Finally time to upgrade my 980 Ti to midrange current GPU.

[Nothin]

Hello,

Getting the urge to try Cyberpunk and a few other games that I've been putting off until I upgraded my 980 Ti.

The AMD RX 7800 XT, Nvidia RTX 4070 and 4070 Super are in the range of what I am willing to spend but what complicates my decision is that as with the 980 Ti I've not upgraded my CPU or RAM since 2015.
Apart from games the PC still does everything I need it to for work and entertainment.
If I find the CPU and RAM are hitting the performance too much after putting in a new GPU I'll upgrade (after a couple of months of research).

The prices from the lower end manufacturers are around;
7800 XT £400 to £450
4070 £450-£500
4070 Super £500-£550.
I've checked out reviews and performance videos and there seems to be quite a bit of overlap in some of the results, which complicates things further.

Current desktop PC specs are Nvidia GTX 980 Ti GPU, Intel i7-5930K 6 core CPU running at 4.5Ghz, X99 MB, 16GB DDR4 RAM (4x4GB) and 850W PSU.
Main monitor is 1440p but I occasionally use my 4K tv, both 60Hz.

I guess my questions are;
Would any of these cards be less susceptible to causing a bottleneck in performance given my PC spec?
Currently, in your opinion is the 4070 Super worth £100 more than the 7800 XT (only need 60fps)?
Finally, anything happening in the next couple of months that would cause prices to drop? I've read about the 5000 series possibly being released in March but it's too far off.

Sorry if these questions have been asked before and thanks for any help.

 

[Nothin]

You might wana upgrade the cpu as it might hold back a chunk of fps with a gpu like those.

Intel is releasing i think battlemage gpu thats aiming to match a 4070 next month i think i read recently.

Yeah, if I have to, I have to but it's such a good CPU, it clocks up to 4.75Ghz at really low voltage, not that I've ever run it at that for any length of time.
Equal performance for less money you say? I'll definitely have to look into the new Intel card, thanks.

After a substantial amount of research I'm probably going down the 7800XT road. The 4070 are quite a bit more money and understand only viable if Ray tracing is important for you. However, I'm still waiting for prices to drop! Everything is so expensive!

I totally agree, in 2015 I bought a top of the range consumer GPU for under £500 then the market just went mental, now top of the range costs £2000.
I suspect partly because there wasn't enough competition to keep Nvidia honest.
Only now do I feel slightly confident that I can get a good performance bump for almost reasonable money.

No, not if you are happy with 60 fps, but opinions on the merit of DLSS versus FSR vary.


HUB did quite a bit of testing on the previous gen cards (RTX 3000 versus RDNA2/RDNA) and found that nvidia has a higher driver overhead that makes quite a lot of difference with older CPUs, though I'd still be inclined to buy your preference rather than going AMD just because of that (especially since Windows/driver updates can change things, you might upgrade your CPU and I'm not sure if those results still apply with RDNA3 versus Ada).

Thanks, good to know I can get a decent framerate on the cheaper card but I'm still considering Ray Tracing and the other features.
I watched some RT comparison videos and there were a lot games I could barely tell the difference but with rain puddles in Watch Dogs Legion it really showed so, I don't know lol.


Thanks for all the replies.

 

[Nothin]

I'm not convinced it is worth considering RT, because realistically how long are these cards going to push playable frame rates with RT enabled? If you were buying a 4080/4090, I do get it, but a 7800 XT?

That said, if games start to make RT a bigger deal than just a few reflections or whatever, it could end up being the difference between playable and not playable.

Yeah, the more I think about it, RT performance probably isn't going to be an issue for me beyond playing Cyberpunk tbh.
I've never really put great importance on amazing graphics, I won't tell you what game I'm currently playing but it runs in DosBox so not exactly a looker.

The 7800 XT might not last me 9 years like the 980 Ti has but hopefully it'll do me until acceptable 4k performance comes to midrange cards.
Just got to ignore the voice telling me to get a 16GB 4070 Ti Super.

Thanks

 

[Nothin]

Keep your current board and just drop in a used 5960x, they are still really good today and although they may hold you back a bit the extra cores and cache will help. They are very cheap now and then you avoid upgrading everything at once.

My MB will actually take a 10 core 6950X lol, there's a bunch of old PC's with them in being sold on ebay for about £250+.
If I do end up needing to upgrade the CPU I'll definitely keep an eye out for a cheap 5960X if it'll make a difference, thanks.

