GPU required for 2x32 inch 4k monitors?

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yd

yd

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  • #1
    Reality time check for me.

    I can likely get a pair of 32 inch Asus oled 4k 3840x2160 monitors to replace my pair of 9 year old 27 inch 2560x1440 Eizos. Surely that is an upgrade.

    However, I am rocking a Nvidia GeForce gtx 1080. Said card, no drama for the current setup with the only demanding thing (relatively) being playing PUBG and I don't think that is even remotely stressful for this card.

    So, I buy a pair of these new oleds and have 2.25x the number of pixels to drive. My hunch is for static webpage browsing this is no drama across 2 new panels. I am not sure what happens with PUBG but I don't think it even lets you play at 4k. As such, if maxes me out at my current setting which 'should' be no drama but even if it lets me go 4k is that going to be a RTX1080 total killer?

    If that card just won't have the ooompf, what is the minimum (or minimum+) for say 500-1000 bucks that would make this idea work?
     
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  • #4
    From here:

    Recommended requirements are to run PUBG at 144fps in most situations. Recommended competitive requirements for PUBG is as follows:
    Click to expand...
    OS: Windows 10 CPU: i9-9900K 3.6GHz, 32GB / AMD Ryzen 7 3800X Memory: 32 GB RAM GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Super / AMD Radeon RX 5700
    Click to expand...
    So it doesn't look super demanding, but equally, it doesn't state the resolution either 🤦🏻‍♂️ so going for something reasonably punchy not a bad idea. YouTube is full of benchmarking videos for popular games so that's worth a look to get a feel for home much GPU you need / might want!
     
    DaveB

    DaveB

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  • #6
    yd said:
    One of the major selling points for me of these oleds would be to get rid of 60hz for gameplay - so hopefully instead of shooting where you WERE I am shooting where you ARE
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    Most current OLED TVs have game modes of 120 Hz or 144 Hz with VRR and ALLM:

    LG C3 - 120 Hz
    LG G4 - 144 Hz
    Samsung S89C/S90C - 144 Hz
    Samsung S95D - 144 Hz
    Sony A95L - 120 Hz
    Sony A90K - 120 Hz
     
    yd

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  • #8
    whoisit said:
    For desktop the 1080 is fine. Gaming in 4k, as much GPU as you can afford.

    A used 3090, or a 4080. 4090 if you can swing it.
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    Can I 'swing' a 4090, sure. However, I just don't see the justification for my use case. A 4080 looks like about 1000 bucks which is already also kinda silly for what I do but if that makes twin 4x monitors work well, I can eat that and not feel like I threw an extra 1000 away for something I likely won't use.
     
    yd

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  • #11
    Just for reference, just sitting watching Netflix and surfing the net on a couple panels, this is the usage on the 1080

    u2e7FRU.png


    So if I 2x the pixels going to bigger panels with more pixels, day to day just surfing the net I don't think I would be killing things even as is but could be wrong. The only thing that would add usage would be one panel gaming.
     
    malor

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  • #12
    yd said:
    One of the major selling points for me of these oleds would be to get rid of 60hz for gameplay
    Click to expand...
    So you're roughly doubling the number of pixels you're trying to drive, and then at least doubling the framerate at which you drive them. That means you're going to need a card roughly four times as powerful to maintain the same performance, if you want to run at full resolution.

    For desktop use, meh, you're fine. A 1080 will comfortably drive two desktop screens and should be fine for Netflix et al. But 4K high refresh gaming will take all the GPU horsepower you can get. On the newer NVidia cards (3000-series and newer) you can use DLSS upscaling to reduce GPU needs substantially, but I don't think that works on the 1080. In effect, you'd probably end up running at 1440p/high refresh on one monitor, and then the GPU would scale that up to 4K. That'll probably need at least a 3060ti. My 3070 works pretty well this way, although I'd definitely prefer more horsepower. (I was at 1440p when I bought the card.)

    If you want to run actual native 4K high refresh, you'd probably want a 4080. If you want to run both screens at once, you'd want a 4090. But note that both the 4080 and 4090 are hot cards that suck down a ton of power, so you'll need good case cooling and possibly a new power supply to drive them.
     
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  • #14
    Yea, the more I read and watch reviews and such, I don't think any card is going to be playing PUBG (or some AAA title of choosing) at 4k/240hz. I gather something will have to 'give' - I would wager playing in a simulated 27 inch 'frame' to lop off 25% or so of the pixels. I am not sure I would want to actually play PUBG (or shooters generally) on a full sized 32 without them being literally another 8 inches back on my desk. Dunno, never had anything other than 27s for the past, uh, 17 years?

    If you are playing a demanding game, can you automagically have a card turn off the 2nd monitor and reduce its load somewhat (granted that would be a static panel with nothing going on but pixels are pixels.

