What Do You Need to Power 4K Games and Movies?

Whether you’re watching movies, playing games, or merely working at 4K resolution, it all looks fantastic. Everything is crisp, tack-sharp, and impossibly clear. Colors are vivid and lush, blacks are as deep as the night sky. But details are not without their cost. If you’re looking to get into 4K PC gaming or movie watching, you’re in for a bit of a journey.

Getting your system up to spec for 4K isn’t as straightforward as it is for 1080p, or even 1440p, so read on to find out what you need to run 4K.

A powerful graphics card is a must

While your wallet is open for the 4K monitor, go ahead and keep it open for a high-end graphics card … or two. Gaming in 4K requires your graphics card to process huge amounts of information in the blink of an eye, and for that, you need to make sure your graphics card has the headroom it needs.

Fortunately, there are more cards that are 4K capable today than ever before, even if none of them are cheap. Nvidia’s new RTX series of graphics cards, including the RTX 2070, 2080, and 2080 Ti, are all viable options, though the 2080 Ti is by far the most capable of the lot. These cards are priced between $500 and $1,200, with the more expensive options yielding better framerates. Those cards also have the benefit of supporting ray tracing and DLSS, though don’t expect to be able to run AAA games at 4K with ray tracing enabled.

There’s also Nvidia’s GTX Titan XP, though it’s weaker than the 2080 Ti and its $1,200 price tag means you might as well just buy a new RTX card instead.

Although they’re becoming increasingly difficult to find, other viable last-generation Nvidia GPUs include the Nvidia GTX 1080 and its more-powerful brother, the GTX 1080 Ti. Reasonable prices for them are $550 and $800 respectively. If anyone tries to charge you more than that, opt for an RTX card instead as it would be much more cost effective.

The GTX 1070 Ti is a viable option, although you’re getting very close to the boundary of what we would consider comfortable 4K gaming. If you dip down into 1070 and below, only older games or those with very low settings will be playable at 4K.

AMD does have some options if you’d prefer to stick with the red team. Its Vega 64 graphics card is perfectly capable of single-card 4K gaming for around $550. The Vega 56 isn’t quite as viable, though can deliver passable 4K gaming experiences at around the $450 price point. Again, if you can’t find those cards at competitive prices, an Nvidia RTX card is going to be a more capable and future-proof option.

AMD does have a new range of graphics cards called Navi, which is expected to show up in early 2019. We don’t expect to see a high-end solution early on though, so the current landscape of 4K graphics cards is unlikely to change dramatically in the near future.

Another option that some consider with 4K gaming is twin graphics cards in SLI or Crossfire configurations. While that is viable and often necessary to hit high framerates at maximum detail levels in the most taxing of games, know that the gains aren’t linear. You aren’t going to get double performance by paying through the nose for two RTX 2080 Ti cards. There also aren’t that many games that adequately support dual-GPU technologies, so consider wisely before committing to multicard PC setups, as they can be more trouble than they’re worth.

As for laptops, 4K gaming is still rather difficult. Even the best gaming laptops prioritize lower resolutions and higher framerates because gaming at 4K is incredibly taxing on even desktop hardware and laptop graphics chips don’t tend to measure up. You’re also unlikely to be able to truly appreciate 4K detail on a sub-20-inch laptop screen anyway. But if you do plan on powering you 4K monitor with a gaming laptop, you’ll want to buy the most powerful system you can find, something like an Alienware 17 R5. Anything less than a GTX 1080 isn’t going to do well in AAA games.

Processors and RAM aren’t as important

Although typically gaming PCs will pack a powerful central processor and high-speed memory, they aren’t quite as important for running a system at 4K as a decent graphics card is. That said, they are the hardware that feeds your monstrous graphics card what it needs to display games and certain applications at 4K resolution, so you’ll want to make sure they aren’t a bottleneck.

When it comes to selecting a CPU to pair up with your graphics card, you’ll want to ensure that it’s fairly recent, though it doesn’t need to be top end. If you’re opting for an Intel CPU, make sure it’s from the last few generations — at least a fourth-gen chip — and from the Core i5 or Core i7 range of processors. If you’re looking at AMD CPUs, the big jump in performance that was made with its Ryzen line up means that your best bet is starting with the Ryzen 5 chips and working your way up depending on your budget.

For a look at some specific CPUs we recommend, here are our guides to the best gaming CPUs, and the best Intel and AMD CPUs available today.

As for RAM, while faster speeds can help boost framerates in some games by a percent point or two, just make sure you have enough for the kind of system you’re running.

Picking the right monitor

You’ll need a 4K monitor if you want to be able to run at 4K, but picking one out today isn’t as simple as it used to be. You could spend over one thousand dollars on high refresh rates and syncing technologies, or a couple of hundred on a more entry-level offering. What you opt for is going to be dependent on budget, as much as it is desired features and specifications.

If you’re planning to game on your new 4K display, higher refresh rates are useful, but unless you have very deep pockets, you’re going to struggle to push games over the more common 60 frames per second, anyhow. All of our favorite 4K monitors are geared more towards image quality than they are faster gameplay.

Size is an important consideration too. If you buy a display that’s too small, you aren’t going to be able to appreciate all of that extra pixel detail. There are also some scaling problems in certain games and professional software. Some allow you to scale the interface up, but that can reduce sharpness, which is half the reason people buy 4K monitors in the first place. 27-inch should be the minimum you opt for when buying a 4K display.

Using the right port

With a 4K monitor ready to roll and a powerful graphics card champing at the bit, all you need to do is connect them up to enjoy your beautiful new 4K set up. How you do that though, can have a drastic effect on your experience.

Most HDMI connections can’t handle 4K. Support for the resolution was only introduced in HDMI 1.4, but even then, only at a maximum of 30 frames per second. To drive a 60Hz 4K monitor, you need HDMI 2.0, and that’s far from adequate if you’re running a high-refresh-rate 4K monitor like the Acer Predator x27.

To support that, you’ll need to use a DisplayPort 1.3 or 1.4 port, which support up to 120Hz at 4K resolution.

4K isn’t cheap, but it’s getting cheaper

Gaming and working at 4K isn’t the monumental expense it used to be, but you are going to need to spend around $1,000 to get the kind of experience that’s worth upgrading for. That’s a lot of money, and shelling out that kind of cash doesn’t guarantee a perfect experience, as there are still some scaling issues in certain games and software. You may also miss out on higher framerates, which are much more affordable at lower resolutions and some would argue are more important for a better gaming experience.

That said, images are stunningly beautiful at 4K. Even games that are several years old look great because the high resolution adds details that are simply not visible at lower resolutions. It’s worth considering, just make sure you know what you’re in for before opening up your wallet.