980 Ti overkill at 1440p? And some other 1440p queries.

I'm a couple of weeks off upgrading my dual 23" 1080p screens.

I've decided I want to go bigger and have been eyeing up a pair of the Dell 2715h 27" 1440p screens.

I had considered the Dell 2715Q 4K screens, but I'm still not convinced that 4K is good for me. I still use Win7 (and will for the foreseeable future) so there is the scaling issue, and my eyes aren't the best so tiny text is going to become a problem.

So I'm 95% positive that a pair of 1440p is what I want to do. I currently have a R9 270X which runs pretty well at 1080p. I know I'm going to need a bit of a bump in power for gaming at 1440p and decided that instead of compromising now, I'll get something that'll easily handle current titles at maximum settings and worry about lowering the quality in a couple of years.

In anticipation of the "hold off on that 980/Ti as there's new architecture on it's way" comments - how long will I be waiting, and how much better will it be?

I've shortlisted the EVGA 980 and 980Ti - good reviews, good prices and a 3 year warranty. I believe the Ti is ideal for 4K gaming but is it complete overkill to use just for 1440p gaming at 60fps?


Oh, and my other 1440p query for those with that resolution, if I plug in a device (let's say a PS4) that outputs at 1080p, will the upscaled image look horrible, or is it not too noticeable? I know running 1080p on a 4k screen works as it just upscales pixels 1:4.

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Originally Posted by virtuo

I believe the Ti is ideal for 4K gaming but is it complete overkill to use just for 1440p gaming at 60fps?

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Not at all.
One friend of mine has the new Titan and another has several Titans in SLI. Both game in 28" 1440. They look awesome.

It's the total number of pixels and the refresh rate that impact gaming performance, so just quoting the vertical resolution tv-style doesn't work. '1440p' on a single screen could be either 2560x1440 or 3440x1440 - the latter being ~25% more demanding. Looking up the screen you've linked it appears to be a 2560x1440 screen with a 60hz maximum refresh rate.

Difficult to say whether a 980ti card would benefit you. On the one hand 5120x1440 will benefit from all you can throw at it in the most demanding games, on the other hand a lot of those more demanding games are first/third person ones that won't work well with two screens and you'll be dropping down to one screen for them.

For comparison you're looking at around a 390/970 for equivalent performance to your 270X with 80% more pixels, a 980ti will give you about 50% higher framerate.

A 3840x2160 screen at optimal 2x (200%) scaling will have much bigger text. 2560x1440 at 27" is slightly compressed and the text will be a little smaller than your current screens, 32" 2560x1440 screens are available which are a more normal (if less popular) size.

I believe console games are frequently upscaled to 1920x1080 anyway from 1600x900 or even lower native resolutions so you'll only lose the sharpness of native resolution in some games. Additionally although it's possible to scale 1920x1080 exactly using 4 pixels to represent every one, I believe a lot of 3840x2160 monitors don't bother and use the same scaling they do for other resolutions so you don't get that crispness.

Excellent, thanks for the input - food for thought.

Just for clarification, I'm only talking of what I would call "normal" 1440p, 2560x1440.

The text size on my current 23" screens isn't an issue, and I think I could cope with a slight drop by going up to 27" 1440p. I've had a look at a 28" Dell 4K and it was very difficult to read text on that thing.

I think in the interest of futureproofing I may well go for the 980Ti, I expect it will hit the 60fps limit at 1440p most of the time and I don't FPS game competitively enough to warrant going over 60fps.

FYI: I have a 1440p Dell.

As resolutions increase upscaling is somewhat less of an issue but still not ideal.

I'm using a GTX970 to power a single 1440p monitor and it's doing a superb job (although I don't play the most taxing games - Supreme Commander / Elite Dangerous mainly).

Doubt you'll see anything new from nVidia till March / April but not 100% on this.

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Originally Posted by virtuo

The text size on my current 23" screens isn't an issue, and I think I could cope with a slight drop by going up to 27" 1440p. I've had a look at a 28" Dell 4K and it was very difficult to read text on that thing

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It likely had the scaling set to the wrong value then. At 2x scaling it should have the same sizing as a 1920x1080 screen with the same diagonal so easily readable.

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Originally Posted by virtuo

I think in the interest of futureproofing I may well go for the 980Ti, I expect it will hit the 60fps limit at 1440p most of the time and I don't FPS game competitively enough to warrant going over 60fps.

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I believe it's racing games and others with lots of motion that benefit most from higher frame rates.

Depends at what framerate you want to run a game at, sure you'd need a G-Sync monitor to be 100% happy but i think 1440p is still a fantastic experience

a 980ti will be fine for 60fps gaming in 1440p, but not more. The reason people would wnat more is usually that they are running a 120-144hz monitor, so they want to see framerates in the high double digits at least

i would go for the 980ti personally for 1440, will help at that res.
i game at 1440 with a 980 and run most games fine but some of the newer ones can have issues at full spec (witcher 3) but i have g-sync with my monitor that helps frame rates for me

i would got for a 980ti if i wasnt already on a 980

A 980ti video card (I've the the EVGA 980ti SC) will be able to keep up higher frame rates at 1440. If the resolution is 2560 x 1440 or 3440 x 1440 the 980ti card is the much better choice.

Cheers everyone, it turned out my desk isn't going to fit 2x 27" screens side-by side so went for a pair of Dell U2515H 25" 1440p displays instead, which should JUST fit comfortably.

Also purchased an EVGA 980Ti FTW to run them. Exciting upgrade and the 270X will hopefully make a half decent steam/stream box

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Originally Posted by virtuo

I had considered the Dell 2715Q 4K screens, but I'm still not convinced that 4K is good for me. I still use Win7 (and will for the foreseeable future) so there is the scaling issue, and my eyes aren't the best so tiny text is going to become a problem.

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Imo you shouldn't get 4k just yet - the displays are pretty expensive and the affordable GPU's just not powerful enough. I personally am gonna wait a couple of years before upgrading from 1440p.

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Originally Posted by virtuo

I've shortlisted the EVGA 980 and 980Ti - good reviews, good prices and a 3 year warranty. I believe the Ti is ideal for 4K gaming but is it complete overkill to use just for 1440p gaming at 60fps?

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Well, it depends. The 980Ti is very expensive, but compared to what you will be getting in a couple of years at the same price, not very impressive at all. You can probably get twice the power in a couple year's time - power that you're gonna need to run games at the ridiculous 4k resolution!


TL;DR: Don't go 4k yet as it's gonna be too expensive.

The 980Ti is definitely not an overkill at 1440P. This gpu should last you at least 3 gens before an upgrade is needed to play triple A titles....

The 980 Ti is barely good enough for 4K. In fact, according to a multi-GPU benchmark done by Digital Foundry, not even the Titan X is good enough for 4K. I mean, sure, if you lower your framerate expectations, you don't need a particularly good card for 4K. But if I expect 60FPS and decent graphics settings, I will be disappointed with today's single-card choices.

1440p is really a perfect fit for the 980 Ti, not overkill.

980ti is fine for 1440p and not overkill at all.

Nope, I have a 1080p 144hz screen, it would not even be overkill for that.