GPU Upgrade: 30XX Impact

CTX-SLPR · September 19, 2020

Howdy folks,

Just to start this out, I don’t have a dying card so patience is an option for me. Usage case is my primary desktop for gaming and SolidWorks useage. I play mostly older titles and not really the first person shooters, I do however play games that I want to look nice and have long draw ranges so the scenery never jumps in on me to break the immersion. SolidWorks is stuck at 2016 as they dropped the “two seat” rules allowing me to have a work license and home one installed and active when we got new licenses at work with SW18 so it’s not GPU accelerated like SW19+ is but I still run large models with 80+ parts and lots of organic shapes as I’m mainly futzing around with air intake parts, interior bits, and suspension setups for my car hobby.

Current system:

i5-8600K, Noctua NH-U14S, Asrock Z370 Extreme4, 2x8Gb TridentZ 3200 on XMP, Samsung 850 Evo due for an upgrade to a 970 Pro 1Tb, EVGA GS2 650 PS, various backup HDDs that provides local backup storage for the families computers via the home LAN. GPU is a 1070 FE that I got basically a week after the 1080 came out with someone upgrading.

I’m running 2x Dell U2410’s that are also maybe due for a replacement with a similar but high refresh and IPS monitor pair.

With Ampere (30XX) coming out that’s opening up those cards as a new option and the used market swelling with Turing based cards it’s probably time to think about upgrading. I’m leaning towards the used 2080 Tis as they have more VRAM and seem to be hitting the same price point that the 3070 will be which is about as low down the stack as I want to go. I’ve not OC’d the 8600K beyond XMP yet as I just upgraded to the Noctua cooler last month from a woefully inadequate Zalman. What are y’alls thoughts? Keep the 1070 and prioritize the displays? Wait for Big Navi to further swell the used market? See if NVidia throws a 3070+ (whatever that ends up being called) in to the mix?

Thanks

tikker · September 19, 2020

If you can wait I'd wait. Both big navi and the 3070 are right around the corner, so no harm in waiting for them to see what they do. Especially since the 2080 Ti and 3070 are supposedly very similar, so if you can get the newer architecture that's a plus.