 

[Nothin]

That 5930k at 4.75 might still be quite good you know and you've got your quad channel memory too. If you're 1440p or above I say get the card first, but new card are due out in the new year...are there any old games you can play 'til then?

Yeah, will wait and see how it copes with a new GPU first.

Older games aren't a problem, still got to work my way through the Stalkers, the Metros a couple of the Bioshocks and although I own most of the Assasin's Creeds I'm only half way through Brotherhood.
Just really got the urge to play Cyberpunk, huge fan of futuristic Sci-Fi.
Thanks.

 

[Nothin]

I've been using an i7 6800K (@ 4 Ghz; also only dual channel 16 GB) with an RX 6800, and also 4K 60 focused for a long time, until recently so I can help you better than most probably. For Cyberpunk, go Nvidia, it's just that simple. The amount of extra tweaks you can do through the better RT performance & DLSS quality (which btw is a huge boon here as FSR is generally more prone to obvious shimmer and the like in this title, and XeSS is sometimes better but has its own weaknesses few ppl recognise) is huge, and even with something like a 4070 you can get near-pathtracing results while maintaining a decent framerate. In general you can lock 60 fps most of the time with your CPU, adding RT puts extra strain on the CPU but outside of crowd-surfing in specific spots for the purposes of CPU benchmarking it doesn't matter. I am very strongly against recommending RDNA 3 (unless stupidly low priced), it's just not competitive and AMD shows no appetite for putting up a fight. If you don't want to wait for Feb/March new GPUs then just go for the 4070/S and you won't regret it.

Thanks a lot for all the data, really appreciate it.
If it wasn't for the 12 GB VRAM I'd jump on the 4070 Super at £499.99 but as I tend to upgrade infrequently, a 16GB card might give it a bit more legs.
But as you say Nvidia seems to have the better features.
Maybe the prices on Black Friday will make my mind up for me.
Thanks

 

[Nothin]

If you're ok with reduced warranty:

**B-GRADE CLEARANCE AND FORUM DEALS**

Hi, Looking to get a deal and save some pennies then why not check out the clearance section on our website or just click here. As part of a forum deal I'm looking to open up my b-grade sections to offers. A lot of prices are reduced heavily already so if I can't match the offer I will...

forums.overclockers.co.uk

etc...

Keep the savings towards a platform upgrade

Thanks for that.
Out of curiosity would they be likely to knock well over £100 off the price for the 4070 Super?
The asking price is a lot more than they sell the non B Grade ones for.

 

[Nothin]

Just want to say thanks again for all the information and advice although unfortunately I didn't find a good deal in the sales.
I realise now that it's too close to the 8000/5000 releases to spend serious money but will be keeping an eye out for a second hand 7x00 XT or 4070 going cheap so at least I'll be able to play Cyberpunk at ok settings.
In 4-6 months once everything has calmed down and prices/supply have stabilised I'll look into a complete PC upgrade and get something for the long term again.

I really enjoy doing all the research into upgrading but damn is it time consuming.

Cheers.

 

[Nothin]

I know it's above your budget

I don't really have a budget, not saying I'm rich just don't have kids.

I know it's above your budget, but I too only just moved from a 980ti. Purchased at launch in 2015 for £500 and it served me well for 9 years. Adjusting for inflation that's £675 today according to the BOE inflation calc.

It doesn't make the sums any easier, but knowing that a 4070 ti super can be had new for £700 it felt like it stung less, and 3 years 0% didn't hurt either. The plan is for it to last as long as the 980ti.

If it wasn't for my 9 year old CPU and being so close to the new card releases I would definitely have bought a 4070 Ti Super and been happy for another 9 years.
I don't mind spending money but I have an almost genetic imperative to get the most for my money and from the advice people have given here, barring any amazing one off deals, now is not quite the best time for that.

I think I started my search a month or two late.

Cheers.

 

[Nothin]

The RX7800XT has been frequently under £400 in the last few weeks. AMD dGPUs still seem to do a bit better on older CPUs in DX12 games AFAIK.

Thanks,
Yeah I saw in the price history that some were as low as £382.50 in Sept. and Oct. but when I actually went to buy I couldn't find one under £450ish in stock.
Just too much of a difference for me to stomach.

 

[Nothin]

During Black Friday week you could get one for under £400. Keep a look out on some of the deal websites.

I won't ask you where from, site rules and all, but I honestly couldn't find one at that price on any of the price comparison sites I used.
Disappointed I missed it, would have good to have one during my Christmas time off.