1080p + VSR vs 1440p vs 4k , 60hz vs 144hz!

[Ben Agg]

Ok so its going to be one of those threads where there is no right or wrong answer just personal preferences but I am wondering what peoples personal preferences are and why. I have an 8320 CPU , sabretooth 990fx mboard and going to be overclocking the 8320 on water to 4.5 - 5ghz (whatever the chip allows) and I am rocking a gtx 760 (that im going to upgrade).

So... I have a really nice 1080p projector , works amazingly well, has gaming mode etc etc and a 100" screen to go with it. (I am travelling at the moment so I didnt actually test gaming on it only TV shows and movies). I had a samsung 4k monitor that I sold before I left for my travels as it would sit idle and obviously didnt have freesync support. I HATED the text scaling with 8.1 on the 28" screen and I know windows 10 is doing alot to fix that to native windows programs but alot of other programs look truly horrible (text) at the moment till they are all upgraded.

I code so screen real estate (productivity) is important to me but text clarity even more so. I casually game but I do enjoy quality and smoothness so now comes my problem , I will go with a 290x lightning or a 3xx card (I will see when they are released) and most likely put them under water. At the moment these are the options I am considering.

1)4k TV 40" just purely for work elimintating any need for scaling and then game on the projector(1080p) using VSR to downsample from 2k or 4k.

2)4k freesync monitor 60hz and hope the scaling issues get ironed out

3)1440p 144hz freesync for productivity and gaming as I think 5megapixels on around 27" is probably around the sweetspot ppi wise?

4)1440p 60hz ips no freesync just for productivity and game on the projector with VSR.

I would really appreciate anyones input on what gaming at 1080p with VSR (or DSR) is like (remember I have 100" screen) , gaming at 144hz (never gamed above 60hz) , finding the text sweetspot so my eyes are not dying and having great real estate for productivity.

Games I will be playing will just be alot of 3rd person stuff , occasionaly I may play some FPS like battlefield 4 but generally going to be stuff like shadow of mordor , witcher 3 , maybe some company of heroes 2 etc where I am really not sure if > 60fps will make the game anymore enjoyable.

I understand I will need more horsepower in somegames to break 100fps so chucking in a few extra cards wouldnt be an issue if it comes to that, but thinking of all these options is getting pretty nuts so any input would be appreciated!

 

[1LiquidPC]

Here's a 5th option, but might be worth a look. What about a 34" Ultra-Wide for both productivity and some gaming? I'm using one myself as I'm typing this. They're 3440 x 1440 resolution and 60hz IPS panels. This way, you get extra room for productivity, IPS panel for color reproduction, ect. and there is no text scaling problems like 4K currently has. Gaming is something to see in Ultra-Wide too, though I'm sure it's quite different from your 100" 1080P projector setup. I was using a 27" 1440P monitor until I upgraded to this. I can't comment on DSR or 144 hz G-Sync/Freesync though, as I've never tried.

 

[Ben Agg]

Hey thanks for the input, I did consider that as an option originally but just guessing as I have no experience using 21:9, as I work vertically with code instead of horizontally I might not be able to optimise the way real estate is offered. Another down side to those 21:9's is the price is very high (although justified by pretty much every review I have seen) but I feel like price/performance ratio for my needs at 1440p and 4k will probably be higher but its something I will deffo do more research on!

 

[bystander]

5) There are G-sync 1440p 144hz IPS displays out now. Which would give you the smooth game play and the PPI you wanted. There will likely be Freesync monitors made with the same displays soon if you are anti Nvidia.

6) Use the 40" 4k display for productivity with a 1440p 144hz monitor as mentioned in my first option.

 

[Ben Agg]

Thanks for the reply bystander,

5) I am not anti Nvidia I just have an amd cpu and I really like mantle (now being pushed to vulkan API) and the compute performance of the 290x (and hopefully 390x) and pricing etc just feel AMD provides great bang for buck. Yea I will have to keep an eyeout for the freesync models coming through 144hz IPS sounds legit!

6)Way to expensive and too much hassle needs to be one or the other.

How much experience do you guys have at > 60hz , how much does it impact game play if you have the horsepower to maintain > 100fps ? Mainly for 3rd person games? At the moment I think a fairly cheap 1440p IPS may do for a year or two and then just game on the projector using VSR , although I failed to mention it in the first post bang for buck is pretty important. I am also aware that last sentence is a contradiction by saying I would use a monitor for a year or two , ahhh too many choices :\