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Is a modern GPU (eg: NVidia 4070) a total waste of time on an old CPU (eg: Intel I7 4790K)? - Anyone running a modern(ish) GPU on an old CPU?

NeilF

NeilF

NeilF

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I currently have an Intel I7 4790K with an NVidia 1070. It's been running everything fine (@1440p) until recently, where now, even on lowest detail, I'm finding Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is a tad laggy/juddery at times. The GPU is reading 90+% in use and giving about 45-60fps. The 8 CPU cores seem less than half used, but with one being about 70-75% in use.

yLCWUZx.png


I was planning on upgrading to an NVidia 4070, but my fear is it will have minimal impact on the performance of say CoD:MW2. With a suggestion on another thread I change my resolution down to 720x480 and my frame rate only increased minimally, while the GPU usage seemed to drop significantly down. That said, in blurry 720x480 even though the frame rate was still much the same (55-70), it did seem smoother somehow unless I was imagining it!?


So, I'd hate to spend all that money (£500+) and not get that extra bit of actual smoothness of frame rate/game play I'm after. But if it does improve visual quality and give me a smooth(er) 75fps, then bingo! (Yes I know a modern CPU could double/tripple performance)

Is anyone able to comment on this? ie: Anyone running a modern(ish) GPU on an old CPU like mine?


ps: One option I am looking in to is to see if I can get a friend who has an I7 processor (not quite as fast as mine) but with a 3070 will let me try CoD:MW2 on his PC to get a feel of how it then performs. ie: Because if it seems OK, my 4790K with a 4070 will only be better still.
 
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The 4070 will give you much better average framerates but a CPU is going to give higher minimums and smooth out some of that lag, given your current setup I would seriously consider I full system upgrade. The other thing I would say is if your playing a lot of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 equivalent Radeon cards will give 15% better performance.
 
NeilF said:
So, I'd hate to spend all that money (£500+) and not get that extra bit of actual smoothness of frame rate/game play I'm after. But if it does improve visual quality and give me a smooth(er) 75fps, then bingo! (Yes I know a modern CPU could double/tripple performance)
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I think you'll be disappointed in "smoothness", as that's generally caused by dips in minimum frame rate, and frame pacing - both of which are issues that newer CPUs with higher IPC and more cores will solve.

On the plus side, the 4790K is at least clocked fairly high (4.0Ghz-4.4Ghz), and due to Intel's relative stagnation after that, generationally performance (IPC) didn't increase significantly until more recent generations (e.g. 10th gen). The downside is it only has 4 real cores (although it does at least have Hyperthreading for 8 threads), but a lot of game engines have now moved to engines that benefit from at least 6 cores (if not 8).

You can often "offset" CPU bottlenecking to some degree by dialing up settings like Antialiasing and Texture filtering to make the Graphics card work harder but without adding any real CPU load, which gives you better visual quality, but it won't benefit framerates.


Personally a 4070 will be a waste of money - a 4060 (or Radeon 6600XT/6650XT/6700) would probably provide a similar "benefit" for less than half the cost (and you could put the money saved towards a CPU/Motherboard/RAM)
 
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I ran my 3090 on my 5930k x99 system for a while when I first got it. It was great to be honest but it's a fair bit better than your cpu I think.

I only upgraded my cpu and motherboard because people kept telling me I 'should cos you have a 3090', and whilst it is better, it's not miles better for most games.
 
Probably very game dependent, but I recently played through RDR2 at 1440p with a 7900XT and all graphics settings maxed out, paired with an I5-6600K (quad core, no HT). Ran really well other than an occasional odd mouse lag in the main city and not entirely sure what caused that but could live with it. I do plan to upgrade the remainder of my system at some point though so not an entirely overkill GPU.
 
There's been several posters on here that went with high-end GPUs (upgrading 1080/1080 Ti) in 6700K builds and it was fine, decent gains, but obviously it is going to depend on the game and specifically with MW2: I have no idea.
 
Wouldn't bother with anything faster than a 3070 personally - I was using a CPU of that era but 6 core/12 thread with a 3070 and heavily overclocked and it was OK but in CPU limited scenarios could be anywhere up to 20% CPU bottlenecked - at 1440p or 4K generally less so - but the CPU was tapped out to keep up with the 3070.

Problem is a lot of games have outgrown 4 core/8 thread now unless you turn settings down to the point having something faster than a 1080/2060 is kind of pointless.

EDIT: The jump from the 1070 to the 3070 was huge in a lot of cases, but anything faster than a 3070 is definitely wasted with your CPU.
 