    The delta between a 4080 MSI rtx4080 expert and the cheapest rtx4090 is about 80% of the price of a monitor (1000 usd more basically) :oops:
     
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  • #16
    continuum said:
    Many or most will default to single monitor.
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    Current one definitely doesn't - if I am camping in a game on a large map, I can pop 'out' to check an email or watch a minute of a Youtube video on the other panel. Not saying some don't do that, but this one doesn't or isn't set up that way. Not sure it would be a massive performance hit regardless if the other panel was just idling on a static 'whatever' you had on there (spreadsheet/picture/screenshot)
     
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    tadams

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  • #17
    yd said:
    Current one definitely doesn't - if I am camping in a game on a large map, I can pop 'out' to check an email or watch a minute of a Youtube video on the other panel. Not saying some don't do that, but this one doesn't or isn't set up that way. Not sure it would be a massive performance hit regardless if the other panel was just idling on a static 'whatever' you had on there (spreadsheet/picture/screenshot)
    Click to expand...
    It would not be a massive performance hit. When I added a second monitor to my setup, it had no measurable effect on my gaming frame rate
     
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  • #19
    I am hearing about something called VRR being an issue on oleds (some models, depends on lots of things but dark scenes are biggest contributors and it seems to have something to do with refresh rate). If you have a 240hz panel but 'only' a 1080, I would completely expect slow frame rates in a fps type game. No biggie, throw more gpu horsepower at it. But it sounds like a 240hz panel at 4k is a lot even for 4090 cards if you play a fps in 4k. Would that result in more vrr possible given the higher capability of the monitor refresh rate on pretty much any card?

    Only reason is, I can sorta see my way to something like a 4080 being justifiable (barely, as mentioned, I only really play PUBG as my fps of choice and have even been on a break from that). As such though, would that fast of a panel just force you to potentially have this vrr issue? I had never even heard of it before with oled to be honest.

    Did a bit more thinking - the other fun bit; if I do go to a 4080 that uses up to 320watts of power vs my 1080 only being at 180. No problem for my 1200 watt power supply but I only have a APC 750xl smart ups which is 600 watts I believe. Playing fps, I sit at 3 to 4 bars out of 5 so in theory am at maybe 360-480 tops. That doesn't leave a ton of headroom so in theory, I need two new panels, a new video card AND a new ups!
     
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    BigLan

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  • #21
    yd said:
    Current one definitely doesn't - if I am camping in a game on a large map, I can pop 'out' to check an email or watch a minute of a Youtube video on the other panel. Not saying some don't do that, but this one doesn't or isn't set up that way. Not sure it would be a massive performance hit regardless if the other panel was just idling on a static 'whatever' you had on there (spreadsheet/picture/screenshot)
    Click to expand...
    I think it depends on the game display mode. "Borderless Windowed" seems to be the most common option these days, which will happily run a second screen to show chrome or whatever else you want. If a game is set to Fullscreen (especially older titles) it's more likely to disable the second display.
     
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  • #22
    BigLan said:
    I think it depends on the game display mode. "Borderless Windowed" seems to be the most common option these days, which will happily run a second screen to show chrome or whatever else you want. If a game is set to Fullscreen (especially older titles) it's more likely to disable the second display.
    Click to expand...

    On Windows 11 with a 4070 Super driving 2 27 inch LG displays here. I game with Fullscreen enabled in games. My second display is active, and will happily show HWMonitor, a browser, etc. Borderless Window will typically let you alt tab, or move a mouse between windows/monitors easier.
     
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  • #23
    whoisit said:
    On Windows 11 with a 4070 Super driving 2 27 inch LG displays here. I game with Fullscreen enabled in games. My second display is active, and will happily show HWMonitor, a browser, etc. Borderless Window will typically let you alt tab, or move a mouse between windows/monitors easier.
    Click to expand...
    Well my current 1080 is an MSI Aero and it has around 17-19000 hours on it so it certainly doesn't owe me any money at this juncture. As such, just noodling I was thinking another MSI and they do have a 4080 expert that doesn't have the crazy 3 fans all across the front and is apparently relatively quiet. Kinda nice to have quiet because my case is totally open and is more a display case than a case case (Thermalake p3) - I like to see stuff.
     
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    hunterjwizzard

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  • #25
    I ran a 4k, 2 1440s, and a 1080 monitor off of a geforce 1070 for workstation purposes with zero problems. The only reason I bothered to upgrade was because so many video applications use GPU rendering now.

    I game in 4k on a dual 1070 SLI setup(where the SLI portion obviously is not used half the time) and have zero issues. 1070 or 1080 can drive multiple 4k displays without issue.
     
    yd

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  • #26
    hunterjwizzard said:
    I ran a 4k, 2 1440s, and a 1080 monitor off of a geforce 1070 for workstation purposes with zero problems. The only reason I bothered to upgrade was because so many video applications use GPU rendering now.

    I game in 4k on a dual 1070 SLI setup(where the SLI portion obviously is not used half the time) and have zero issues. 1070 or 1080 can drive multiple 4k displays without issue.
    Click to expand...
    Interesting. I don't know much about sli but I don't think I am readily in a position to run dual anything - my thought is a tolerable pain level of upgrade for a video card knowing I rarely need the full power but ideally thinking to the future a bit as well (as mentioned, the current one has 19000 hours on it give or take which is a good run for a now very old card.
     
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