I love gaming in my theater room, but despite all the marketing from Sony, Xbox, AMD, NVIDIA,
when it comes to high refresh rate and reasonable settings, 4K is still tough to run.
Part of my problem is that I skipped NVIDIA's 40 series, so in the lead up to the 5090 launch,
I said both Pluf and I went on the record. If all the rumors are true, we're buying one.
As someone with a monitor, I wanted even more performance than I'm getting from my 4090.
On the subject of monitors, MSI sponsored this video with their new MPG272URX,
a 27-inch 4K 240Hz gaming display, and the premise is simple. We're going to build
a top-of-the-line gaming PC, do a little ad hoc testing with the RTX 5090,
and when we're done, each of us has to cancel our pre-order or pull the trigger on a 2900 Canadian
gaming doohickey. Plus tax. But here's the thing. Why is this decision so complicated? I mean,
whether you think the price is justified or not, the 5090 is clearly at the top of the charts.
But the issue is that I don't play any of those games that we tested, do you?
Not really. We choose our benchmarks to paint a well-rounded picture of performance,
not to try to cover every popular game. Well, today we changed that. Not only did the lab
get us benchmark numbers for all of the games in our suite, including many you didn't see in the
review, but we're going to throw in random titles that I want to play, that he wants to play,
and that you want to see us play. All at 4K.
Big moment. Plugging it in. Considering this graphics card cost $2,000, setting it to anything
other than high or very high just feels bad, man. But counterpoint, considering that this GPU costs
$2,000, getting low frame rates feels pretty bad, man. And so does lowering the resolution.
DLSS might have come a long way and Reflex 2 might fix some of our latency issues with Framegen,
but Reflex 2 ain't out yet, is it? Sure isn't. And it won't do anything about the
artifacting and general weirdness that we did still find noticeable in our 8K gaming video.
That's especially true in the monitor. You happen to own. I also own a monitor.
Is like 115 inches. So the way that I see it, DLSS is on the menu, but if I'm spending this
much on a GPU, I don't want to generate frames. I want to render frames as for an FPS target.
Okay, my theater display is 120 Hertz. Is that too much to ask? Not for $2,000,
especially when most modern mid-tier or high-tier TVs start at 120 Hertz refresh rate.
And some monitors can do more. Both our monitor and our GPU today support DisplayPort 2.1
UHBR20. It runs it up to 80 gigabit per second, meaning 4K, 240 Hertz can be done now with no
display stream compression. I have not actually experienced this yet, so I can't wait.
That's a pretty monitor. Oh, she's sharp, dude. Let's start with a game that really benefits
from a high resolution display and that really punishes your system at higher detail levels
and higher view distances. Wow, that is smooth. I have never seen this game look this smooth.
Really? Oh, dude. Yeah, your 1% lows, they go as low as like 50 or 40, but depending on what
you're looking at, it's pretty reasonable. Oh, 100%. Look, it's a really well optimized game.
Like, you can run it on Intel integrated graphics. That was one of their targets when they
developed it. Yeah. But that would be at low. And once you start pushing it up to higher details
and higher resolutions, it is an extremely punishing game because there is so much detail.
There's a ton going on. We're one game in and I'm already like...
You're making a much bigger upgrade than I am, because I could probably run Anno at home, 4K,
maybe not quite those settings and still get pretty good FPS. That's true. 4090 is strong.
It's a great card. Yeah, 3080 is also strong. But old. A little dated. What's next? Halo.
This is running amazingly. It really is. I have it absolutely cranked. 4K, ultra everything,
ray tracing on. For a competitive shooter, it's a great looking game in any configuration.
Maxed out. It's gorgeous. But how many of the games that you play are this demanding? Well,
okay, I got to be honest with you. Probably 90% of my gaming time right now is in an indie
hockey rogue light called tape to tape. Yeah, it's great. But it isn't demanding.
It's really not. But I do need to see how it runs. How many FPS we getting here? 472 FPS.
Let's go. You think you can win with 400 FPS? I think I could win with 400 FPS. Yeah. I think you
need a thousand. No. It's way too far. Oh, I got it. Nice. Dang it. Enough of my games, though.
Want to take the driver's seat? Sure. I've got four games, three of which were actually
mentioned by our community as well. FF7 Rebirth, Stalker 2, and Path of Exile 2. I'm actively
playing all three of those. And then a fourth one came out today. Today. Kingdom come deliverance,
too. Wait, that's the one where the recommended system requirements for 4K30 is a 4080. That's
right. Let's start with Final Fantasy. Sure. At home, I'm typically getting in Gangaga village
or other towns about the 120 cap, and then it goes down to 1% of like 50, 60. You know,
it doesn't look that different. This actually looks about the same as what I'm getting on my 4090.
