i5 4690+GTX 1080ti+4k Gsync bottleneck?

The video appears to support my point exactly. Both of those CPUs were able to push well in excess of 60fps in every game they tested there, with the only exception being Grand Theft Auto 5, which is a game that's notoriously CPU-bound. These games were also running at 1080p, for the very reason that it prevents the graphics card from becoming the bottleneck and limiting maximum performance, to better show the potential differences between the CPUs for their review. At 4K, the graphics card would have become the bottleneck rather than the CPU, and framerates would have been nearly identical between those processors in the games they tested. Increasing the resolution is not going to increase load on the processor, but it will greatly increase load on the graphics card. The video linked to earlier was perhaps a better example of this, since it compared different resolutions, and showed what tends to happen when the graphics card's performance becomes the limiting factor. At 4K, the system with the slower, non-hyperthreaded i5-750 performed quite similar to the faster, hyperthreaded i7-4790k. Even with that older i5 overclocked, the i7 was still technically capable of offering more performance, but the framerates were effectively being capped by the graphics card's ability to render four times as many pixels as 1080p. That's why you don't typically see 4K resolution used in CPU reviews, since there would be little difference between most modern processors at that resolution using the games and graphics cards available today. Here's an example of the kind of CPU performance graphs you get at 4K...

https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/luke-hill/amd-ryzen-7-1800x-cpu-review/11/

And again, I agree that the slightly faster i7 with more threads can potentially make a difference at 4K, it's just that in the majority of games available today, it won't. There are a handful of outliers that could perform better on the i7, and maybe the added threads could reduce the occasional frame spike, but it's not likely to make a big difference, and the i5 will hardly "struggle" to run today's games at 4K, at least no more than the 1080 Ti might "struggle" to maintain 60fps at high settings in some games at that resolution. Perhaps by next year there will be more games that show notably improved performance running on the i7 at 60Hz, but currently, developers tend to design games to run well on 4 thread CPUs, since that's what most people have. If it were a matter of buying the i7-7700 to replace the i5-4690, I would say it might not be worth the added cost, but if you already have both systems, using the i7 would be a reasonable choice, particularly if you can easily add another 8GB of memory.


If that's a 1920x1200 screen, a 2560x1440 screen would still offer 60% more total pixels, since it's a bit wider screen ratio, so there's a greater increase in horizontal resolution than there is vertical. It might be worth seeing the screens in person to get a better idea though. Ultra-wide 21:9 screens are also an option now, and you can get those in up to 3440x1440 resolution, which is more than double the pixels on a 1920x1200 screen. It's still quite a bit less than 4K at 3840x2160, though the lower resolution should allow for better performance at max settings compared to 4K. Not all games natively support 21:9 though, so you might end up with black bars on the sides in some (particularly older) titles. Different people prefer different things in terms of resolution, refresh rate and graphics settings though, so opinions on what matters more can vary.

As for the system I currently use for gaming, it doesn't have the power to push 1440p at decent framerates, so I am holding off on getting a 1440p or higher monitor, at least until I build a new system. I am overdue for a new build, but probably won't put one together until this fall or winter. As for the kind of monitor I'm considering, I tend to be a bit picky about those things, and not many fit what I'm looking for. Ideally, it would be a 1440p screen with a higher refresh rate and adaptive sync, and either an IPS or VA panel. My current monitor does 75Hz, and while I more often game at 60Hz, I like having the option for higher refresh rates in fast-paced games. I find the 144Hz quantum dot VA panels from Samsung to be interesting, due in part to their high static contrast ratios and good color reproduction, but they only come in 1080p for now. And while they perform better than other VA panels, minimizing many of the issues often inherent with that panel type, there are still some things that could be improved with them. I'm kind of hoping it won't be long before Samsung comes out with their second-generation of 144Hz quantum dot panels, perhaps in higher resolutions, but there's no telling whether that might happen anytime soon.