{"id":118657,"date":"2017-06-26T10:50:47","date_gmt":"2017-06-26T08:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=118657"},"modified":"2017-06-26T10:52:43","modified_gmt":"2017-06-26T08:52:43","slug":"why-pc-is-still-better-than-consoles-for-4k-gaming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/pc\/118657-why-pc-is-still-better-than-consoles-for-4k-gaming","title":{"rendered":"Why PC is still better than consoles for 4K gaming"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sony and Microsoft\u2019s new gaming consoles pack powerful hardware, but still don\u2019t offer high-end 4K gaming across all titles.<\/p>\n

As 1080p gaming has been the standard for PCs and consoles for a few years now, moving up to 4K is becoming more prevalent.<\/p>\n

However, running games at a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 is far more demanding than Full HD, and requires powerful hardware.<\/p>\n

Console performance<\/h3>\n

The PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X can deliver native 4K in a few titles, although the performance limitations of their GPUs mean graphics settings may be reduced to maintain performance at this resolution. This includes locking the framerate to 30FPS.<\/p>\n

The PlayStation 4 Pro also uses upscaling techniques to render lower-resolution images in 4K.<\/p>\n

This looks better than using the lower resolution without upscaling, and lightens the rendering demands on the GPU.<\/p>\n

At 6TFLOPS of peak compute power, the Xbox One X boasts significantly better performance than its Sony competitor.<\/p>\n

However, it is still not powerful enough to consistently deliver native 4K gaming with high graphics settings and decent framerates.<\/p>\n

According to benchmark data from AnandTech<\/strong><\/a>, the graphics card equivalent of the Xbox One X\u2019s GPU struggles to deliver over 30FPS at resolutions higher than 2,560 x 1,440.<\/p>\n

This means 4K gaming on a PS4 Pro or Xbox One X will look worse than it does on PC, or will perform worse.<\/p>\n

While the Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro can\u2019t match high-end PCs when it comes to 4K gaming, it must be noted that the consoles are substantially cheaper than powerful gaming computers.<\/p>\n

\"PS4<\/a><\/p>\n

Building a 4K gaming PC<\/h3>\n

If a tight budget is not a limiting factor, then a gaming PC is the way to go for proper 4K gaming.<\/p>\n

Nvidia and AMD supply graphics cards with impressive specifications capable of driving high frame rates at high resolutions, with graphics options set to the max.<\/p>\n

While a decent processor and RAM are important for 4K gaming, the most crucial component is a high-end GPU, and gamers should look at getting a card in the range of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti or up.<\/p>\n

4K graphics benchmarks from 4K.com show that while 4K gaming is possible using an Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti, Titan X (Maxwell), or AMD Radeon R9 Fury X, the experience is greatly improved with the new GeForce GTX 1080.<\/p>\n

The best graphics card for 4K gaming at the moment is Nvidia\u2019s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, which can handle 4K while delivering 60 frames per second.<\/p>\n

High-end 4K gaming comes at a heavy price, though, as the GTX 1080 Ti costs over R12,500<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

A 4K-ready gaming PC with a GTX 1080 Ti card and 8-core AMD Ryzen 1700 CPU costs R24,999<\/strong><\/a> from Evetech, although users can save a bit if they build a machine themselves.<\/p>\n

Other 4K-capable cards \u2013 such as the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 \u2013 are cheaper than the GTX 1080 Ti, but do not offer the same levels of performance.<\/p>\n

Another option for 4K gamers is to use two graphics cards in an SLI or CrossFire configuration, with many AMD and Nvidia cards suitable for this.<\/p>\n

It must also be noted that 4K monitors are much more expensive than 1080p displays, and must be factored into the total price.<\/p>\n

This article first appeared on MyBroadband <\/a><\/strong>and is republished with permission.<\/p>\n

Now read:\u00a0PlayStation 4 Pro vs Xbox One X \u2013 Ultimate console showdown<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sony and Microsoft\u2019s new gaming consoles pack powerful hardware, but still don\u2019t offer high-end 4K gaming across all titles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":98720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_enabled":true,"_sma_x_custom_text":"","_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11681,4],"tags":[22585,3483,15397],"class_list":["post-118657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pc","category-playstation","category-xbox","tag-4k-gaming","tag-consoles","tag-pc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/232"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}