So I don't know if it's just bottlenecked by the FPS cap or what, but I got to say
this is actually another point in my 4090's favor, because this is what I'm playing right now, and this
is about the same. I was really hoping for those 1% lows to be a bit more stable. Yeah. That's one
out of four. And I got to say, I don't have any reason right now to upgrade. Go ahead and start
your next game. All right. Next up, Stalker 2, Heart of Chernobyl. This game came out a little
later last year, and it is hard to run. I get close to like 60 or 80 averages,
and my 1% are bad though, whereas... Right. So right now you're using DLSS to get it to run
at all, which I know you don't like today. Yeah. I prefer turning it off. And I'm getting numbers
better than I normally get with DLSS on. Not much, but we're getting like 90, 85 average with...
Looks very playable. This is very playable. 1% are like... They do go down to 50 or so,
but they're usually around 60. I do wonder though, how much of that is the 9800x3D we have in here,
and how much of it's the GPU? Yeah, because a whole platform upgrade would be cheaper than
upgrading your GPU. And we were talking off-camera about how he just convinced one of his friends
to upgrade their monitor rather than buy a 5090, because there's other things you can do to make
your games run better, other than just buying a new GPU. Yeah, or at least look prettier. It's just
that he already has like sick everything else, so... I was really hoping for it to work a little
worse than this. You're like the one guy I can think of who looks at the new product he's planning
to buy and is like, oh, I really hope it sucks. Yeah, it's expensive. Okay, let's see how much DLSS
helps. Triple digits with 1% just hit triple digit. Oh, they're usually like 80, 90. Okay,
all right. Well, it's markedly improved. Next up is Path of Exile 2. While we wait for that,
it's a good time to tell you about our new sport button-up shirt from lttstore.com.
It's stretchy, lightweight, and remarkably comfortable.
I normally get like 90 to 150 FPS average. I mean, that's a huge range. It's a huge range,
I know. I've actually been trying their new controller support. It's actually pretty good.
It's frustrating to me because it runs well, except when it doesn't. And sometimes I see major
dips below triple digits and maps, so it does get even worse than that. Okay, it's all over the place
just like it normally is, but I'm seeing instead of 90 to 150, we're seeing like
212 down to like 175. And it's doing exactly what I wanted. No, my triple digits. I'm still
still staying. Okay, we're still getting stutters every now and then, but that's kind of just the
game. Does it feel different? It doesn't feel that much different, but it's hard for me seeing
those numbers. Like I'm seeing 1% of like 112. Okay, don't look at the numbers. Don't look at the
numbers. How does it feel? It feels good, but it felt good before. Do I want it to feel
gooder? Do I want to pay that much money to make it feel gooder? Oh man, I'm gonna put this one
as another win for the 5090. Okay. All right then, last but not least, Kingdom come deliverance two.
Let's see, I keep leaning into the frame because I'm like, I know, I know. Five-layer,
tandem OLED panel, boys. It sure looks pretty. It really does in any game. And MSI has asked us
to point out that you can make your whole desk look pretty too with Windows Dynamic Lighting
certification that syncs lighting effects across multiple devices. I know this is the start of
the game and it might get a little harder to run later once we're in a forest, but 140 average and
like 130, 1% lows, 120. I don't know how badly it's going to make my 4090 cry, but I do know that if
I go home now and I boot this up and I'm getting less than 100 in your 1% lows. Less than 100 in
my 1% lows or even in averages. I'm going to be real upset now that I've seen this. You are such a
diva. I'm going to be real upset. You know that, right? I know, but I just want it to look good.
We're seeing the odd dip. I can deal with that. It's almost impossible to fully fix random hitching,
especially in new games. But I mean, look, I'm fighting people and I'm getting like 120,
130 FPS. Man, okay. Now it's time for us to look at some community picks. First up, Indiana Jones.
At 8K, this ran surprisingly well. Oh man, 140, 150, 130 FPS average. Man, this is such a good
looking game. It really is. Those 1% are rock solid above 60. They're like 80 to 110. I would turn
it up. Yeah, let's do it. I don't need 120 FPS in a more cinematic exploratory game like this.
Go up one notch because path tracing is demanding. Oh, turn on indirect illumination though. Sure.
Oh, that's full RT. I don't think she's going to do this. You've got like a solid 60, 70 FPS
average. I wouldn't play it like this. No? No. I mean, move the mouse. Yeah, that feels bad. Yeah,
I wouldn't play it like this. Okay, fair enough. What if the DLSS was turned on? We can try it.
120, 115 FPS average. 1% are like 70, 85. We're on quality too. So overall,
usually when you have it set to quality, it looks pretty darn good. It really does. Just buy a 5090.
