1070 With an older CPU

[Zenduri]

Just testing the water really as im not in the market at the moment for a complete new rebuild which will inevitably be needed but looking to see if i can add some life to my current rig as it seems to be struggling graphically (never seeing RAM usage over 66% or CPUover 60%)

Rig is in sig and wondering if I slap a 1070 in it will I be bottle necking it much when running a single monitor, 1080p, at 144hz?

 

[arc@css]

A card like that will be held back to a degree, yes, though it will be dependent on the situation. Generally speaking, the lower the resolution the more pronounced this effect will be.

If you're thinking of upgrading the CPU and motherboard in the not too terribly distant future, I'd say go for it and grab a GTX1070, since a high-end card like that should last you a long while. You can help to reduce the bottlenecking a little by cranking up the video settings like AA.

 

[K1LLER HORNET]

Just testing the water really as im not in the market at the moment for a complete new rebuild which will inevitably be needed but looking to see if i can add some life to my current rig as it seems to be struggling graphically (never seeing RAM usage over 66% or CPUover 60%)

Rig is in sig and wondering if I slap a 1070 in it will I be bottle necking it much when running a single monitor, 1080p, at 144hz?

I'd certainly say so. Upgrading from Nehalem is definitely long overdue.
Have a look at tests by gamersnexus on Sandy Bridge vs Kaby Lake to get an idea on real world gains.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

I went from a i7 860 @4 to a 7600k and gained 30FPS with a 980Ti /1070

I did benchmarks on by build, still in the build log somewhere "i7 860 downsizing".

Tried using ashes to bench DX11 Vs 12 for old cores and new GPU, DX12 helps other gen CPUs massively , more then current i7 4000+ but not as much as getting a new core paired with high speed ram! Think i was at 1888mhz Vs 3600mhz

 

[chickadee]

Thought of getting a Xeon X5650 from ebay? This would give you a way to get a quick performance boost if you do worry about your CPU being a bottleneck.

They are 12 thread CPU's and clock like a beast + run really cool. They give a great performance boost to the X58 platform for about £50.

On my i7 920 Witcher 3 was really pushing it, i think about 80-90% utilisation most of the time but regularly hitting 100%, after getting the X5660 it was sitting at about 50-60%, really smoothed out the experience.

I run mine stock and it sits at about 5c above ambient and on load never goes above 45c, they are so much cooler running than the 920.

 

[AiiR]

Id definitely go for an x5650 before considering a platform upgrade. If you have MM access, I have one for sale in there for cheaper than the bay prices.

 

[silversurfer]

I reckon it might lower minimum frame rates, could be a slight problem. Fine as a stepping stone with 1080p and the 920 was not slow so long as the game uses every core possible it'd work. So to know you need to check the game you intended to use, some games only use 1 or 2 cores and want a fast cpu not 8 threads

Heres a guide from a site comparing vs a modern quad core. Your cpu is slightly faster and you can drop back to min settings before upgrading, seems its possible just about

http://www.game-debate.com/cpu/index.php?pid=253&pid2=2464&compare=Intel Core i7-960 Quad 3.2GHz-vs-AMD Ryzen R5 1500X