With new monitor, wondering why upgrade!

[Trypt]

So, thanks for all the info about Ryzen, I want it bad.

But I gotta say, now that I have a 1440p 144hz monitor, I was worried that I'll have to upgrade right away, but man my fx8150 and RX580 are doing a great job.

I just played Tomb Raider GOTY and with everything set to absolute max with AA, AF, everything, at 1440p, at 144Hz, with freesync, I was getting 40fps min, with avg in the high 40s, with a very very occasional below 40 drop.

But literally all I had to do is change a few settings, like go from 8x to 4x AA, and a couple from ultra to high, and now I'm in the high 60s with a min drop to low 40s, gameplay is amazing.

So, really, gaming is not a reason to upgrade, if my system can handle a 3d game like that at huge settings that take advantage of my new monitor refresh rates and res, the reason to upgrade is streaming and video editing (fx8150 is slow as molasses for converting hevc).

That being said, I know there are people here that think anything under 150fps is no good, I don't know, do you think a full upgrade of mobo/cpu/ram to the 2700x will do something for my FPS? Is my cpu the bottleneck here, cuz I don't want to upgrade the RX580 yet.

 

[trents]

Why take the practical approach when you can spend more money (said tongue n' cheek)?

 

[EarthDog]

Well.. 1440p isn't really a CPU bound resolution... so it makes sense its doing "OK". That said, I'm sure there is still some meat left on the bone as those CPUs are old and were SLOW. And when you have a 144hz monitor, the goal is to get every FPS you can really.

It seems pointless to me to run 60 FPS on a fancy 144 Hz monitor. I hate to say it, but I don't remotely call that 'taking advantage' of your monitor. If you are good at 60 FPS, you over paid for your 144 Hz monitor and should have went with 60 or 75... etc. Why buy the Ferrari if its only limited to driving in school zones.

The RX580 is mostly the bottleneck. You will likely gain a few % when upgrading the CPU to Ryzaen or Intel. Not much though.

 

[EarthDog]

ED, where do you get that he's playing at 60 hz?

He's getting 60 FPS average and isn't getting the full complement of FPS for the refresh rate.

I also never said 60 Hz, but 60 FPS in that entire post...

 

[trents]

Yes, my mistake. I caught it right away and deleted the post but I guess not soon enough.

 

[Trypt]

Just an update,I made a mistake, it's even better now. I played Skyrim last night after TR and was getting 60fps, but then I remembered something. I am still mining, for some reason, and always have my GPU set on compute. I just realized today, and switched it to Graphics.

So, I've been playing Tomb Raider GOTY today at ULTIMATE settings, the highest possible, and got average frame rate of 85fps, with many times in the 90s, and the only time it dipped below 50fps is during cut scenes, talking scenes with Lara and whoever else, but never under 50fps while playing, and seldom below 70fps.

I have freesync2 extended on and I've never experienced such smooth gameplay, it's absolutely perfect, beautiful, smooth and fun. There are times when the fps go above 100fps but really I can't tell the difference between that and 70, and the refresh rate of the monitor is making sure there is no tearing, no nothing.

I was used to in the past playing and no matter how good a game looked, there would be a tear here and there, or a double picture, or flicker, but now no more.

Naturally I still want to upgrade but I think it's not so important, not for gaming, my cpu/gpu combo is doing the trick.

I loaded up Skyrim right before I got here and on high settings it's also way higher than it was yesterday when the gpu was set on compute!

Oh and Earthdog, my whole intention was to get the 32" Omen 1440p 75hz monitor, I had no intention of 144Hz, but then this baby went on sale and it had absolutely everything I wanted plus the added 144hz, for the same price as the Omen, and it's an amazing monitor with great reviews. And running windows at 144hz is already better, I actually notice on my eyes and how the mouse moves.

And as you can see, I am getting over 75fps often, throughout the game it's average 85fps, so any lower monitor would not be able to handle it.

 

[wingman99]

Glad to see your happy with your monitor.

 

[Trypt]

Incredibly happy. I do wish I had a colorimeter (or whatever it's called) to try to calibrate it to perfection, but it looks great and performs amazingly.

Since getting the vid card overclocked and freesync2 going, with my current setup (sig), on very high settings I get 90fps average which I did not expect at all. This is in Tomb Raider GOTY, Skyrim and The Witcher 3, all of which look and play amazing.

 

[wingman99]

It is amazing with high FPS how folks can see much better with fast mouse movement on a 144Hz monitor.

 

[trents]

It is amazing with high FPS how folks can see much better with fast mouse movement on a 144Hz monitor.

wingman, I'm not following your meaning here. What do you mean by "see much better"? Are you talking about the mouse cursor being more visible or being easier to see the tracking of the mouse pointer? Or something else?

 

[EarthDog]

Just whatever is on screen in a game, like quick movements and such. The scene isn't blurry or choppy when doing fast scene movements. It is the whole point of how these things work and look incredible when paired with a frame syncing tech (FS/GSync).

 

[wingman99]

wingman, I'm not following your meaning here. What do you mean by "see much better"? Are you talking about the mouse cursor being more visible or being easier to see the tracking of the mouse pointer? Or something else?

When I go from 60 FPS to 144 FPS the scene isn't blurry when I move the mouse quickly at 144 FPS.

 

[trents]

Gotcha!

 

[Trypt]

Hey, a bit of an update here..

So yes, I think I jumped the gun a bit in patting my old CPU on the back. Indeed it seems it's time.. Yes, it handled TR:GOTY and Skyrim fine, but I've been playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider now for a few days, and these are my findings:

I set it to 1440p and high settings with 4xAA, and it's totally good, playable, and about 50fps average, while almost never reaching 55fps, and almost never dropping below 40fps (except during cutscenes)

So I thought, I gotta get a bit better. Tried lowering the quality to normal, no difference. Even tried to go to 1080p, no difference, in fact it seemed as if the avg. FPS went down to like 45fps if that makes any sense.

I am not sure, but doesn't that suggest that the CPU is the bottleneck? It rarely shows more than 50% on all cores, it does hit 80% on a few occasions, but still it seems as if the video card is not the problem here as changing quality or even resolution makes no difference. At the highest settings I hit the same fps as at much lower res and settings.

Now, surely the game is playable, I'm enjoying it very much, it's very smooth and looks great, but I can't help but wonder what this would mean in a more intensive first person shooter where quick movement is needed. And yes, SotTR does skip here an there, especially between scenes, during playback maybe one frame per 10 minutes, nothing big but still noticeable.

 

[wingman99]

First person shooters benefit when moving the mouse fast with 60+ FPS.