Time to upgrade due to bottleneck? Advice please

jonessa · 2 Mar 2021 at 16:41

So, this woeful tale starts with my PSU failing. I decided to buy something decent in preparation for an eventual upgrade (1000w Seasonic) in order to replace it.

I then (partly on a whim) managed to bag a 3060 last week at launch.

I've installed it and i'm.... underwhelmed. The performance increase compared to my 1070ti currently seems fairly average. I'm now guessing my ageing i5 4690k needs replacing - I'm assuming this is causing a bottleneck?

I think I could probably stretch to a 10850 with a good Motherboard, Cooler and 32 gig of fast RAM.

Any advice or recommendations?

PC is purely used for casual gaming (Warzone, Metro Exodus, GTAV). I have a good in-win case, and SSD's. Budget Max of £900 really.

Thanks in advance

bagleyboy · 2 Mar 2021 at 16:49

The 4690k would be a bit long in the tooth, go for the 10850 if you want to spash but you could live with the 10600k if you wanted to save a bit of money. Also depends what res you're running at really, tried it at 1440p where it's less reliant on the CPU?

JohnG7 · 2 Mar 2021 at 16:54

Ok it is an i5 not i7 but OC it to near 5GHZ you can get, like above try 1440p and 4k using DSR to see if things change, is the 3060 (non Ti really much an upgrade or side grade over a 1070Ti)?

jonessa · 2 Mar 2021 at 16:56

bagleyboy said:
The 4690k would be a bit long in the tooth, go for the 10850 if you want to spash but you could live with the 10600k if you wanted to save a bit of money. Also depends what res you're running at really, tried it at 1440p where it's less reliant on the CPU?

Yeah - running at 1440p doesn't seem to really improve it, especially in warzone. I'm not particularly clued up on which games are more CPU intensive these days, but i'd imagine they probably perform better on a newer processor with more than 4 cores! My 1070ti had quite a good overclock on it; i'm also surprised to see my score in Valley benchmark has only increased by about 400 points. When I jumped from a 970 up to the 1070TI, the increase was about 1800 points!

Happy to hear thoughts on a matched 10600/mobo/RAM combination.

Cheers

jonessa · 2 Mar 2021 at 16:59

JohnG7 said:
Ok it is an i5 not i7 but OC it to near 5GHZ you can get, like above try 1440p and 4k using DSR to see if things change, is the 3060 (non Ti really much an upgrade or side grade over a 1070Ti)?

I'm beginning to see it as a fairly minor upgrade. Given the price I've managed to sell my 1070ti for, it was relatively inexpensive (circa £100) given it's the latest Gen.

However, for new tech, i was expecting more and hoping the CPU bottleneck has something to do with it. (It's an I5 running a stable 4.3ghz overclock)

mickyflinn · 2 Mar 2021 at 17:00

Hi

The 3060 isnt much of an upgrade conpared with a 1070ti maybe 20 % faster

jonessa · 2 Mar 2021 at 17:05

mickyflinn said:
Hi

The 3060 isnt much of an upgrade conpared with a 1070ti maybe 20 % faster

But are you suggesting that the CPU isn't the issue here?

JohnG7 · 2 Mar 2021 at 17:25

i5 @ 4.3GHZ in not much an OC so will be a bottleneck on some GPU's/game engines, only you can tell if you OC it and try those other RES's.

Joxeon · 2 Mar 2021 at 17:43

jonessa said:
But are you suggesting that the CPU isn't the issue here?

The CPU will be holding you back in games like warzone which like cores so a 10850k should be a decent improvement and is reasonably priced right now.

JohnG7 · 2 Mar 2021 at 17:44

Just a shame to upgrade now with new kit not too far way.

mickyflinn · 2 Mar 2021 at 17:53

jonessa said:
But are you suggesting that the CPU isn't the issue here?

Depends what resoloution your gaming at 1080p cpu power is important to push those framerates and faster memory.

3060 Im suggesting isnt enough of an upgrade as most reccomened at least 30% performance upgrade to be worth while.

The 3060 ti is about 50% faster than your 1070ti.

jonessa · 2 Mar 2021 at 18:24

JohnG7 said:
Just a shame to upgrade now with new kit not too far way.

