4k Res Gaming Rig Queries

Luvvo

Luvvo

Luvvo

Associate
Joined
1 Jun 2020
Posts
65
Hi all,

I'm patiently awaiting the Ampere 3080 TI with baited breath on September 17th (fingers crossed and rumour based).

That said, I have an older 1070 8gb at the moment. With an i7 quad core.

I'm looking at the AMD Ryzen 16 core, with a new mobo and cooling, plus well paired RAM.

My query is that if I was to upgrade my CPU and everything else around the 1070 whilst I wait. Will I see much of an fps improvement or should I wait still...

Whilst I also caught rumours about the new Ryzen 4000 series potentially releasing in Oct, but they seem to be less watt dependent and so higher clocks, with no real thread gains.

I have the ROG 4k 144hz monitor, but its useless (30 fps, at best) until I have more CPU and GPU power.

Appreciate the advice. Silky 4k frames being the main objective. If not the 144 hz, the closest I can get to it.

Sam
 
What i7 is it you have atm?

Upgrading your CPU/MB etc for now could lead to some performance gains - but 4K with a 1070, isn’t gonna net you a huge improvement I wouldn’t have thought as your heavily GPU limited.

Even a 2080 Ti atm can get crippled @ 4K. So yeah it’s the right call to wait for Nvidia’s Ampere cards if you’ve got money to splash on the top end model.
 
Last edited:
Unless your current cpu is hitting 100% constantly it will make very little difference. Even then it won't make a massive difference.

Gpu is the most important part when it comes to gaming power.

Which is why a 16 core ryzen is terrible for a gaming rig. It will be running at 10% load in games. 90% sitting there doing nothing.

I game using a 6 core ryzen and I only hit 25% load in csgo at 500fps. That is a cpu intensive game as well albeit very well optimised.

The point stands though in other games I'm lucky enough to hit 50-60% load and that is with me running a tonne of background applications. Discord, afterburner, rivatuner, display cal profile loader, no Ip, Av, etc.

Take a 3600 vs a 3900x in terms of FPS in games there is no noticeable difference. Only in benchmarks and graphs.
 
@Sparx - I have an I7 4790K @ 4.00 GHz (Quad) bought it back in 2014.

@Quartz - Of course why didn't I think to reduce setting! To busy looking at hardware! I actually dropped the Res in-game to 2560x1440 (Whilst stretched) It's more viable with mid-high settings and 60 FPS currently.

@Psycho Sonny - CPU seems to sit at around 50% when game running, but not playing/pushing it. I've had it since 2014 though, and 6 years on seems like its worth upgrading? Or does multi-core really not make gaming that much better?
 
Yeah as I said then - 4790k and 1070 is a fairly balanced combo really.

Sure you'd see a slight improvement upgrading CPU/RAM/MB to Ryzen, but running @ 4K it's your GPU bottlenecking you mainly.
 
Luvvo said:
@Sparx - I have an I7 4790K @ 4.00 GHz (Quad) bought it back in 2014.

@Quartz - Of course why didn't I think to reduce setting! To busy looking at hardware! I actually dropped the Res in-game to 2560x1440 (Whilst stretched) It's more viable with mid-high settings and 60 FPS currently.

@Psycho Sonny - CPU seems to sit at around 50% when game running, but not playing/pushing it. I've had it since 2014 though, and 6 years on seems like its worth upgrading? Or does multi-core really not make gaming that much better?
Click to expand...

£ for £ gpu makes maybe 10 times bigger improvement to fps than cpu.

If I had to choose between a 3300xt and a 5700xt or a 3700 and a 1650 super.

The 3300xt and 5700xt would get double the fps of the other system.

Gpu is king for fps. You will see much smaller improvements with upgrades to cpu. Improvements yes but not huge ones unless like I said you are currently heavily cpu bottlenecked and your cpu is hitting 100% usage constantly while gaming.
 
Luvvo said:
@Sparx Thanks bud, I think I knew it all along, but I wanted a solution pre Ampere GFX release so bad I ignored it.
Click to expand...

