144hz Monitor questions...

[wadgra]

Ok, first things first, I don't want people telling me to get 1440p, or telling me you can't tell the difference over 60hz (because I know that for a fact to be a lie) this is not about asking for purchasing advice...

My question is, I have 2 x MSI GTX 580 Lightning Xtreme Edition video cards, and I was wondering if, for the most part 120 - 144hz would be achievable in most games...

And BF3 would be my main point of reference, because most people out there own it, so it would most likely be the most relateable.

In order to achieve these framerates, what would would settings have to be set at? I have always used 60hz monitors because they are cheap, but I want the ultra-smooth gameplay, and for the odd scenario, take advantage of 3D (yes I know 3D means it will turn to 60 - 72hz per eye)

I am only looking for people with useful and relateable experience to help out...

Thanks!

 

[disolitude]

I have a BenQ 120hz monitor and GTX 670 sli. With the dual 580s you won't have any issues achieving 120 fps, even 144 fps in some games as long as you go easy on AA and other visual settings.

Infact the only thing that will hold you back from seeing 120 fps is your CPU. If you have an AMD CPU, your frame rate may be CPU bound.

As far as 3D, its capped at 60 fps per eye and that is much less CPU bound so that should be ok with AMD cpus as well.

However I'm hearing some pretty scary stories about maxed Crysis 3 and hardware requirements.

 

[plasmaj12345]

As you probably already know, the point of getting a monitor with a higher refresh speed than 60 hz, is to experience games above 60 fps. Reaching the monitor's limit (120 or 144 hz) is very hard to achieve, and in some games (Crysis 3, Farcry 3) modern dual GPU setups struggle to run games past 80 -100. With your setup, you should be fine for BF3 (it came out in 2011). As for monitor choice, there is not much difference between 120 and 144 hz (24 hz difference). In all likelihood, the 120 hz will be cheaper, and like I said earlier, many games struggle to go past 100 hz maxed. 144 hz would seem like a waste of money to me, but if you find one at a good price it might be worth it. 120 hz seems like the better, more economical option at the moment.

 

[wadgra]

Yea, I already know that, and yea, I also know that reaching the upper limits of the monitor's capabilities would be tough for most new games, the difference between the 144 hz monitor I was looking at and the best choice for 120 hz for me was about a $50-$75 difference lol! I was mostly getting the 144 hz model just for when I have the cash to upgrade my GPU's I could squeeze more out of it. I figured with BF3 I would be fine, seeing as with all settings maxxed out it only uses 35% - 45% load on each GPU as is, I was just looking for second opinions. Thanks for the info! If you have any more info, please feel free to throw some more thoughts in there!

 

[wadgra]

The 144hz was more of a short term future proofing (if you want to call it that). I'm the kind of guy that tends to chase my tail a lot with upgrading, I'm never done! I figured getting a higher refresh monitor earlier would be more cost effective now, while I wait for the full line of 700 series Nvidia cards to come out! It's cheaper to buy another 580 anyways.

@disolitude - Yea, I have a 2600k overclocked to 4.8 GHz, so CPU bottleneck should not be an issue as far as I know.

 

[wadgra]

The Crysis series has always been a hardware pig from the start anyway, that will be a test for the new GPU's when I get there!

 

[wadgra]

I really expected more than 2 replies on this thread...

 

[wadgra]

Best answer selected by wadgra.