0-20k Will GPU upgrade help in Old desktop

[theagilecoder]

Specs:
CPU: i5 6600K (OC to 4.4 GHz) (4C/4T)
GPU: Inno 3d 1080Ti
Asus MB and 16 GB DDR4 ram

Right now no issues in the GPU or CPU temps wise and can play all AAA in 1080p or even 1440p with medium details. But in some titles such as Alan wake 2 and Senua's Saga Hellblade 2, 1080ti has started showing signs of age. If I upgrade to newer low/mid range GPUs, will it perform better than 1080ti or cpu will bottleneck ?

 

[nRiTeCh]

Seeing the age 1080 has served its life. You are better off with a 3060ti or even a 2080 for a good bargain rates or 4060 if you wish to stick to the top releases.

 

[Heisen]

Invest in CPU+mobo first. That CPU is almost 10 years old.

If not satisfied.

Then buy GPU which offers double the performance of 1080ti for nice gains.

 

[theagilecoder]

Invest in CPU+mobo first. That CPU is almost 10 years old.

If not satisfied.

Then buy GPU which offers double the performance of 1080ti for nice gains.

Yes so it will be a CPU + mobo + cooler + Ram upgrade. I feel I may have to build an entirely new different system haha.

 

[Hachune]

Yes so it will be a CPU + mobo + cooler + Ram upgrade. I feel I may have to build an entirely new different system haha.

Your CPU is already bottlenecking the 1080 Ti i am sure. But obviously not in every instances/games. Your GPU is still a great performer but your CPU, not so much. Upgrade that first and you can still probably use the 1080 Ti for quite a while depending on the games u play.

 

[n1r0]

If I upgrade to newer low/mid range GPUs, will it perform better than 1080ti or cpu will bottleneck ?

With newer 8GB cards, the VRAM might become the bottleneck. Remember your 1080ti has 11GB.

As to figure out whether you are CPU or GPU limited currently try this:

• Install Afterburner from MSI site only
• Open Afterburner, enable OSD
• Fire up Alan Wake
• Disable V sync
• When your fps drops, check GPU usage percentage

If it's less than 90%, upgrade your CPU

If it's always greater than 95% upgrade your GPU

You can find VRAM usage for AW2 here (time stamped)

 

[PunkX 75]

A 1080Ti is close to a 3060 in performance. The 6600K is way too weak (for any modern/ish game), even for a 1080ti to be utilized efficiently. A platform upgrade will give you higher performance than a GPU upgrade would, in this scenario.

 

[Skyh3ck]

Invest in a new build... It's very very old now

 

[Kaching999]

You should invest in a new CPU, Mobo and RAM instead, you will be very surprised on seeing the performance gains that will bring, imo the 1080ti is the one getting bottlenecked here and will perform much better with a newer gen cpu. Btw what's the budget for your upgrade?

 

[theagilecoder]

You should invest in a new CPU, Mobo and RAM instead, you will be very surprised on seeing the performance gains that will bring, imo the 1080ti is the one getting bottlenecked here and will perform much better with a newer gen cpu. Btw what's the budget for your upgrade?

Can you help me out with the numbers I have captured in the attached snaps in various games to see if the CPU or GPU is getting bottle necked.
Would you say can I get a decent setup in 20-25k for new CPU, Mobo, CPU cooler and Ram in that ? It seems I would have to build a new system altogether.
I was hoping to just change one component but I do understand a quad core even with a healthy overclock cant do much I guess nowadays.

 

[n1r0]

If it's always greater than 95% upgrade your GPU

^^

Only in a couple of 1080p games are you able to hit 75fps, which I guess is your screen refresh rate
In all other cases you are GPU limited

 

[theagilecoder]

^^

Only in a couple of 1080p games are you able to hit 75fps, which I guess is your screen refresh rate
In all other cases you are GPU limited

Yes that is my refresh rate. On 1440p, I have seen the CPU util is slightly lower and GPU is always at 100%. Is something faulty with the quad core ? or its just the GPU is weaker compared to it ?

 

[Heisen]

Would you say can I get a decent setup in 20-25k for new CPU, Mobo, CPU cooler and Ram in that ?

Why are you including RAM, you already have it 16 gigs DDR4, you only need CPU + motherboard.

 

[n1r0]

Yes that is my refresh rate. On 1440p, I have seen the CPU util is slightly lower and GPU is always at 100%. Is something faulty with the quad core ? or its just the GPU is weaker compared to it ?

There will always be a bottleneck in your system somewhere no matter your specs: if it's not the GPU, it will be the CPU, else RAM, else VRAM, else SSD (in case of huge games with high res textures), else your monitor (response time, refresh rate).

Currently your bottleneck is the GPU.

• If you upgrade the GPU first, you will see only a slight improvement in fps since the CPU will become new bottleneck. As you can see the CPU usage is quite high, especially for newer games.
• If you upgrade the CPU first, you will see no improvement in fps since the limiting factor is GPU, it can't magically run above 100% (consider anything >95% as 100)

For modern games you need both new GPU + new CPU, but if you can upgrade only one at a time, better go with GPU first. Once you upgrade CPU too, you will get to use the full power of the new GPU.