You can't tell people that. Just buy it. It's easy. It's so cheap. You want your games to run good,
don't you? Just spend $2,000 on a graphics card. That's more than what most people spend on their
computers. When you're on your deathbed, do you want to look back and think of how many FPS you
could have had if you just... That was so cringe. It's a reference. This monitor may only be Vesa
True Black 400 certified, but it can also reach up to 1,000 nits. And it can do that without
issue because MSI's got their OLED care 2.0 to help reduce the risk of image retention.
And if it does happen, they've got a three-year warranty that covers that specifically.
Time for flights in 2024. 37 FPS average, 31% lows.
It's hitching every now and then, which kind of sucks. I'm seeing 1% of literally
four single-digit 1%. But the rest of it's pretty okay. Should we turn on DLSS?
We're not getting that much more frames per second though with DLSS on.
No. It went up to a solid 45 instead of 33 or so. It's got 40 FPS. 1% are like 30 plus.
And the hitching is bad though. It really kind of is. We have to turn this down.
Yeah. Okay, let's do that. Let's turn it from ultra to one set under.
So we're getting closer to 60 averages. 1% of like 45, this feels a lot better already though.
This is incredible. The density is so high. You don't...
You don't need flights in to run at 200 frames a second. No.
It's a slow and steady game. The stutters, they do happen.
Sometimes worse than others, especially here with all these like cityscape talk, it did.
But you know, they go away and then it's like it's smooth sailing again.
Flying. Well, it's... Flying is just sailing in the in the sky.
Time for a very demanding game. Star Citizen. DLSS? Well, it's just off. So whatever. HDR?
Sure. It's enabled. Blah, blah, blah. Very high. High.
Sure. Let's just let it be cranked. All right. It's barely doing 60 average.
1% are like a solid 10 sometimes. I'm going to take a look at a few more of these.
You want to come back for crisis? Sure. Let's try Elden Ring.
It's capped at 60 FPS, but you know, hopefully those 1% low stutters are gone.
All of our settings are maxed out at 4K, ray tracing, cranked. We've hit our cap
and we're still stuttering every now and then. Next game.
For GTA Online, looks like we're using about 5 gigs of video memory set to 4K, 240 hertz.
Everything is basically cranked. That's not bad. You know, 155, 160 FPS average.
1% lows, 140, 150. I think that if you're playing GTA 5 or online with a 5090,
I don't think you have anything to worry about when it comes to performance at 4K.
Boulder's Gate 3. Everything cranked. We're getting 210 frames a second.
Our 1% lows are sitting 150 to 200 FPS. Let's check out Minecraft next.
It's got everything set to, you know, max render distance, max simulation distance.
Everything else is turned on or set to max. So you might get some initial hitching,
but now we're seeing 230 FPS average. 1% are around 200 as well.
Minecraft is running pretty well, but you know what? We can make it look a little prettier than this.
Now we've got Minecraft with BSL shaders, and it looks incredible.
I'm still getting like 165 FPS average, 150, 180. 1% lows goes deep down as like 36.
I think that if you want to play maxed out Minecraft at 4K with a 5090,
this is a very comfortable gaming experience. Next game.
Okay, 4K, HDR, PQ10, share, reflux. On with boost.
Okay, now we're looking at cyberpunk. No ray tracing, no DLSS. It looks great. It runs great.
Next game. As for arc survival ascended, this one's very unoptimized. We're at 4K,
render scale set to 100%, even though DLSS is set to off. Just in case, graphics is all pretty
maxed out here. I'm getting like 100 FPS average, 1% is dipping into 50s, but they're usually around
65, 70. This is very playable. Now let's play another game you guys requested that wasn't great at
launch, but has become pretty good over the years. Fallout 76. I've got everything maxed out, 4K,
and I'm getting 240, 260 frames a second rock solid performance. You know, your 1% lows are
going to dip, but it's not anything that you're going to feel terrible about. I don't experience
any hitching right now. Now time for beamNG. We've got it set to 4K, ultra preset. I haven't touched
any of these. It could be turned up a little more, but I think ultra preset is more than fair.
All right, we're getting the odd hitch. Just chilling on the beach here, but otherwise I'm
seeing, you know, 300 FPS. It's actually a pretty rock solid 1% lows. This low is 175 going up into
200, 240. I know this isn't the most scenic environment, otherwise, you know, it's pretty solid.
Let's check out black ops 6, 4K, native resolution, extreme graphics preset. Yeah,
we've played almost a full match and I'm still getting like 160 average frames a second with
lows of like 144, 150. It's a small map and it's not warzone. I don't know if warzone handles a lot
worse than this, but this seems more than playable. Another one you guys requested is Destiny 2,
we're in 4K. Everything is cranked. I'm sure our 1% lows aren't that awful. Like, I'm not feeling
any hitching. Game is just working. Feels great. Stephen, if you're watching this, 4K, Destiny 2,
5090, 250, 300 frames a second, you know you want it. Of course. Of course they want crisis remastered.
