Is a modern GPU (eg: NVidia 4070) a total waste of time on an old CPU (eg: Intel I7 4790K)? - Anyone running a modern(ish) GPU on an old CPU?

[Tetras]

You might be interested in this video:

Gaming with the i7 4790 in 2023.

If you wanted top tier performance in 2014 but didn't want to overclock or spend extra on the "K" version, then the standard 4790 would have been perfect for...

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[random_matt]

Understood, but, "the rest" is over four figures?

ie: A graphics card should hopefully give a reasonable boost in visuals speed/quality wise, with nothing more complicated than unplugging the old card and plugging the new one in, for say £500.

Where as, "the rest" will result a total system rebuild/transfer (& I have a lot of stuff as I have web development stuff and the like), for say £1200.

And all for what at the moment is CoD:MW2 having lower visual quality/speed than I'd ideally like. £1200 just doesn't seem justifed to me for that one current quibble. £500 to iron out the current issue and buy me some more time seems more logical? Or just give in and get a console?

That's fair enough.

 

[Tetras]

QUESTION: Would a modern GPU actually free up any processing from the CPU that older GPUs wouldn't?

ie: Is there hardware on say a 4070 that isn't on a 1070 that would then mean my CPU would be doing less with a 4070 than with a 1070? So a game (or D3D12 etc) realises hardware X is available on the 4070 and uses it, instead of the CPU having to perform that processing?

Make sense?

The only thing I'm aware of that can help is frame generation. The AMD drivers for RDNA 2 appeared to have a lower overhead than Ampere (HUB did tests on it here and here) and they got higher performance with slower CPUs. I don't know if that still applies to RDNA 3 and Ada.

 

[NeilF]

Oh, and of course the other thing to consider is if I get a new GPU from a 'river' then I can carefully try it, and if really doesn't give me the improvement I'm after, return it.

 

[CuriousTomCat]

Understood, but, "the rest" is over four figures?

You're obviously trying to live beyond your means! You don't need to spend four figures if you cant afford it.

I've just ordered a 2TB NVME m.2 for £79.99. My next CPU upgrade will probably be a 5800x which are £165 used. I can get a 32Gb 3600 DDR4 kit for £54.99. Everything is so cheap right now. You can add a motherboard about £70. Thats a total of £370 and it will absolutely destroy your pc. Yes its old technology now but you could get something newer if you wish for a bit more. You could spend £500 or £600 or £700 or £800. Instead of getting depressed because £1500 is too expensive, choose a lower figure that you're very very happy with.

The only people who should be spending £1500 on a PC are those who are happy about it. That's the same for any purchase. I'm very very happy with every purchase I ever make. It should never make you sad or regretful.

 

[willhub]

a modern CPU would give higher framerates across the board from minimum to average and max. I went from a 3700x to a 5800x3d with a 3080Ti initially and even there I seen an improvement, even at 4k there was an improvement.

 

[Joxeon]

Going AMD makes more sense if you have an older CPU as AMD cards have less driver overhead.

Your CPU would be similar to the ryzen 5 1600 in the below testing.

Nvidia Has a Driver Overhead Problem, GeForce vs Radeon on Low-End CPUs

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Unless you also plan to upgrade the CPU then I'd probably go with a 6700XT and save yourself £200.

 

[NeilF]

You're obviously trying to live beyond your means! You don't need to spend four figures if you cant afford it.

I've just ordered a 2TB NVME m.2 for £79.99. My next CPU upgrade will probably be a 5800x which are £165 used. I can get a 32Gb 3600 DDR4 kit for £54.99. Everything is so cheap right now. You can add a motherboard about £70. Thats a total of £370 and it will absolutely destroy your pc. Yes its old technology now but you could get something newer if you wish for a bit more. You could spend £500 or £600 or £700 or £800. Instead of getting depressed because £1500 is too expensive, choose a lower figure that you're very very happy with.

The only people who should be spending £1500 on a PC are those who are happy about it. That's the same for any purchase. I'm very very happy with every purchase I ever make. It should never make you sad or regretful.

Two things about this.

1) I always build a whole new system while keeping the old system intact. ie: My components are mostly 9yrs old, so if I were to build a new PC I build a whole new PC and then once it's working, migrate everything (I have quite a bit software wise) over from the old PC to the new one. And then only when the new PC has totally replaced the old PC would I decommission the old one (after a while).
2) I tend to buy fairly high end components when building a new PC, reason being I'd prefer to upgrade less often, as you can see by my current situation with my 9yr old machine only just now becoming questionable performance wise.

(1) + (2) = Well into four figures... And let's not forget the main reason I'm not happy about spending that amount is because so far the only game complaining on my system is CoD:MW2, which is running at 75fps VSYNC'd (@ lowest detail). £1500-£2000 and all that time/effort just seems hard to justify for that issue at the moment.

NOTE: My Asus Z97-A motherboard has onboard graphics I believe, so I could theoretically use my existing 1070 in a new PC while migrating/moving over, but hmmm...


On a side note, it's sort of a shame there isn't a Steam Deck console unit, which is aimed at playing all Steam titles like a a PC, but in a console format.

 

[ooStevo]

Why not just get a 6700XT or a 6800? Used or even new? The 6700XT is quite popular and would be a nice boost from the 1070. Then chuck a 6c/12t Xeon in there. Or even a 8c16t Xeon? Big upgrade for relatively little.