Try to avoid <12GB VRAM GPUs. Else the VRAM will become the bottleneck, and you won't be able to increase settings even though you have a more powerful GPU

 

[Kaching999]

If you only play Single player story based games or games which highly GPU intensive you can keep the same cpu and upgrade only the GPU, but if you play any games like CS Go, rocket league, FIFA and other types of games which require simulation you would be better off upgrading the cpu first, you could get the 12400f with a motherboard for around 15k, if you can spend around 18k more after that you can also get the 6700xt. Check this FS thread:

https://techenclave.com/threads/ryz...-hdplex-250w-gan-atx-psu.221309/#post-2540520

 

[theagilecoder]

There will always be a bottleneck in your system somewhere no matter your specs: if it's not the GPU, it will be the CPU, else RAM, else VRAM, else SSD (in case of huge games with high res textures), else your monitor (response time, refresh rate).

Currently your bottleneck is the GPU.

• If you upgrade the GPU first, you will see only a slight improvement in fps since the CPU will become new bottleneck. As you can see the CPU usage is quite high, especially for newer games.
• If you upgrade the CPU first, you will see no improvement in fps since the limiting factor is GPU, it can't magically run above 100% (consider anything >95% as 100)

For modern games you need both new GPU + new CPU, but if you can upgrade only one at a time, better go with GPU first. Once you upgrade CPU too, you will get to use the full power of the new GPU.

Try to avoid <12GB VRAM GPUs. Else the VRAM will become the bottleneck, and you won't be able to increase settings even though you have a more powerful GPU

Noted. Looks like >12 gb GPUs are a rarity atleast in my budget. Ill try to see if a used 6700 XT can be had. I will keep the cpu+gpu upgrade at the back of my mind, looks inevitable now haha.

 

[theagilecoder]

Thanks to all to help me decide what should I upgrade. Got a local deal of 25k for a 2 year old RX 6800 reference, so took it.
I then thought of analysing how much performance I would be losing by pairing this strong card with an ancient quad core i5 6600K.

I used this RX 6800 benchmark in latest AAA titles @1440p by zWORMz gaming :

This guy is using 7800x3D as the CPU, and no upscaling with highest details with no RT in all the games. I copied the settings as it is for all games.
This is how my and his numbers look like in the following games:

Game	Settings	FPS by zWORMz gaming	My FPS (Pics with adrenalin overlay)
RDR2	1440p native	80s	80s
Ghost of Tsushima	-do-	70s	70s
Alan wake 2	-do-	40s	50s
Horizon forbidden west	-do-	60s	60s

Am I doing something wrong? Looking as his overlay his 7800x3d is running below 50% util where is my quad core is running at >90% in almost all games.
What I can read here is that my CPU is not causing any performance loss to RX 6800, no bottlenecking.
So, as of now I dont need to upgrade anything else, correct ?

 

[n1r0]

Am I doing something wrong? Looking as his overlay his 7800x3d is running below 50% util where is my quad core is running at >90% in almost all games.

The CPU usage percentage comparison is irrelevant as long as GPU usage can go >=95%. Obviously a more powerful CPU will show less usage % compared to a less powerful CPU. If it didn't, then there would be no point of upgrading at all.

However with high CPU usage, there's more possibility of getting stutters in busy areas of the game. But until/unless that happens to you, don't worry about the CPU and just enjoy the new GPU

For reference my OC'd 3770k was perfectly fine for every game I played except a couple of simulators, due to which I had to upgrade.

 

[Heisen]

You have 25% overclock on that processor from 3.5 to 4.4 GHz. It is working on it's full potential. If you have things running in the background I am sure the card will bottleneck.

Games do run fine on 4 cores, but remember your mouse, sound, network etc drivers are running on core 0, if you had 6 or 8 core processor, you can leave the core 0 dedicated to windows tasks and shift the game to the other cores. Game will still use the same amount of cores, but now you will have better frame times if you care about that stuff. FPS will remain the same, but the game does feel more smoother.

A slight bottleneck on GPU is no big deal, real problem begins when you card is only giving half the FPS it's capable of.

 

[theagilecoder]

The CPU usage percentage comparison is irrelevant as long as GPU usage can go >=95%. Obviously a more powerful CPU will show less usage % compared to a less powerful CPU. If it didn't, then there would be no point of upgrading at all.

Noted and ya true! I have not been facing any issue in getting the GPU usage to >98% in the benchmarks and games I have tried so far.

However with high CPU usage, there's more possibility of getting stutters in busy areas of the game. But until/unless that happens to you, don't worry about the CPU and just enjoy the new GPU

Yes, as of now didnt see any stutters as of now but will keep this in mind. I have read about AMD GPUs being more forgiving to older CPUs as they dont offload scheduling to the CPU and I may be seeing this action. Relief to ignore the CPU/mobo as of now , the cable managament would have been such a hassle in a 10L case.

For reference my OC'd 3770k was perfectly fine for every game I played except a couple of simulators, due to which I had to upgrade.

OC represent ! Buying a K sku paid off to some extent I guess for us.