upgraded far more often than a CPU. If a 2920X is already a bottleneck TODAY, how will it fare with future GPUs? The bottlenecks are only going to get worse. You'll be forced to upgrade your $650 CPU in a year just to avoid seriously limiting any next gen GPU.

Threadripper is not, and never will be, the optimal platform for a GAMING focused build. It costs more, especially considering platform costs, and is slower than cheaper, mainstream class CPUs. Going by the OP's use case, I agree with the earlier recommendations of the 9900K. It is clearly the best CPU for gaming while still having good multi-threading performance. It offers the ideal balance in this regard.

TR does offers higher pure MT throughput, but not by enough to sway my recommendation of the 9900K due to the deficit in pure gaming performance, and the fact that the 9900K is better able to leverage current high end GPUs (and future GPUs) as well as 144Hz gaming panels (assuming the OP owns one, if not, I would highly recommend that upgrade! Once you go 144Hz for gaming you will never go back to 60Hz, the difference in fluidity is immense)

Very interesting point, yes I am going to do a lot with this rig, but its main focus and primary use is gaming..

I have a 4K 55in TV I play my Xbox 1x on and I do not want to game at 60Hz.. My TV is native 120Hz with software to "upscale" to 240..

my next monitor will be over 100Hz, preferably 144Hz so no more 60Hz days.. Looks like I've got some thinking to do, Thank you for your input and perspective

 

[ChrispyjBMW]

If OP is going for 144 MHz or higher at 1440p (or 144 MHz @ 4k, which will be a thing soon if it isn't now) using a 2080Ti or some future card, then the 9900k might deliver while the Threadripper will certainly not. At least not in its current iteration.

If OP is okay with 60 MHz/60 minfps then Threadripper should be fine.

thank you, and no, no more 60MHz...

 

[ChrispyjBMW]

Not sure I agree with the comments that Socket TR4 is going to have a lot more longevity than LGA1151 v2. There's a very good chance that by the time a chip comes out that's a worthwhile upgrade (bearing in mind that a 4-die ThreadRipper isn't really a viable option, as NUMA overheads will absolutely tank gaming performance), odds are we'll be on DDR5.

do you mind elaborating a little more?

 

[ozzy702]

This right here, you wont see any difference in gameplay between the two.

Not true. If you're playing at 144hz you absolutely will see a difference in game play. I agree that overall AMD's offerings are fabulous but if high hz gaming is your goal then the 9900k is still a much better CPU. 3000 series NVIDIA cards will move the goalpost and the CPU bottlenecks will be more pronounced. In games like BFV AMDs offerings simply aren't capable of delivering high hz framerates and bottleneck 2080s and 2080tis let alone next gen cards.

I'd love to see AMD surpass Intel in gaming, but that's a ways off, and I think at best Zen2 will match the 9900k albeit at a much more attractive price point.

 

[Topweasel]

do you mind elaborating a little more?

I will fill this out. A.) The 2920 two active dies. Full CPU's. For best performance they have a couple of modes. 1 of them limits games to using a single Die so the memory requests, cache checks, and so on happen through one set of memory channels and 1 Die. That's where Numa comes from, its advanced memory technology AMD came up with back in the day. Windows sees multiple processors. If a program is numa aware it will stay within one CPU and it's memory unless more resources are needed. Those two dies show up as 2 CPU's as far as Numa is aware. B.) you can ignore him on the rest. The next two releases will be using the chiplet method. One central die handling all communication both external (memory and rest of the system) and communication between the chiplets that have all the cores). Since one chip is handling all the mem communication it won't have numa nodes or anything else like that.

What will happen is that the TR Gen 3 may support PCIe 4.0 which means if you need it you will need a X599 or whatever board. They will still work in X399 or X499 boards. There is a chance that TR Gen 4 will need a new socket for DDR5. That is probably unlikely AMD has said a lot of things that imply that current platforms are good through 2020. AMD outside being the original adopter of DDR way back when doesn't like to be first kid on the block with the newest and most expensive memory so they will be more conservitive. Not only that but there are like 2k in unused pins for Threadrippers socket. Considering the IO chip it's just as likely if they make a change with TR gen 4 to DDR5, the IO chip can have both memory controllers in it and can work in either a DDR4 board or DDR5. I doubt they drag it out farther than that, but it would give them the option of an intermediate year for upgrades.

If you plan on Gaming at 144Hz. So be it if that is the most important part. The games and I want to note that it's not that many that can maintain frame rates that high without either 1080p resolutions, turning down graphics, or just being legacy software like CSgo, even with the fastest intel CPU's and 1080ti's, that can run that high do feed off pure clock speed, AMD can't yet and maybe ever match intel there. Not sure they are that worried. In that case the 9900k is probably near king of the hill there. So if it's worth everything else I have noted, then get that.