There's "not too far away" and then there's "available to buy". I think £100 for a brand new card with an extra 20% was a fair price to pay. 4000 series sounds nice, but at what price/availability? I can't see the silicon shortage getting much better in the next 12 months.

JohnG7 · 2 Mar 2021 at 19:31

You are assuming I meant GPU's I am talking about CPU's, I am waiting on Intel AlderLake (Sep 21 AFAIK) but new ones soon seem good enough for the likes of you due to your i5 or just go AMD.

I think your new GPU was waste of money, should have gone at least 3060Ti or ideally 3070 (please do not come back saying you cannot get one, I know all this), you gained RT but that card will be too slow for RT even I get crap FPS with RT on in COD-BO-Cold War with a 3090.

Joxeon · 2 Mar 2021 at 19:38

JohnG7 said:
You are assuming I meant GPU's I am talking about CPU's, I am waiting on Intel AlderLake (Sep 21 AFAIK) but new ones soon seem good enough for the likes of you due to your i5 or just go AMD.

I think your new GPU was waste of money, should have gone at least 3060Ti or ideally 3070 (please do not come back saying you cannot get one, I know all this), you gained RT but that card will be too slow for RT even I get crap FPS with RT on in COD-BO-Cold War with a 3090.

Trading in a 1070ti + 100 quid isn't that bad of a deal for a 3060 especially in the current climate, you gain warranty, 20% performance and DLSS which may come in handy depending on the games you play. It will also hold value better than a 1070ti when cards become more readily available.

ASMB · 2 Mar 2021 at 19:57

You play some demanding games, the 3060 is a nice bump for £100, although it is a 1080p card and may benefit from settings turned down in some very recent games. You are right that 4 core processors are starting to struggle in some games. I would buy the intel 11400f (hopefully reviews March, perhaps available April), motherboard and 16 or 32GB of ram as you will be bottlenecked by the gpu rather cpu with these. Save the difference to the 10850 for your next upgrade.

jonessa · 2 Mar 2021 at 20:00

JohnG7 said:
You are assuming I meant GPU's I am talking about CPU's, I am waiting on Intel AlderLake (Sep 21 AFAIK) but new ones soon seem good enough for the likes of you due to your i5 or just go AMD.

I think your new GPU was waste of money, should have gone at least 3060Ti or ideally 3070 (please do not come back saying you cannot get one, I know all this), you gained RT but that card will be too slow for RT even I get crap FPS with RT on in COD-BO-Cold War with a 3090.

Horses for courses I guess. If you can buy a 3090 you've clearly got enough spare cheddar to get all of the latest tech whenever you want.

. I'd love a 3090, but can't justify £2k on a card that will likely only be used for a few hours a week. Alderlake will require the latest in Mobo tech, the latest in RAM and everything else. I'd also agree that the 10850 will probably be a good buy for the "likes of me" now. Prices have settled on that gen across all required components, so that's where i'll be putting my money for now I reckon.

jonessa · 2 Mar 2021 at 20:05

ASMB said:
11400f (

ASMB said:
You play some demanding games, the 3060 is a nice bump for £100, although it is a 1080p card and may benefit from settings turned down in some very recent games. You are right that 4 core processors are starting to struggle in some games. I would buy the intel 11400f (hopefully reviews March, perhaps available April), motherboard and 16 or 32GB of ram as you will be bottlenecked by the gpu rather cpu with these. Same the difference to the 10850 for your next upgrade.

Good tip on the 11000 series - I'm not in a rush, but i'm fearful prices will still be pretty high (despite some sources stating they will actually be cheaper than previous gen?) Is there going to be a similar issue with stock and price inflation above what has been quoted though?

ASMB · 2 Mar 2021 at 23:05

The leaked price suggests a 2.1% increase on the 11400f compared to the 10400f. We don't know how the change from 10th to 11th gen intel will pan out. There could be stock shortages on launch. Or it might further reduce the price of the 10th gen and you might want to buy that instead. I suspect that if there is an initial shortage of 11400f on launch it shouldn't take too many weeks to clear. I have heard that the bigger shortage has been on intel motherboards lately.

Either a 10400f or 11400f is a good match to your gpu with the 11400f being that bit more future proof as it has newer, faster design

Intel 11th Gen Core Rocket Lake-S CPUs: Euro pricing leaks - CPU - News - HEXUS.net