Upgrading(?) from Asus 24" LED VG248QE to 4k/UHD monitor. Go/nogo?

Hello.

I'm considering selling my Asus 24" LED VG248QE and getting a UHD monitor instead(3840 x 2160), as prices have become more reasonable lately. I have been browsing countless forums (including this one) to try and figure out if such an upgrade would have any point to it, but most posts/discussions are a bit old and have contradicting info. So far I've gathered:

Content: There is not a lot to be found (time lapses does not count ). No UHD content being sold on disk yet. There are few torrents (not even a lot of porn torrents), and those have questionable quality and are "re-soured" old movies. Youtube has some videos.

Gaming: I have a 780 with a measly 3 GB memory, would I even be able to utilize the extra resolution in games? The monitor I have now is 144Hz and 3D ready, but I've never used the 3D function (waiting for the Oculus) and I think 60 FPS could be enough for gaming. I would have to turn down on the quality settings in games, but would the extra pixels make up for that?

OS/software: Scaling issues. Small fonts and small icons which are badly scaled up to size, leaving them blurry. Is this a thing of the past or is it still a problem?

The monitors I have been considering are the AOC U2868PQU and the Samsung U28D590D. Both are 28" and 1ms.

Did I forget something? Do you have experience with this? I would love to hear your opinion.

Image quality upgrade might be worth it, but gaming will take a big hit with one 780.
You're not utilizing your current monitor to its full potential either. (more geared for high fps 144hz gaming)
Do you play a lot of fast paced fps games?
Your system is more than up to the task, overall, btw.

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Image quality upgrade might be worth it, but gaming will take a big hit with one 780.
You're not utilizing your current monitor to its full potential either. (more geared for high fps 144hz gaming)
Do you play a lot of fast paced fps games?
Your system is more than up to the task, overall, btw.

I mostly play Battlefield 4 and Far Cry 4, and I try to set the quality settings as high as possible without dipping under 60 FPS (Feels like enough for shooters). So no, I don't utilize my screen to its full potential, and the 3D capabilities are wasted since I'm not even planning on getting a nvidia glasses kit.

Since the resolution is higher, would not the need for anti aliasing to smooth edges be gone/less? So that the biggest worry is the cards memory coming short when trying to render large textures?

Update:

Found a youtube clip from some 4k gameplay on a stock Zotac Geforce 780 Amp!. Link to the clip:


His settings are: Everything on ultra exept AA post, and it seems that his FPS never dips below 33-35. I'm guessing that 50+ FPS should be possible without sacrificing to much of the quality.

However, if the card runs out of memory then will there be a way of noticing? Will the image just automatically show a poorer quality?

No, if you get short on memory you'll have performance issues.
Image quality is linked to the settings you choose.

I think it might be worth a shot in your case, you can always get more gpu horsepower if need be in the future, and meanwhile play with slightly reduced settings.

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No, if you get short on memory you'll have performance issues.
Image quality is linked to the settings you choose.

I think it might be worth a shot in your case, you can always get more gpu horsepower if need be in the future, and meanwhile play with slightly reduced settings.

Alright. And if all fails and my GPU kneels then I guess I can always turn down the resolution and play different resolutions on the 4k monitor. It doesn't matter so long as the ratio is 16:9, right?

Try DSR to 4K on your VG24QE monitor first to find out the exact performance you can get out of a 780 in a 4K resolution. Then decide if to upgrade.

sweenytodd said:

Try DSR to 4K on your VG24QE monitor first to find out the exact performance you can get out of a 780 in a 4K resolution. Then decide if to upgrade.

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Not a bad idea. I'll try battlefield 4 with the resolution scale set to 200%, which will render in UHD and then downsample. Should have the same effect.

When everything is on ultra and AA is off i get about 55 FPS when things are calm, but around 30-35 when stuff is exploding. I turned down "Effects" quality to medium and that helped, now explosions only causes dips to 44 FPS. I think I'll have to dial things down a bit more if 4k is going to be an option, but I'm not sure if the quality sacrifice is worth it...

Interesting, well, you do have a single 780, it's not all that bad for that level of gpu horsepower.
I'd go for it, if cost isn't an issue.

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Interesting, well, you do have a single 780, it's not all that bad for that level of gpu horsepower.
I'd go for it, if cost isn't an issue.

We're not there yet in single card performance for 4k. You will have to turn settings down, the biggest culprits will be the shaders. You will need two 780s, or possible two 980s, or also possibly, two 290xs to make max settings at 4k work. But I'm scared of SLI and Crossfire stutter problems, so I'd just turn the settings down.

ivanlabrie said:

Interesting, well, you do have a single 780, it's not all that bad for that level of gpu horsepower.
I'd go for it, if cost isn't an issue.

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Well, cost isn't the thing stopping me. So long as I can dial down the resolution and still use the screen as a "1080p" screen then there is no worry, but the problem with content remains..

Arbiter Odie said:

We're not there yet in single card performance for 4k. You will have to turn settings down, the biggest culprits will be the shaders. You will need two 780s, or possible two 980s, or also possibly, two 290xs to make max settings at 4k work. But I'm scared of SLI and Crossfire stutter problems, so I'd just turn the settings down.

Click to expand...

I'm also afraid of SLI, but I'm not sure how far I can dial down the settings before I end up with a image that is worse looking than I had on my 1080p screen, if you know what I mean. I think that once the Pascal architecture is out then we will see affordable cards for 4k.

I know piracy is a big no no here, but for the sake of finding out if there is content out there at all, do you know if there are trackers out there for 4k?

I wouldn't get one till I had at least a 970GTX(Probably a 980GTX) or better. I would go for this Dell 2715Q 4K IPS 60HZ...
Here's a pretty good review of it on Tested by Norm,

I figure I'll rather wait.

I need more horsepower, reasonably priced 75 Hz + refresh rate 4k display and some content. So maybe in early 2016 I hope

Yeha, you don't have the horsepower/vram to do 4K. You can go no AA and get away with some games, but FPS will be around 30-50 average (and less) depending on the title.

As far as reso scale and your current GPU, I wouldn't go over 120-130% or you will slam into a vram cap.