Desktop Computers

Yeah, the pixel count only really serves as a really ballpark estimate. There are a lot of elements for games that are just overhead and don't really depend on the amount of pixels being pushed, and higher frame rates bring other performance issues into play like CPU/Memory speed. In my real-world experience, the average is close to something like 1080 being 2.2x and 1440 being 1.6x the frames of 4k. But this can vary wildly by game/engine. The new game Dawn of Man for example: My system can't even manage 120fps at 1080p when not at full load simply because the game shits itself at high frame rates, which is a common issue with Unity games.

That's why I try to recommend to pick 1-3 games you know you will put a lot of time into and design your system around those games. This lets you target your interests and hopefully not waste money on things you won't really need (4K if you're an FPS player for example)

This hobby blows for people who suffer from "grass is greener" issues like myself. It's impossible to be satisfied, even if you toss money at all of it. There's something to be said for just going mid-range and not thinking about the rest so you are a gamer, rather than a PC hardware enthusiast doing the car equivalent of washing your shiny new car every single day, but never going for a long drive.

Switched over to my dinky little 24" 1080p screen to help alleviate some neck pain I've been having, and the lack of screen space is really frustrating. Also, I've come to the conclusion that anti-glare coating is massively important when it comes to monitor picture quality. The TV I've been using has a really light coating and you need to be within inches to notice it. The monitor on the other hand has a medium-heavy coating which is obvious from 1-2 feet away, making everything look like it's being viewed through a dirty filter that you can see the grid of. It's a larger issue when it comes to picture quality than the 1080p.

It's not something most people think about(I didn't when I bought this and the previous monitors), so I'm mentioning it for you folks that are looking to buy one.

You aren't playing many games if you think that a 3570k isn't going to bottleneck you in many situations. Core count matters on top of ipc now, not to mention memory speed now mattering as well.

My current system was made specifically because my own 3570k was shitting itself in many situations.

I don't think you'll find anyone arguing that CPU's have slowed down significantly in what they're capable of. Moore's law hasn't been law for a long time now.

The key issue with cpu's and gaming right now is that engine makers have finally gotten off their arses and started putting CPU's to use whereas they were almost solely single core just a few years ago. IPC matters now just as how as it did then, but now we also have core count factoring into several game engines. So you get situations where a CPU is more than good enough for many games because it still has decent IPC, but it falls over itself in games like the new AC or BF games because it doesn't have the cores to handle it, or ram support to handle other aspects of it.

The reason why core count matters a lot now is that consoles rely on core count significantly as super-high IPC is not possible for them for various reasons, so engine makers had to start designing around how consoles had cores available to offload things.

~3 years ago people saying how a 2500k was all you'd need were pretty safe in their statement. As time went by and people got their new shiny GPU's they started realizing that something wasn't right, and that they weren't getting the performance they expected from the upgrade. The community started noticing how CPU's were holding things back, and the mentality has shifted significantly since.

The shift into high refresh rates has magnified the situation even more. That 3570k that only causes you to lose ~5 fps under 60fps isn't a big deal, but once you break that 60fps ceiling then you're looking at losing out on upwards of 50% or more frames. That's huge.

This isn't to say that you need the biggest baddest CPU in all the land by any means, as even those will hit bottlenecks due to IPC limitations, but core count cannot be ignored now, and even hyperthreading(and w/e AMD's version of it is) can have significant effect in some cases.

So yeah, you can get by with a 3570k in many situations if you're not too fussy about things, but you can also get by with a 5 year old GPU. Or why bother at all: Just buy a console

mkopec said:

I think you will start to see more now that AMD is back in the game and there is actual competition. In the past 10 yrs intell could do its 10%+ per generation and no one even batted an eye. But now? They actually have to step up. This is why youre seeing 6 core and 8 core products from intel, not because they want to, but because they HAD to.

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Core counts are going to eventually hit the same issue as IPC. There's only so much you can do before you run out of space or just hit literal physics barriers. There's also only so many cores you can use to push a video game without adding impossible levels of complexity to the programming side of things, and even then you're going to get stuck at IPC limitations to the core game logic/loop/whatever.

Hopefully something like quantum computing or some other such thing will end up being a giant leap forward. That's if gaming hasn't majorly switched over to cloud computing by then.

It has been great to see AMD kick Intel's ass into high gear though. I got into custom builds back in the Cyrix days and my second build was a k6-2 AMD build back when AMD was the man. Watching them slowly turn to shit over the years and letting Intel intentionally retard their own progress was frustrating. One of those clear signs that competition is the lifeblood of progress.