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Building a Gaming PC

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In order of priority I'd go 144hz > 1440p > Gsync.

With a 7700k and 1080 I'd definitely spring for a 1440p 144hz monitor if it's in the budget. You should be able to push most games on high setting well above 60fps. Frankly, after having a Gsync monitor for a few years now, the technology is a bit overrated. While there is some noticeable smoothing at those middling FPS ranges, I wouldn't describe it as a must have feature, especially for the price premium. And there are some instances where I have to disable it to avoid shit like microstutter (hello PUBG). It does not work well in windowed mode with multi-monitor setups.

Since moving to 144hz monitors there's no way I'd be able to go back to a 60hz for gaming. The difference is that massive, especially if you're playing fast paced games like FPS.

Thanks! That's about the priority list I've had in mind too. I've debated just picking up a cheap 1080p 144hz monitor for the time being, but I figured I'd watch some sales too.

Is 1440p really THAT much nicer looking?
 
Thanks! That's about the priority list I've had in mind too. I've debated just picking up a cheap 1080p 144hz monitor for the time being, but I figured I'd watch some sales too.

Is 1440p really THAT much nicer looking?

Yes it is...

But FWIW, I wouldn't even use a non-ultrawide monitor anymore anyway. 3840x1440, to me, is the minimum resolution I would want to play anything at having gotten used to it.
 
Gamers nightmare: Gaming rig either lost the power supply or motherboard. Has partial power. Motherboard lights up and fans work. Vid card warms up, but no signal to monitor. Tried 3 monitors, 2 vid cards, two cables to the monitor. Motherboard comes up with 3 error codes, 55,19, 4c. Hoping its just my power supply and not the motherboard. This blows.......


Did you check your RAM ? Take your sticks out, use the first slot and only use one stick at a time I've had something similar happen before and it was RAM related.

You could also goto a place like a microcenter and see if they will test the PSU for you. If it is an issue with MoBo the PC won't boot 99% of the time
 
Gamers nightmare: Gaming rig either lost the power supply or motherboard. Has partial power. Motherboard lights up and fans work. Vid card warms up, but no signal to monitor. Tried 3 monitors, 2 vid cards, two cables to the monitor. Motherboard comes up with 3 error codes, 55,19, 4c. Hoping its just my power supply and not the motherboard. This blows.......
What kind of power supply do you have? A lot of people make the mistake of cheaping out on power supplies. Also, people make the mistake of getting an overkill power supply.
 
In order of priority I'd go 144hz > 1440p > Gsync.

With a 7700k and 1080 I'd definitely spring for a 1440p 144hz monitor if it's in the budget. You should be able to push most games on high setting well above 60fps. Frankly, after having a Gsync monitor for a few years now, the technology is a bit overrated. While there is some noticeable smoothing at those middling FPS ranges, I wouldn't describe it as a must have feature, especially for the price premium. And there are some instances where I have to disable it to avoid shit like microstutter (hello PUBG). It does not work well in windowed mode with multi-monitor setups.

Since moving to 144hz monitors there's no way I'd be able to go back to a 60hz for gaming. The difference is that massive, especially if you're playing fast paced games like FPS.
If you're a gamer id put gsync over 1440 p. It's that big of a deal to be able to run custom frame-rates with no tearing or additional input lag.
 
Bumping this since Memorial Day Sales are already going on.

I'm debating upgrading my monitor set up. I currently just run 2 cheapo 1080p 60hz monitors. I finally get to move into the house I bought though, so I bought a desk that will be big enough to fit a third.

I've read great things about 1440P and Gsync. I wondering if my system would be able to take on a 1440p 144hz monitor that has gsync to smooth things out when they're below 144hz. Here are my specs:

i7-7700k (not overclocked yet)
GTX 1080

@gourimoko

Yeah man, the 1080 will be fine...

I'm running the Asus ROG PG348Q .. Best monitor experience I've ever had. You can tell the difference between 144hz and 100hz though, but for me, I like running my games on higher settings at 3440x1440, so 144 FPS isn't really going to be a reality on a 1080 or even a 1080 Ti; and SLI with these generations of cards just doesn't make sense unfortunately..

So my preference would be to focus on getting the best panel with the best display .. then start thinking about how fast a refresh you can actually sustain with G-Sync turned on; i.e., how many FPS can your rig actually produce at the native resolution of your monitor and the desired quality settings?