Yeah, there were a few nerds. There were a lot of people asking for the original crisis.
Yeah, everything is set to Canon Run Cryo. HDR on, it does have it. Very good. You're getting
113 FPS though, average. 1% dip pretty heavily down to like 30, but now that it's kind of settled
down, it's, you know, around 100, 110. Dude, the shadows on the gun. They look really good.
That water. Look out of the beach. Oh man. Look at these shadows. Look at these shadows done.
Look at the lighting inside here. You get that hard lighting coming in from the sun.
Oh man, this just makes me want the new card. Before we're allowed to make a final decision,
we have to look at the lab's results. These reveal a key thing that our ad hoc testing cannot.
Look at how poorly the RTX 3090 has aged. When the 40 series came out a couple of years ago,
it was $100 more for double or darn near double the performance. Well, that made the price feel
somewhat justified given that it was a decidedly next-gen card. But the 5090 is another $400,
or about a 25% increase in price for about what, 20 to 30% performance bump on average?
Is it a bad upgrade? I mean, not if you have the money to throw at it, but you're not getting
nearly the same feel good moment that Upgraders got last time when they plugged in their new card
that I got, fired up their favorite game, and then saw a night and day performance improvement.
Atomic heart sees a jump into triple digits, but then a decent uplift with the 5090.
City Skylines 2 goes from cinematic to playable to slightly more playable.
The other CS2 sees decent gains from generation to generation,
as does Shadow of the Tomb Raider and, to a similar extent, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands.
But when we include the rest of today's list and games we tested for the review,
most of the charts look like this. Rocket League, Total War, Warhammer 3, Returnal, F124,
The Last of Us, Red Dead Redemption 2, Dota 2 is a weird outlier, but we're pretty sure it's just
CPU bottlenecked, giving me another excuse to not upgrade to a 5090. Guess what game out of this
whole list I've got the most hours in? Dota 2, that's right, by a wide margin.
I'm getting deja vu. This feels a lot like going from the 2080 Ti to the 3090. Back then,
people paid an extra $500 MSRP for about a 20-something percent performance uplift.
Although they did get a whack of extra VRAM, the performance was meh, and it was the RAM capacity
that was more desired. The miners cared while Ethereum was still a thing, the productivity
benchmarks looked great, and gamers were starting to care about getting more VRAM for higher resolution
gaming. And we're seeing kind of the same thing play out now, except this time it's the AI crowd
instead of the crypto miners that are enjoying the 32 gigs of VRAM on this thing.
As for the productivity guys, well hey, more faster means more money, so they can recoup their
investment. But do you need 32 gigs of VRAM for gaming, even at 4K?
Not now and probably not ever, if I'm being honest. Ever is a big word, but like,
you know, not ever right now. So then after all this, the 8K gaming, the Labs testing,
the 4K gaming today, are you going for it? But don't answer that yet, because I wrote an email
to myself with what I'm going to say to Ploof. I wrote this on January 30th. Okay. If I could sell
my 4090 right now and go and buy a 5090 tomorrow, I'd do it. But I don't want to sell my 4090 right
now and then wait three months maybe for a replacement card. I'm going to sit on my pre-order
and I'm not going to cancel it. No, you have to make a decision, you've got to tell the people.
I'm canceling it then, I'm canceling it. You're canceling it. No way. I got it wrong.
You got it wrong? You guessed that I would. I'm calling it, you're buying it. Wow, wow.
There were a few big things. The Dota 2 performance, not that I need more than 400 frames a second in
Dota 2, but like, that's the main game I play. The final fantasy thing was huge.
That was a big deal. I was really hoping that it would really fix those 1% lows.
Stocker 2 was, that one was tough. That was actually really hard for me seeing it crack 100
plus FPS. I can't wait for his I caved tweet. I deleted Twitter because I'm calling it. I'm
calling it. I'm still calling it. I'm not uncalling it. That's how this is going to be. I will email
memory express today. Well, tell you what, I'll take it because I'm going for it. All right.
I've got a 3080 in my gaming system. Huge upgrade. Huge. It's an enormous upgrade for me,
but what I'm not going to do is buy more than one of them for my multiple gaming PCs. So I'm
going to have to finally figure out a smooth way of sharing it between here and the theater room.
Maybe you can give me a hand with that. I'll do it if you give me this monitor. Come on. You know,
it's only 1099 MSI won't mind. I want the 98 watts power delivery and the DP 2.18.
Okay. I think it's pretty well established. You already have a monitor.
Thanks again MSI. We'll have everything we use today linked in the description below if you
want to check it out. And thank you for watching this video. Take a look at the other one we did
where we gained an 8K on the 5090. If you are one of the dozen or so people that has a monitor
and has an 8K display. There are dozens of you. Dozens of you.