graphics card upgrade will work on my system??

drewl5799 · 23 Jun 2021 at 15:10

hi all. my trusty old gtx 980 has died and i need a new graphics card. I was looking at a 3070 as they seem to be in stock (today at least). Would it be a straight swap into my setup or would some other components need upgrading? Thanks in advance

My system:

-EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Superclock ACX 2.0 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - dead : (
-Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 - Devils Canyon Core i7 4790K CPU & Motherboard Bundle
-Samsung 250GB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive
-Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gbs 64MB Cache
-Kingston HyperX Savage Red 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit
-SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 850W Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply

Tetras · 23 Jun 2021 at 15:21

Should be okay, but might be a good idea to check when the last BIOS was released and see if you can find anyone else with your board running one.

Joxeon · 23 Jun 2021 at 15:25

You will probably run into some CPU bottlenecks at 1080p/1440p but the GPU will work never the less.

drewl5799 · 23 Jun 2021 at 15:31

hmmm, pc gaming is how i relax after work.....im willing to spend 900 quid on a 3070 even though im not happy about it lol. perhaps i should just build a complete new pc??

Joxeon · 23 Jun 2021 at 15:33

drewl5799 said:
hmmm, pc gaming is how i relax after work.....im willing to spend 900 quid on a 3070 even though im not happy about it lol. perhaps i should just build a complete new pc??

Probably better if you want to get the most out of it.

full systems with a 3070 start from around £1100

harmattan · 23 Jun 2021 at 16:12

Should be a straight swap. That CPU, however, is likely to bottleneck at all except highest resolutions e.g. 4k and IQ.

V3yron · 23 Jun 2021 at 16:47

Hi,

i have the same spec and my 970 died.
I been able to get a 3070, is working fine just bottlenecking..
So it will works but not on fully potential.

drewl5799 · 23 Jun 2021 at 16:50

thanks for the replies. I am completely unsure what to do now.....spend 900 pounds on a 3070 or just buy a prebuilt rig for about 2k.....

StarShock · 25 Jun 2021 at 14:32

If all you're doing is gaming you should be ok with that CPU, as has been said you would get a little bit of bottlenecking, specially at 1080p. I would be tempted to look at a fancy new monitor to compliment the 3070 rather than a full overhaul. Far less bottlenecking at higher resolution and would give a big boost to the bit you actually interact with.

turbot1984 · 25 Jun 2021 at 14:40

Yeah, I would nab a 3070 now, then save up for Alder Lake DDR5 rig and revel in a BIG speed bump

jigger · 26 Jun 2021 at 14:13

I wouldn’t bother fitting anything much faster than a GTX1080 Vega 56.

silvagti · 26 Jun 2021 at 16:27

In your position if buying an entire system means you can get a GPU at RRP instead of paying ~£300 over the RRP I'd do that.

drewl5799 · 13 Jul 2021 at 10:10

So I think I may just have bought a 3070 fe…… £460

drewl5799 · 13 Jul 2021 at 10:21

So seems my transaction was successful and snapped up a 3070 cheaper than I hoped. Now do I just use it on my old system or should I updated everything?

thinking of reusing stuff I have- is the phanteks enthoo pro case good enough to keep nowadays or should that be replaced too?

mickyflinn · 13 Jul 2021 at 10:29

drewl5799 said:
So seems my transaction was successful and snapped up a 3070 cheaper than I hoped. Now do I just use it on my old system or should I updated everything?

thinking of reusing stuff I have- is the phanteks enthoo pro case good enough to keep nowadays or should that be replaced too?

Try it in your old system gonna be a massive improvement but do you want to upgrade to get the best ouf of your gpu ?

You can resuse most of your system if you want to just replacing cpu , mobo and memory but i would invest in a 1tb m2 drive also.

What do you want to do ?

drewl5799 · 13 Jul 2021 at 10:41

mickyflinn said:
Try it in your old system gonna be a massive improvement but do you want to upgrade to get the best ouf of your gpu ?

You can resuse most of your system if you want to just replacing cpu , mobo and memory but i would invest in a 1tb m2 drive also.

What do you want to do ?

I like building myself so I do fancy upgrading the majority of parts.

I am out of loop with most bits though, wondering if the following are reusable or too old - The case - phanteks enthoo pro, phanteks ph-tc14pe heatsink, psu - super flower 850w leader gold

mickyflinn · 13 Jul 2021 at 10:47

drewl5799 said:
I like building myself so I do fancy upgrading the majority of parts.

I am out of loop with most bits though, wondering if the following are reusable or too old - The case - phanteks enthoo pro, phanteks ph-tc14pe heatsink, psu - super flower 850w leader gold

Case you can re-use but do you fancy a new one , psu is quality so could use that but if hitting 10 years old i would replace.

Borealis · 13 Jul 2021 at 10:47

The Enthoo Pro is a great case. No need to change it at all.

Gray2233 · 13 Jul 2021 at 10:54

I'd personally just replace the CPU/Mobo/RAM to go with your new 3070 and keep the rest, maybe slap in a nice NVME drive while you're at it.

drewl5799 · 13 Jul 2021 at 10:54

Yeah you’ve twisted my arm. Case I’ll keep but going to replace everything else. I’ll have to look what I need to get, base it around a 5800 and probably one of 550 boards…..