Computer

Does 8K resolution make sense on computers today?

Historically, the PC has always been technically ahead of consoles, especially in terms of screen resolution. While TV-connected toys couldn’t top 240 progressive lines on PC, we were already enjoying 480+ progressive lines. However, that changed with the advent of LCD panels. Well, with the new generation consoles playing in the 4K category, the time has come to try the 8K gaming. That if, does not come cheap.

8K resolution is 7680 x 4120 pixels, which means four times more points on the screen than 4K. Because when using a monitor we are very close to the screen, unlike a television, monitors are hardly seen at this resolution. However, there are a large number of televisions on the market capable of displaying such a definition of an image. Is it possible to play 8K on PC and what are the limitations?

Why is 8K expensive?

To understand why gaming at 8K requires a lot of computing power, we have to understand that this is due to the sheer number of graphics primitives that would be seen on the screen, especially pixels, but also vertices and other elements where the data is transformed during the construction of each frame.

  • The geometry of the scene does not depend on the resolution, but if an object is too far away and ends up being represented by a few pixels it is discarded. The fact is that the higher the resolution, the fewer elements are discarded. This means that more of them will be rasterized and then textured.
  • As for the post-raster stages, we are talking about four times more pixels compared to 4K, this means that not only four times more power is needed, but also in terms of amount of memory and bandwidth.
  • We have to start from the fact that in all GPUs when calculating the scene, each of the graphic primitives ends up being calculated in a GPU calculation unit, so the number of these in the GPU would also increase.

8K differences resolution

Seeing the cost of GPUs for 4K today and their high consumption, you can imagine what will be necessary for 8K gaming, however, seeing the high frame rates that the RTX 4090 reaches, this could be an advance that said future might not be as far away as it seems. Especially if we take into account that there are already image reconstruction solutions such as DLSS that allow us to reach higher resolutions without relying on complex memory configurations.

The only graphics card that can handle it is the RTX 4090

Given the high frame rates per second that NVIDIA’s most powerful graphics card achieves at 4K, many wonder how that graphics card performs at a more powerful resolution.

RTX 4090

And how about connecting it to an 8K monitor? So you get results like:

  • With the graphics on high, without Ray Tracing active and with DLSS 3 Flight Simulator it moves smoothly between 60 and 80 FPS. We wonder what his stunning landscapes will look like at that resolution.
  • cyberpunk 2077 with DLSS 3 it can reach 60 FPS, but it is not recommended to play it without it activated.
  • In ForzaHorizon 5which does not support DLSS 3, with maximum graphics options it reaches 76 FPS on average.

In general, and to play the most demanding games, it is necessary to use DLSS 3, since the raw power of the graphics card cannot move them to such a resolution natively. However, this is not bad news if we take into account what we have explained in the previous section. Although it gives us a hint about the impressive power in all aspects that is necessary to standardize 8K for the time being, making this a purely luxury item.

However, if you are the lucky owner of an RTX 4090 and an 8K TV at the same time, many games in your library will run smoothly at 8K. However, the cost of these two elements alone rises beyond 6,000 euros combined, so it is only for very privileged people.

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