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CuriousTomCat said:
Just buy the 4070 and if your CPU is maxed out then replace it. Simples.
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Problem with that is £

A whole new system (which is what we're then talking about) is like £1500, plus all the migration/setup hassle etc.

Meanwhile, a mate of mine has moved to consoles because of this very reason, where a PS5 or XBox Series X can be had for less than the price of a 4070.
 
NeilF said:
Problem with that is £

A whole new system (which is what we're then talking about) is like £1500, plus all the migration/setup hassle etc.

Meanwhile, a mate of mine has moved to consoles because of this very reason, where a PS5 or XBox Series X can be had for less than the price of a 4070.
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Unless you're really wedded to PC's a console makes a lot more sense financially in that case. Keep the PC for basic stuff and the console for games. Even a cheap PC these days is pretty expensive for the average person.
 
OK! Form a line to slap me :)

While looking around my PC's config, I noticed in the BIOS my memory was running at 1600mHz. It's 2400mHz memory. The manual mentioned you could enable XML memory via a switch on the motherboard. I did this, a light came on and then my memory seemed to be running at its full speed.

It's been like that (wrong and under performing) since I built the system 9yrs ago :)

In CoD:MW2...

Before (about 62fps):-
yLCWUZx.png


After (about 75fps vsync is on):-
qN0GuSm.png


That's a 15-20% increase :)
 
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NeilF said:
OK! Form a line to slap me :)

While looking around my PC's config, I noticed in the BIOS my memory was running at 1600mHz. It's 2400mHz memory. The manual mentioned you could enable XML memory via a switch on the motherboard. I did this, a light came on and then my memory seemed to be running at its full speed.

It's been like that (wrong and under performing) since I built the system 9yrs ago :)

In CoD:MW2...

Before (about 62fps):-


After (about 75fps vsync is on):-


That's a 15-20% increase :)
Click to expand...
That's a great result and free performance. I've always said most issues with PC's are user related ;) and I don't exempt myself from that either!
 
NeilF said:
Problem with that is £

A whole new system (which is what we're then talking about) is like £1500, plus all the migration/setup hassle etc.

Meanwhile, a mate of mine has moved to consoles because of this very reason, where a PS5 or XBox Series X can be had for less than the price of a 4070.
Click to expand...
If a 4070 will clear out your bank account then perhaps get a 4060?

I wouldn't want to waste money on an expensive GPU like a 4070 either.

If a console can serve all the needs of your mate then I'm curious why he chose a pc in the first place. The stuff I do can't be done on a console like installing mods in Skyrim and playing FPS games with a mouse etc
 
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CuriousTomCat said:
If a 4070 will clear out your bank account then perhaps get a 4060?

I wouldn't want to waste money on an expensive GPU like a 4070 either.

If a console can serve all the needs of your mate then I'm curious why he chose a pc in the first place. The stuff I do can't be done on a console like installing mods in Skyrim and playing FPS games with a mouse etc
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For the sake of an extra £150 the 4070 seems a seems a sensible 1440p performance boost over the 4060.

If in a few years time it then finally makes sense for me to splurge another £1000 on a PC, then a 4070 will at least be a reasonable card for it.


My mate is in the same boat as me. ie: An old PC which would have cost four figures to replace. Hence him going PS5 to cater for modern games. And yes, I am concerned about going down a console route for the stuff (& certain game titles) that is PC only.
 
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random_matt said:
Upgrade the rest first. I always threads such as these as desperation, no offense intended to you and others.
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Understood, but, "the rest" is over four figures?

ie: A graphics card should hopefully give a reasonable boost in visuals speed/quality wise, with nothing more complicated than unplugging the old card and plugging the new one in, for say £500.

Where as, "the rest" will result a total system rebuild/transfer (& I have a lot of stuff as I have web development stuff and the like), for say £1200.

And all for what at the moment is CoD:MW2 having lower visual quality/speed than I'd ideally like. £1200 just doesn't seem justifed to me for that one current quibble. £500 to iron out the current issue and buy me some more time seems more logical? Or just give in and get a console?
 
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QUESTION: Would a modern GPU actually free up any processing from the CPU that older GPUs wouldn't?

ie: Is there hardware on say a 4070 that isn't on a 1070 that would then mean my CPU would be doing less with a 4070 than with a 1070? So a game (or D3D12 etc) realises hardware X is available on the 4070 and uses it, instead of the CPU having to perform that processing?

Make sense?
 
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