Haha no worries - if you then go get a top end Ampere GPU though, you'll also need to upgrade your CPU/MB/RAM etc... As otherwise your CPU will then become the big bottleneck ;)
 
@Psycho Sonny From what I can see the CPU is not bottlenecked. Idle, with no real gaming load its 50% utilisation.

Guess I just need to be patient for the 3000 series :(

Heck by saving £1.5K on new mobo, CPU, RAM, cooling, I could be looking at dual 3080's come September. Now that's a happy thought!
 
You ain't saving it, you still need to do a full upgrade & spend it when 3080s come out :p

SLI isn't what you'd expect it to be either lol. You spend double and lucky to get 30-40% increase lol. Waste of money imo

When time comes if I was you and got the money to burn - I'd just go 3700X, 16GB RAM, GB X570 Aorus Elite, 3080 GPU, Phanteks/Corsair or equivalent 650w+ PSU, chuck in 1TB NVMe if needed + a nice Corsair or NZXT AIO.
 
@Sparx As see that's what I feared. From a longevity perspective is it not worth the other component upgrades now to settle the rig in and gain a little boost whilst I wait?

I have my eye on:
CPU/MOBO/RAM (but on yours and Psycho's comment I may knock that down to lower cores and RAM) - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/8-pa...ro-corsair-64gb-3600mhz-bundle-bu-01v-am.html
Already have a 1000w PSU & will need a new AIO for sure, unfortunately, my case only has 1x120mm slot on top atm.

I struggle to understand SSD comparisons.

I have a "Seagate SSHD 7200RPM 3.5" 1TB SATA 6Gbs 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DX001) SSHD Hybrid Drive" - But it does seem to stutter sometime. Is that worth upgrading?
 
The sshd stores the most used data on a little ssd but that is limited size and the rest of the data on the far slower mechanical hard drive.

Ssd is so cheap for 1 tb I would get one and use the other drive as storage.
 
No harm upgrading the rest of your rig now if you have the cash and the upgrade itch :D Then re-use your 1070 for now and then put a new Ampere GPU in later. There's no 'settling in' PC components though, they don't warm up like F1 tyres really haha.

What case do you have? Also which PSU (make/model) and how old is it? That bundle is hella expensive, overkill and will not do much for better FPS in games. You could spend much more wisely, get something along the lines of this if you want some solid components...

Having an SSD/NVMe will help massively over an SSHD. The SSHDs are a bit quicker than HDDs but not by much, SSD/NVMe will be a big upgrade. Let alone a big upgrade to Ryzen, a solid X570 MB, 16GB RAM, great case with nice cable management and airflow. Chucked a new PSU incase yours is really old (this one is fully modular, 10yr warranty and made by Seasonic).

Edit: You're in effect getting a full new rig if you got the below, could always sell off your old rig to family/friends or re-use it for something else home/media server etc. :)

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,060.85 (includes shipping: £0.00)
​
 
Last edited:
Ouch yeah defo get a new case, that's olddddd. :p That PSU would probably be fine it was great for it's time. But 6 years old which isn't that bad really, but if you've got the money I'd want the safety net of a new PSU - as the cost isn't that much compared to the overall cost of a full new rig and Ampere GPU? It'd also mean you could keep your current rig all in one piece and decide what you want to do with it, whether you re-use it, sell it, gift it as a job lot to someone...

But the above spec would definitely give you fantastic performance and much lighter on the wallet. Leaves more money leftover to save for the top end Ampere if that's what you really want to push 4K. Which is the more important bit to get the most FPS.

Only things you might wanna change is the case if you like the look of something else, but the P400A is great for the money. That NVMe drive has just gone on sale and is very well reviewed too. If you think you'll need more then you could buy a bigger 2TB NVMe (£300 though :o) or get a 2nd NVMe drive. But depends what your storage needs are, if you download a lot of films photos documents etc you might want a standard HDD for storing that sorta stuff.

Personally I've done away with HDDs in my PC and just stick to pure NVMe to keep the cables down for tidiness. But I do have a home/media server for my storage needs.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom