• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Processor Longevity

rossiboy001

rossiboy001

rossiboy001

Associate
Joined
6 Jan 2011
Posts
893
Location
Stoke on Trent
Considering an upgrade cause I want PCI gen3 for a planned SLI 980ti"s to run triple 144hz. Getting an ivybridge i7 availability I haven't found many options even famous auction sites for UK sellers. Have asked this question a couple of times but so far no answer.
Are any of the current top of line processors, amd or intel, capable of lasting to the point that these CPU"s will run 3x12k triples and 144hz at good settings on A list titles such as future Battlefields. Of course GPU technology would prob mean right now I would need quad 980ti"s and even then not sure if that could obtain 144fps in demanding games at that resolution.
It seems. Of course its not that realistic right now, but GPU"s are improving much much faster than CPU"s. I would like to think that in say 3-4 years time its very likely that an SLI or even single card top end solution might be viable. Therefore upgrading now would be worth it to use gen 3 along the journey till this time. Without in a couple of years having to upgrade again on the way to 4k triples?
 
Thanks for the link. I have been told that it would significantly cut down the performance of two 980ti"s. But with this information as hard evidence 3-5% is as you say not. Thing is I dont need to upgrade the whole platform just swap out my 2700k for the ivybridge equivalent as I am already on a Z77 board.
But still this is only a temporary issue to the main question So your saying adding a 2nd 980ti would boost a 2700k to full SLI capability minus a Couple of % ?
 
Sorry, I didn't get your point until I read up a bit. (For others wondering, Z77 has PCIe 3 only with an Ivybridge CPU, weird!)

If I were you I'd buy all your monitors and GPUs first. Chances are, you'll still be way off saturating the PCIe link and your 2700K will keep up (is it overclocked?). If it doesn't, CPU upgrade and you're away.

To answer your final questions directly - I see absolutely no point in upgrading your CPU now in case the PCIe bandwidth is needed down the road. Chances are there'll be some other reason to upgrade by then.
 
Yeah Z77 was the changeover from PCI gen 2 to Gen 3. It could take the older sandybridge or the brand new (at the time ivybridge) I got a sandybridge 2700k instead, cause I was not impressed with the temps on the new CPU. At the time on 680"s as the top card, we were a long way off saturation. Now someone mentioned the other day on another thread but the current 980ti is equivalent to 3 680"s I have had some say that even though the CPU 2700k is strong enough, especially at 4.5ghz that the bandwidth would bottleneck quite a bit. However someone else posted a comparison with a 980 and there was like 5fps at max worse. But a 980ti at 1400mhz x 2 in sli say is still quite a reasonable jump over the 980 to evaluate. But secondly puttin all GPU questions aside can todays CPU"s have the horsepower to run 3 triple screens at 4k with 144mhz and good settings?
 
joeyjojo said:
What makes you think PCIe 3 will perform better than 2 in those circumstances? The difference is usually between 0 and 5%. Hardly worth a platform upgrade.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/pci_express_scaling_game_performance_analysis_review,13.html
Click to expand...

Your link shows 980's only - considering the 980ti is a much faster card, the difference between PCI-E V2 and V3 would be even larger, most likely a 10-15% loss in performanec on V2 speeds.

Once the next gen cards launch (which should be at least 50% faster than a 980ti) the difference will continue to grow and grow.
 
Dave2150 said:
Your link shows 980's only - considering the 980ti is a much faster card, the difference between PCI-E V2 and V3 would be even larger, most likely a 10-15% loss in performanec on V2 speeds.

Once the next gen cards launch (which should be at least 50% faster than a 980ti) the difference will continue to grow and grow.
Click to expand...
 
Thats what I was thinking, we now for top end GPU"s at the end of the road or will be by the next offerings for PCI gen 2. Which is a shame cause the 2700k im sure is more than capable in processing, it just wont be able to get it to the GPU fast enough soon. I think it will be ok for single solution still at x16 gen 2 for at least another generation of GPU"s.
 
Dave2150 said:
Your link shows 980's only - considering the 980ti is a much faster card, the difference between PCI-E V2 and V3 would be even larger, most likely a 10-15% loss in performanec on V2 speeds.

Once the next gen cards launch (which should be at least 50% faster than a 980ti) the difference will continue to grow and grow.
Click to expand...

It doesn't work like that, and you've pulled those numbers out of thin air. In fact it's the opposite - as GPUs get more powerful the difference will decrease, because more powerful GPUs mean higher screen resolutions, which results in less bottleneck from the PCIe link.

Note a 2% difference from v3 x16 to v2 x16 at 1080p, but no measureable difference between them at 4k: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GTX_980_PCI-Express_Scaling/21.html

SLI Titans: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Impact-of-PCI-E-Speed-on-Gaming-Performance-518/



If you want to get into the nitty gritty OP, as well as the gen, the number of lanes is key. So if your board can currently do PCIe v2 x8/x8 then I'm sure you'll be fine for a while. You're worrying too much.
 
Last edited:
Dave2150 said:
Your link shows 980's only - considering the 980ti is a much faster card, the difference between PCI-E V2 and V3 would be even larger, most likely a 10-15% loss in performanec on V2 speeds.

Once the next gen cards launch (which should be at least 50% faster than a 980ti) the difference will continue to grow and grow.
Click to expand...

If the difference was caused by the 980 only just maxing out the bandwidth this would make sense - but in that case, gen 1 would be massively slower but isn't.

From the same review we see that a 980 uses 7% of the bandwidth of 2.0 x16 so even if a 980Ti uses twice as much (14%) and SLI doubles this (28%) and next gen doubles it again (56%) we've still got spare bandwidth :)

The gains shown are suggested to be from latency gains, which should remain roughly linear regardless of card speed.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom