Upgrade pc to handle 3 monitor setup

[Navoan]

Hi!

My PC passed the 5 year mark, and i would like to make some major upgrades, instead of buying a new PC, as i think i easily can reuse some of my parts, to keep the total cost down.

My goal is to have a PC powerful enough to play Assetto Corsa with triple 27" 1440p monitors.

My current specs are the following:
Case: Corsair Graphite 600T
Motherboard: Asus Z87-Pro
CPU: I7 4770K 3,5GHz
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i
GPU: ASUS GTX780
RAM: 2x8 GB DDR3 1866MHz CL10
PSU: Seasonic 850W Gold(80+)

i thought about upgrading to these components:
Asus RTX 2070 Rog Strix
32 GB DDR4 3000MHz ram
Asus TUF z370-plus gaming II
Intel I5 9600k

Are these components powerful enough to support my needs, and is it even worth the price, instead of buying a brand new?

Looking forward to hear your ideas and suggestions

Regards.

 

[RasmusP]

More pixels don't need any more system memory (ram) or more cpu power (only a very little due to the PCI lane stream).
So I would start with just upgrading the gpu and nothing else.
No sim needs more than 16gb ram and if your fps are currently fine cpu wise, they will be fine cpu wise at a higher resolution, 99% sure!

However a 2070 will be stressed out with 3x 1440p! That's about 11 million pixels whereas 4k is "only" 8 million pixels.
With current sims you might be just fine but with acc, pcars 2 and the development route of rfactor 2 you might need 1080ti and above to reach more than 60 fps.
1080ti would equal to 2080, not 70.

So my advice would be to save the money on motherboard, cpu and ram and rather grab a 2080 or even 2080ti.
The next amd generation is on the horizon so you might want to wait with a processor upgrade until you can either grab and amd for a better bang for the buck or get an Intel when the prices drop
If you wanna know how specific graphics cars would perform at 3x 1440p just look for 4k benchmarks and then multiply the fps with 0.75 to know the fps you would get.

 

[Navoan]

Hi RasmusP,

Thanks for the quick and detailed reply.

Will my current PC be able to run a 2080 or a 2080ti, does it fit etc?
-if i decide to buy one of these two cards, do i have to stick with the Asus model, as my motherboard is also an Asus product?

 

[RasmusP]

Hi RasmusP,

Thanks for the quick and detailed reply.

Will my current PC be able to run a 2080 or a 2080ti, does it fit etc?
-if i decide to buy one of these two cards, do i have to stick with the Asus model, as my motherboard is also an Asus product?

If your psu has enough power (I'd say yours is okay for a 2080. You might want to get more knowledgeable guys on this for a 2080ti) then yes, you can throw in whatever modern gpu you want from whatever manufacturer. They are all compatible!

Also please don't give a damn about suggestions about "your cpu needs to be balanced with your gpu" etc.
It all depends on what the games you want to play need and triple screens is a special case anyway!

 

[Emery]

Single 2080 desires 650+W power supply. I believe there are a few 3rd party cards that will fit most cases if you hunt them up, however its better to have a 3-slot space available.

 

[Navoan]

If your psu has enough power (I'd say yours is okay for a 2080. You might want to get more knowledgeable guys on this for a 2080ti) then yes, you can throw in whatever modern gpu you want from whatever manufacturer. They are all compatible!

Also please don't give a damn about suggestions about "your cpu needs to be balanced with your gpu" etc.
It all depends on what the games you want to play need and triple screens is a special case anyway!

If i go with the 2080 Ti, to be sure i have a decent FPS with 3x 1440p monitors, can i buy any model of the 2080 ti, or do i need the Asus model, as i have an Asus motherboard?

 

[Navoan]

Also, my PSU might be 5 years old, but since its a gold 850w, it can run the 2080 TI along with my regular system right?

The exact name of my PSU is:
Netzteil Seasonic 850W X-850 Gold.
http://www2.seasonic.com/product/x-850/

 

[RasmusP]

850w is plenty enough for anything! And seasonic is a good brand so you're all good with it.
About gpu compatibility:
You just need a motherboard with a pci-e slot which is the world wide standard since around 2006. You can throw any pci-e gpu into any pci-e motherboard. So you have about 13 years of every normal consumer motherboards being compatible with all consumer gpus

The only thing that's crucial is the vram with such high resolutions. It should be 8gb minimum but afaik all 2080/ti have plenty enough.

Manufacturers I can personally recommend:
Gigabyte, msi, Palit and Asus.

 

[mr Sw1tchblade]

I have 2080 rtx and i cant say i am happy with it using 4k monitor. I doubt 1 2080 ti can handle 3x1440 with good framerate too. Sli ftw.
I want to buy 3 monitors too. 32 inches. Its hard to find 32" full hd flat monitors this days. And with 1440p i am afraid i will need to go under medium graphic setting.
Question is: is it possible to downscale resolution in games with triple monitors setup?

 

[RasmusP]

3x 1440p is really heavy indeed.
3x 1080p is only 6.2 million pixels. That's 2 million less than 4k and 5 million less than 3x 1440p.
So basically if you want to get 60 fps at that resolution you would need to be able to achieve 80 fps in 4k.
So look for a gpu that achieves this and you'll be fine for the triples. Depending on the game you'll need to run low settings, live with slightly blurry graphics 'cause using 1080p on the 1440p monitors or invest into a 2080ti...

 

[mr Sw1tchblade]

@RasmusP
Looking at ACC i am afraid 1 2080 ti is not enough for 3x1440p. ACC is the 1st game targeting new generation consoles but not last for sure. It doesn't support triples now but i hope Kunos will find a solution to implement multi monitor support.

 

[RasmusP]

@RasmusP
Looking at ACC i am afraid 1 2080 ti is not enough for 3x1440p. ACC is the 1st game targeting new generation consoles but not last for sure. It doesn't support triples now but i hope Kunos will find a solution to implement multi monitor support.

Hehe I totally agree and disagree at the same time. The resolution scale setting is the crucial point here.
I upgraded from 1x fullhd to 1x 3440x1440 and my 1070 is basically dying now in most games. It's fine due to gsync though.
In Witcher 3, where there is no resolution scale setting, the image and especially the hud, texts etc become blurry if I put the resolution to 2560x1080 because the nvidia driver just stretches the image.
In acc however, setting the resolution scale to 75% looks perfectly fine. That's because games where looking fine at my old monitor too. I only wanted the higher Pixel density for texts and to be future proof.
The thing with the resolution scale is that texts, hud etc stay the same and only the image loses some accuracy but not necessarily sharpness.

So for acc he could just turn down the resolution scale to match "4k" or even down to match 1080p triples and probably stay happy with image quality.
At 100% resolution scale I agree, even a 2080ti wouldn't be enough for acceptable eye candy settings!