Next upgrade: GPU or CPU (3x WQHD)

Hi all,

I simply would like to have some feedback from those who are using 3 WQHD displays like I do to see if it is my GPU or CPU which is the „weakest“ part of my system (my system see below).

I´m using 3 27” Asus displays with a total resolution of 7680 x 1440. Additionally I´m using 2 7” displays for the MFCDs which adds 1280 x 720 to the resolution giving a total of 8960 x 1440 (also see attached picture). Everything was fine with 2.2 and 1.5. I never saw the necessity of using deferred shading as it was beatiful enough for me. But now Caucasus isn´t, let´s say, as beautiful without DS anymore. With the same settings I dropped from 55-60 FPS to 30-35 FPS. Damned. I checked all the optimization guides and with MSAA off (had 2x before) I can get 40-45. This is OK for me even though I cannot use my screenshots anymore because of unsmoothed edges. Anyway.

When measuring the load of my system with MSI Afterburner I saw the CPU loaded at appr. 20%. OK, if 2 of the 8 cores are fully loaded I only can await 25%. Is it that simple to calculate? My GPU shows 100% all of the time. Is this an indication of it being the bottleneck? I have no clue about my VRAM and RAM usage but when I remember right tis was not at its limits with a distance. I´m always checking FPS with the same mission in Caucasus (free flight, start in the air). By the way, my 2 small displays do not affect the FPS.

Textures HIGH

Terrain Textures HIGH

Civ. Traffic OFF

Water MEDIUM

Visib. Range HIGH

Heat Blur LOW

Shadows MEDIUM

Resolution 8960 x 1440

Aspect Ratio 6.2222222

Monitors MY CONFIG

Res. of Cockpit Displays 512

MSAA OFF

Depth of Field OFF

Lens Effects FLARE

HDR OFF

Deferred Shading ON

Clutter/Grass 1000

Trees Visibility 100%

Preload Radius 100

Chimney Smoke Density 4

Gamma 1.8

Anisotropic Filtering 4x

Terrain Object Shadows OFF

Global Cockpit Illumination OFF

Disable Aero Interface OFF

Vsync OFF

Full Screen OFF

Scale GUI OFF

When I would like to stay at my displays (actually VR is nothing for me because of me wearing glasses and easily getting a motion sickness) what do I need to invest into? New GPU or new CPU? I´m not an overclocker and respectively not so much experienced on this. When I overclock my CPU I should see a benefit as long as my GPU is NOT the bottleneck, correct?

Lots of guesses and thoughts. Maybe there are some mates out there which can share their experiences.

Thanks in advance,

Xoxen

Bump :music_whistling:

I used to run with three screens at 3840 x 1024 and my experience is that at high resolutions, the GPU becomes the limiting factor .. so, in my opinion you would see a bigger improvement by changing your GPU.

Unfortunately, you already have a quite powerful GPU, so even if you upgrade to say a 1080TI, the % increase isnt that big, about 25% .. so your resulting fps would be 50-57 fps rather than 40-45

Hi Rudel,

thanks for the answer. This was my guess as well. I believe I wait for new Nvidia cards before spending 900 Euros for a TI. Let's see what will come up.

I'm close to do a CPU overclocking trial to see if there is any benefit or if above guessing is totally correct.

Xoxen

I saw the CPU loaded at appr. 20%. OK, if 2 of the 8 cores are fully loaded I only can await 25%. Is it that simple to calculate?

Yes, but disable the hyper threading.

Whatever the resolution, it's the same scene (1 screen in the game setting), same number of objects. CPU load is almost the same. But the GPU manages more pixels.

With a resolution that high, the GPU is certainly the right thing to upgrade. Waiting until new graphics cards are released would also be smart.

The 4790K is still very capable, especially if overclocked. You should search for an overclocking guide specific to your motherboard. It's really quite easy to learn if you find good instructions. However, you might not see a large CPU effect, even with a 1080 Ti.

3 x 4k ?? Oh man, there is no card yet to be announced to drive that setup.

Sounds like "I have a 350mph car, can I buy some tyres that hold this ?"...No, not yet.

I mean, wow...you have to do a few compromises, spend a lot of money and still wont get to where you wanna be. Maybe the wrong strategy or time, pick any of those two imho.

The 2080Ti which is said to be 70-80% faster than current Ti may be your card. That could actually work with +60fps constant.

Up to 2.5 everthing was great for me. Deferred shading with MSAA is my new challenge. I used to play with HDR which is still OK at NTTR but not good anymore in Caucasus because of the trees.

Today I got the proof that its not the CPU. Overclocking it to 4.6 GHz brought no difference. So I only can hope that ED does a good job on performance improvements and I will also start to put some money aside for the new 20xx series from Nvidia. And I pray the miners will stop converting electrical power into virtual money and buy everything they get....

Thanks for your input, I'm a little smarter now.

Xoxen