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Decent upgrade from 2070S?

paradigm

paradigm

paradigm

Caporegime
Joined
26 Aug 2003
Posts
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Leafy Cheshire
Linking to my thread here regarding upgrading my entire PC, it was suggested that a GPU upgrade might be all I need for a while.

Could anyone do me a solid and suggest a card and waterblock that I could fit into my existing setup? I prefer acetal blocks rather than transparent, and REALLY don’t care for RGB lighting (my existing setup is orange and black hardware with orange and white lighting).

No real brand affinity, to either GPU or waterblock.
 
JediFragger said:
Shirley that cpu will bottleneck the **** out of any modern card though, even at Super Ultrawide?
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This is what I asked in my other thread, I’m sure it will bottleneck it a touch, but I’m not chasing framerate (so long as it’s playable), and whatever GPU I do buy will likely follow into my next build, whenever that ends up being.

It’s probably worth mentioning that I’ve got all-core turbo running at 5.2GHz on this 10980XE, so it’s not going to be as much of a bottleneck as stock.
 
paradigm said:
It’s probably worth mentioning that I’ve got all-core turbo running at 5.2GHz on this 10980XE, so it’s not going to be as much of a bottleneck as stock.
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In any case, I'd get a 3080/Ti until you build a system from the ground up tbh, you'd probably be bottlenecked to that kind of level anyhow so bit pointless spending more imo.
 
JediFragger said:
In any case, I'd get a 3080/Ti until you build a system from the ground up tbh, you'd probably be bottlenecked to that kind of level anyhow so bit pointless spending more imo.
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So you’d buy a GPU now and then another in 12-18 months? That seems more wasteful than just buying a mid-high tier card now?
 
paradigm said:
So you’d buy a GPU now and then another in 12-18 months? That seems more wasteful than just buying a mid-high tier card now?
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GPU’s at the moment, at least green team ones are massively overpriced. This is unlikely to change with the new Super cards rumoured for January or February. A used 3080 or even 3090 makes a good value proposition at the moment.
 
JediFragger said:
Your money dude, whatever you buy enjoy it :)
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Oh, it wasn’t a dig, I’m genuinely trying to work out which direction is the best value for money!
MissChief said:
GPU’s at the moment, at least green team ones are massively overpriced. This is unlikely to change with the new Super cards rumoured for January or February. A used 3080 or even 3090 makes a good value proposition at the moment.
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No issue at all with buying used, however making sure that a particular board design is waterblock compatible is a PITA, unless reference design of course. How bottlenecked would a 3090 be?
 
It's an old CPU nearing the end of useful life as a top end gaming machine but realistically it depends on how overlclocked the 10980xe is. What is your cinebench r23 single core ?
The stock result at 4.8ghz is 1200, which is half of what any modern CPU from intel or AMD will give you.
I know cinebench isn't a game but it's a consistent indicator of single thread performance, which is still critical in most games.
 
So it sounds like temporarily dealing with bottlenecks on the new GPU whilst waiting to do a new build. Fair enough.
It would make more sense if GPU prices were great and there's plenty of great value options, but funnily enough I feel it's the other way around (some good CPU/motherboard/RAM options).

In this current situation, I wouldn't want to recommend much in the way of new stuff. I would certainly wait till the new 4070S, etc release from Nvidia in the hopes that it makes prices better or gives you better options.

Otherwise, right now, a reasonable choice would be a 7800XT for under £500. Close to twice the performance of that 2070S, when there's no bottlenecks of course. If it were still possible to find them, then a 6950XT under £600 would be even better but at this point I think they've all gone.

If Raytracing is important, then a 4070 might be a bit better if one is willing too accept worse performance than a 7800XT in most non-Raytracing. But personally I wouldn't feel it's worth investing in Raytracing yet, not till 1080p60 on ultra Raytracing is possible on GPUs in the mainstream pricing range.
 
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Don't think a CPU bottleneck is necessarily a problem on it's own, if it's good enough to hit comfortable framerates in the games you are playing, it's fine.
 
paradigm said:
Oh, it wasn’t a dig, I’m genuinely trying to work out which direction is the best value for money!

No issue at all with buying used, however making sure that a particular board design is waterblock compatible is a PITA, unless reference design of course. How bottlenecked would a 3090 be?
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When going for upgrades I tend to 'tick tock' with a graphics upgrade, sometimes even two then CPU/Board/RAM and carry over the graphics card then upgrade the graphics again. I had an i7 6700k that went 1080, 2070 Super and then 3080 and saw a significant bump in performance every time. Then I carried over the 3080 into my new 5950x, 32GB & X570 build. When I get round to a graphics upgrade in a couple of years time I'll keep the rest and then upgrade that in 2026 or 2027.
 
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I can whole heartedly recommend an RX6800 at present with the prices they are down to (£350-400 new).

I went from a 3060ti (bit quicker than a 2070S) to one and was absolutely blown away! the overall performance gains were massive and you have that 16GB of RAM for futureproofing too :)
 
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