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[MorleyDev]

So I kinda ordered a 4K monitor. Now, I got this for programming: I want to have ALL of the code on display. Probably gonna turn it vertical for now and code like a boss, using my current 1080p monitor for horizontal tasks like gaming.

But long-term, running games at 4K would be sweet. I don't think there's any argument there. But my rig, which isn't the greatest thing ever but can do 1080p gaming at high settings fairly easily, would naturally need upgrading. I'm just looking for some checking on what needs upgrading (pretty sure it's everything).

Current specs:
CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-4670
1st Hard Drive: 1000 GB SATA
RAM: 8192 MB DDR3-RAM, 1600 MHz
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660
Motherboard: MSI H81M-E34
Power Supply: 450 Watt XFX Core Edition PRO power supply, 80 PLUS® bronze certified

So far my goal-list is:
Add 1TB SSD to act as main hard disk
Either add another 8GB RAM or replace current 8GB with 1866MHz, unsure which would be better. Okay, 16GB 1866Mhz wll be better
Probably gonna need to upgrade the power supply, doubt 450 Watts can handle an upgraded graphics card otherwise.
Upgrade graphics card, probably to a 780 TI (or 960 when that comes out).

In terms of priorities, since actually gaming with this is a long-term goal the graphics card upgrade will be the final step. May even need to wait for newer graphics cards, since the motherboard doesn't support SLI. The faster compile times of the SSD alone make that my primary want. I'm basically gonna be chucking part of my paycheck every month into a "PC Upgrades" pot.

So yeah, recommendations? I mean, the CPU should be fine, right? Or is 4K without SLI just a pipe-dream in the foreseeable future?

[Sensei]

Definitely look at Logical Increments for this sort of advice. From the looks of it, your i5 4670K will be ample for some time still, and you're not really liable to run into a bottleneck with your RAM either. If you get a GTX 970 or 980 ($350 or $550) you'll be able run current games at 4K with medium graphics, but to go higher and keep a nice framerate you'll want dual GPU- that will also require a power supply upgrade.

[Thief^]

4k is much more demanding than you might realise. It is *4 times* the pixels of a 1080p monitor. Or to put it another way, you'll get 1/4 the framerate, or need a graphics card 4x as powerful (shader performance and/or fill rate), just to play on the same settings. If you want to play at highest settings on 4k at 60 fps... not currently possible.

The GTX 660 has a fill rate of 23.5 GP/s, and a shader performance of 1881.6 GFLOPS.
The most powerful currently available nvidia graphics card, the GTX Titan Z, has a fill rate of 67.6 GP/s and a shader performance of 8122 GFLOPS (on SLi-supported games (it's a dual-gpu card), half that otherwise), which may just be enough... if you're not fill-rate limited, because otherwise it's not (it's only just over 3x better than your current card in that respect).

This should give you some idea of the state of 4k gaming at the moment: http://www.eteknix.com/4k-gaming-showdown-amd-r9-290x-crossfire-vs-nvidia-gtx-780-ti-sli/5/
It's probably fine with a few settings turned down from "ultra".

[MorleyDev]

Oh yeah, definitely not expecting to be running the latest games in 4k. I've mostly got it because I want more screen real-estate, and even two 1080p monitors can feel cramped at times when programming

But having now got the monitor (this one, it's awesome), Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is still averaging 25-45fps on high settings So with 'just' a GTX 660, you can play Fry Cry 3 level games at 4K at a playable, though not ideal, fps. And that's...surprising actually. Impressive, even. I wasn't even expecting to be able to do that without upgrading. And since the monitor looks fine going down to 1080p or 1440p...well, for the price I paid for it (Black Friday and all that nonsense), it's pretty darn neat.

And, dwarf fortress in 4k gets the entire width of a 4x4 map on-screen. So that's nice.