So buying a 144Hz ultra-wide monitor while knowing you're going to be playing The Witcher 3 on Ultra fully maxed out settings doesn't make a whole lot of sense since you'll never get anywhere near 144 FPS. But if you're playing competitively, and I mean .. actually competitively .. then 144Hz starts to become a must have feature that you build around, rather than just a really great refresh rate you might see every now and then
 
Gamers nightmare: Gaming rig either lost the power supply or motherboard. Has partial power. Motherboard lights up and fans work. Vid card warms up, but no signal to monitor. Tried 3 monitors, 2 vid cards, two cables to the monitor. Motherboard comes up with 3 error codes, 55,19, 4c. Hoping its just my power supply and not the motherboard. This blows.......

Are you still having this problem? Just tag me and I can walk you through it. Those error codes will tell you exactly whats wrong. What motherboard do you have?
 
Are you still having this problem? Just tag me and I can walk you through it. Those error codes will tell you exactly whats wrong. What motherboard do you have?

Its fixed. Thanks for the offer. The power supply died and fried the motherboard.
 
Its fixed. Thanks for the offer. The power supply died and fried the motherboard.
That happened to me once. Yeah, a bad power supply can wreak havoc because a lot of people will want to test it out on other boards, but it's like spreading plague to other systems.
 
Yes it is...

But FWIW, I wouldn't even use a non-ultrawide monitor anymore anyway. 3840x1440, to me, is the minimum resolution I would want to play anything at having gotten used to it.
I just got an ultrawide a few weeks ago, and it's great. I would definitely have a hard time ever going back.
 
The problem with ultra wide is it still isn't universally adopted by developers. Blizzard refuses to support it correctly with overwatch. I play enough of that game alone for me to stay away.
 
The problem with ultra wide is it still isn't universally adopted by developers. Blizzard refuses to support it correctly with overwatch. I play enough of that game alone for me to stay away.

I don't have a single game that breaks in ultra-wide, but for those that don't support rendering at that resolution you can just render in 16:9.

On a 34" monitor you lose very very little by having those black bars on either end, and since the monitor is so wide in your field of view, it's not as noticeable.

Recently played Alan Wake, a game that's what, 10 years old, and it took me about 2 minutes to get ultra-wide working. Hell, I played Persona 5 for PS3 in 21:9.. lol.. there's no developer support there.. :chuckle: .. worked beautifully at 3440x1440.
 
I don't have a single game that breaks in ultra-wide, but for those that don't support rendering at that resolution you can just render in 16:9.

On a 34" monitor you lose very very little by having those black bars on either end, and since the monitor is so wide in your field of view, it's not as noticeable.

Recently played Alan Wake, a game that's what, 10 years old, and it took me about 2 minutes to get ultra-wide working. Hell, I played Persona 5 for PS3 in 21:9.. lol.. there's no developer support there.. :chuckle: .. worked beautifully at 3440x1440.
The HUD had to have been messed up. Playing first and third person games at 21:9 with a 16:9 FOV is a bit nauseating for a lot of people.
 
The HUD had to have been messed up.

Not at all actually.. A lot of times when you run games at modified aspect ratios the HUD remains centered on the screen .. it's not usually stretched since the vertical draw distance is constant with respect to a 2560x1440 display.

So Alan Wake for example, plays exceptionally well at 21:9. The only issues you'll see are with (1) prerendered movies that don't fill the screen (who cares?), (2) the opening menu. But in-game, i.e., in the game engine itself, it's usually fine.

Fallout 4 is notoriously shitty when it comes to graphics issues, and it runs beautifully at 21:9 with a little rigging.

Playing first and third person games at 21:9 with a 16:9 FOV is a bit nauseating for a lot of people.

Why would that be the case? It's just blackness on the outer edge.. I can't understand how that would cause anyone to become nauseous if the game itself didn't cause the problem?
 
Not at all actually.. A lot of times when you run games at modified aspect ratios the HUD remains centered on the screen .. it's not usually stretched since the vertical draw distance is constant with respect to a 2560x1440 display.

So Alan Wake for example, plays exceptionally well at 21:9. The only issues you'll see are with (1) prerendered movies that don't fill the screen (who cares?), (2) the opening menu. But in-game, i.e., in the game engine itself, it's usually fine.

Fallout 4 is notoriously shitty when it comes to graphics issues, and it runs beautifully at 21:9 with a little rigging.



Why would that be the case? It's just blackness on the outer edge.. I can't understand how that would cause anyone to become nauseous if the game itself didn't cause the problem?
If you play full screen without black bars at a 16:9 field of view is when you get the crammed view.

I know in csgo the tab menu to display scores has never been fixed. My lady plays on an ultra wide, but it’s main use is for production.
 
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