 

[Dasa2]

The 2920x will perform about the same or slower than the 2700X in most games.
Once you overclock both CPU in a section of gameplay that is not GPU limited (although this may be rare) the 9900k will be 25-50% faster.
https://translate.googleusercontent...700242&usg=ALkJrhi_ENVgN2qA2orNlsDrsMX2w0LYeA

The only reason they would ever be within 8% of each other in a game is due to a large amount of the test being GPU limited with just some large drops in minimum FPS.
That said Ryzen has no problem maintaining 60FPS in that review so if that was your goal it's a good option

 

[Topweasel]

The 2920x will perform about the same or slower than the 2700X in most games.
Once you overclock both CPU in a section of gameplay that is not GPU limited (although this may be rare) the 9900k will be 25-50% faster.
https://translate.googleusercontent...700242&usg=ALkJrhi_ENVgN2qA2orNlsDrsMX2w0LYeA

The only reason they would ever be within 8% of each other in a game is due to a large amount of the test being GPU limited with just some large drops in minimum FPS.
That said Ryzen has no problem maintaining 60FPS in that review so if that was your goal it's a good option

I always run on the theory of most people being GPU bottlenecked. I still don't fully grasp the idea of going with less visual fidelity, no matter how much smoother 144hz gaming is to some people. Specially when dealing with LCDs. That said when I talked about the difference I particularly notated 1440p or 4k gaming. The 8% difference is at 1440p and there is no real difference at 4k. Personally I would think it silly unless the person was a pro-gamer, to invest in a 1080p monitor (since the user said he was starting from scratch). That is me projecting a bit but still spending a grand and a half plus and buying some high refresh 1080p va panel seems like such a waste.

So like I said. OP If your main worry to a super high degree is 1080p high refresh gaming. The only choice is an i7 k CPU, the 9900k being the best. Any other factors including higher resolutions, my personal opinion is that it tilts towards the 2920x specially as you add other factors like video work into the mix.

 

[beginner99]

Predominately gaming, will do video editing and encoding, regular surfing and Office task but gaming all the way.

Then the favor is clearly towards the 9900k. But it will not be any better at gaming than say a cheaper 8700k or 9700k. Only advantage will be in video encoding. Up to you if that really matters.

However what you missed on pointing out is at what display resolution you will be gaming and with what GPU. Simply said if you game at 4k, the CPU doesn't matter that much anymore because the speed limiting part of your system will be your graphics card. If you however have a full hd (=1080p) gaming panel with 144hz refresh rate, then you will absolutley want the 9900k (or in general intel, again 8700k would perform the same in gaming) over a Threadripper.

Given your info I would go with the 9900k and 9700k or 9600k would be options too. Video encoding you can just let the pc run over night if that isn't an issue for some reason. Eg. if the encoding isn't very time critical.

 

[killster1]

I always run on the theory of most people being GPU bottlenecked. I still don't fully grasp the idea of going with less visual fidelity, no matter how much smoother 144hz gaming is to some people. Specially when dealing with LCDs. That said when I talked about the difference I particularly notated 1440p or 4k gaming. The 8% difference is at 1440p and there is no real difference at 4k. Personally I would think it silly unless the person was a pro-gamer, to invest in a 1080p monitor (since the user said he was starting from scratch). That is me projecting a bit but still spending a grand and a half plus and buying some high refresh 1080p va panel seems like such a waste.

So like I said. OP If your main worry to a super high degree is 1080p high refresh gaming. The only choice is an i7 k CPU, the 9900k being the best. Any other factors including higher resolutions, my personal opinion is that it tilts towards the 2920x specially as you add other factors like video work into the mix.

4k 144hz refresh will be more available soon and it will be the reason i upgrade from 2011. i do a fair amount of encoding but i dont mind waiting a little longer for it to finish. nothing i am doing is mission critical or work related. If it finished 1 hour later i would still rather have faster gaming, i wonder what you do that is so important.


1600p 144hz is great also.

You keep stressing video work and upgrading to a 64c cpu next year. 95% of us just upgrade our graphics and keep the cpu/mainboard for a long time. Hard for me to recommend either of those chips, im hoping amd matches intels performance in games soon,

 

[Mukashisaigua]

I concur. 2920x or any TR. The older 1950x can be had for as little as $420 on sale. I paid $450, just 2 weeks ago.

So...what's Rosetta, the graphics card configuration? Or rather, if the 9900K (i.e. tipping a grand for CPUs) were in the running at all, surely dual EPYC options are on the table? Unless they are on allocation (backordered) for the forseeable quantum-computing-constrained future?

 

[epsilon84]

I always run on the theory of most people being GPU bottlenecked. I still don't fully grasp the idea of going with less visual fidelity, no matter how much smoother 144hz gaming is to some people. Specially when dealing with LCDs. That said when I talked about the difference I particularly notated 1440p or 4k gaming. The 8% difference is at 1440p and there is no real difference at 4k. Personally I would think it silly unless the person was a pro-gamer, to invest in a 1080p monitor (since the user said he was starting from scratch). That is me projecting a bit but still spending a grand and a half plus and buying some high refresh 1080p va panel seems like such a waste.

So like I said. OP If your main worry to a super high degree is 1080p high refresh gaming. The only choice is an i7 k CPU, the 9900k being the best. Any other factors including higher resolutions, my personal opinion is that it tilts towards the 2920x specially as you add other factors like video work into the mix.

If you always run every game at ultra quality at 1440P or above then sure, you'll be mostly GPU bound. The 2080 Ti is somewhat of an exception in that it is powerful enough that even the top end Ryzen chips (and TR, by extension) are holding back the GPU. This doesn't bode well for future GPU upgrades if current gen is already starting to get bottlenecked.

WR to 144Hz and visual fidelity, it is quite common for gamers to adjust in game settings to get the ideal balance between frame rate and IQ. I do this all the time because I own a mid range GPU and ultra details will generally mean sub 100fps and min fps below 60, so I run at a mix of medium/high depending on the game to achieve smoother gameplay. It's a tradeoff I'm willing to accept, as often the IQ between ultra and high isn't that great, but the difference in performance is definitely noticeable.

Even if you do own a high end GPU, it doesnt mean you are then obligated to run every game at max details. Hypothetically, if 'ultra' only nets you 100fps avg and 'high' allows 150fps, that might be a worthwhile tradeoff for 144Hz gamers, especially in competitive gaming.