 

[sx_turbo]

The 4070 isn't great value for money tbh.

The 6750xt or the 7800xt are probably the best bang for buck.

AMD GPU seem to suit older systems.

Should get you another couple of years out of it and then can upgrade motherboard and CPU.

 

[Rroff]

Why not just get a 6700XT or a 6800? Used or even new? The 6700XT is quite popular and would be a nice boost from the 1070. Then chuck a 6c/12t Xeon in there. Or even a 8c16t Xeon? Big upgrade for relatively little.

Unfortunately there are no LGA1150 Xeons with more than 4 cores / 8 threads. One of the reasons I went for the 2011 platform at the time as the 16xx V2 Xeons were a possibility.

 

[ooStevo]

Unfortunately there are no LGA1150 Xeons with more than 4 cores / 8 threads. One of the reasons I went for the 2011 platform at the time as the 16xx V2 Xeons were a possibility.

Oh that sucks. How about a 4930k then? It's still a quick fix is it not?

 

[Rroff]

Oh that sucks. How about a 4930k then? It's still a quick fix is it not?

4930K is a LGA2011 CPU, 4790K is LGA1150.

Technically the 4790K has approx. 13% higher turbo clock and ~15% higher IPC than a 4930K so in theory for games which don't use more than 4 core / 8 threads it would be faster, though the 4930K or 1650/1680 Xeons will overclock better, have more cache and if paired up with the right memory can claw back the disadvantage in many newer games and anything which actually needs 6+ cores they will be faster. But kind of irrelevant here as OP can't put one in their motherboard.

 

[NeilF]

Although I don't recall doing it, I think my 4790K is also overclocked from 4gHz or 4.4gHz... CPUZ and HWInfo seem to say so.

 

[Joxeon]

1) + (2) = Well into four figures... And let's not forget the main reason I'm not happy about spending that amount is because so far the only game complaining on my system is CoD:MW2, which is running at 75fps VSYNC'd (@ lowest detail).

If MW2 is one of your main games then a 7800XT is 40% faster than a 4070 in that title and nearly matches the £1100 4080.

 

[SpellowHouse]

The 4070 will give you much better average framerates but a CPU is going to give higher minimums and smooth out some of that lag, given your current setup I would seriously consider I full system upgrade. The other thing I would say is if your playing a lot of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 equivalent Radeon cards will give 15% better performance.

Agree with this.

I remember when I upgraded my 4790K to, I think it was an 8 series. And I had a 1070 at the time or maybe a 1080. Anyway, the biggest difference was the lows in the system. It became smoother, less laggy. Then, when I upgraded to a 2070, the frame rate went up.

So, I think there is some benefit going to a 4070, but are still going to get some glitchy lows.

Also, you need to take care with the PC, in that you may need a BIOS update to even run a 4070. You better check that out and or buy from a company that will for sure accept returns.

 

[NeilF]

Of interest, playing Cod:MW2 DMZ Vondel is currently silky smooth on my system, or at least good enough for me. It seems to me Al Mazrah that cause the slightly less smooth game play I mentioned, even though it's still running at around 75fps.

Agree with this.

I remember when I upgraded my 4790K to, I think it was an 8 series. And I had a 1070 at the time or maybe a 1080. Anyway, the biggest difference was the lows in the system. It became smoother, less laggy. Then, when I upgraded to a 2070, the frame rate went up.

So, I think there is some benefit going to a 4070, but are still going to get some glitchy lows.

Also, you need to take care with the PC, in that you may need a BIOS update to even run a 4070. You better check that out and or buy from a company that will for sure accept returns.

I'm not aware of any BIOS update being need for a 4070? But yes, if I do order it will be from a place where I can return it in case it doesn't help where I need it.

 

[SpellowHouse]

Of interest, playing Cod:MW2 DMZ Vondel is currently silky smooth on my system, or at least good enough for me. It seems to me Al Mazrah that cause the slightly less smooth game play I mentioned, even though it's still running at around 75fps.



I'm not aware of any BIOS update being need for a 4070? But yes, if I do order it will be from a place where I can return it in case it doesn't help where I need it.

Not for the 4070 as such, but for anything beyond the 10 series. I seem to remember there was one for the 2070 with my motherboard. I do remember that when I first plugged the card in, I got a blank screen. Very worrying at the time, but luckily was easy to fix.

 

[NeilF]

Not for the 4070 as such, but for anything beyond the 10 series. I seem to remember there was one for the 2070 with my motherboard. I do remember that when I first plugged the card in, I got a blank screen. Very worrying at the time, but luckily was easy to fix.

Z97-A｜Motherboards｜ASUS Canada

ASUS mining motherboard features 19 PCI Express® (PCIe®) slots. With 18 PCIe x1 and one PCIe x16 slots on board, plus three zoned ATX12V power connectors, B250 Mining Expert lets you run up to 19 NVIDIA or AMD GPUs* in parallel to max out your megahash rates!

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Mine if version 2801 which was the last one, back in 2015. The only one since then was a beta one in 2018.

Q: Would I expect all my BIOS settings to be reset/changed if I do a bios update? Or will they be kept/retained?

 

[NeilF]

Unless I'm not understanding this, here's two example of people running a 4070 on an Asus Z97-A (like mine) on a BIOS dated 2015/04/27 which is older than mine???

Asus Z97-A Performance Results - UserBenchmark

Asus Z97-A Performance Results - UserBenchmark