Should I bother upgrading to 3080?

[Macko939]

Hey guys,

 

I am trying to figure this out but I am struggling to come up with a conclusion.

 

Relevant parts in my pc:

GPU: RTX 2060S

PSU: 550W

CPU: Ryzen 5 3600X

RAM: 16GB 

 

I currently have 2060S by EVGA and I am eligible to use their "step up" program to upgrade to a 3080. I'll essentially get a full refund on what I paid for the first card, and have that money go towards a 3080 and I would only have to pay the difference.

I am perfectly happy with my current PC setup and it runs pretty much everything I want it to run, however, the step up will only cost me about £260-300 and I feel like I am perfectly happy to pay that for such a massive upgrade.

 

But now I am trying to figure out how is the rest of my system going to handle the 3080? I am thinking about upgrading as an investment, so further down the line I can build a new pc around that 3080 but for now I would be stuck using my current CPU, RAM etc.

 

I am currently using 1080p and I have no plans yet to upgrade to 4k, yet.

 

Is 3600X going to bottleneck the 3080 hard?

550W is not enough according to 3080 specs, would it still run for regular gaming at 1080p on that or is a new PSU a total must-have replacement, no questions asked? Or can I get away with using it for now and upgrade maybe when I go for 4k monitors or something?

Would you do it if you could upgrade a 2060S to a 3080 for around £260?

In general, if I went through with the upgrade, would there be any negative effects due to bottlenecking by CPU or would it simply put a "cap" on the max performance of the GPU?

 

pls help!

[Deli]

Your CPU is fine.

550w PSU isn't enough for 3080.

3080 for 1080p is a waste of money. Go 1440p 144Hz or 4K.

[bellabichon]

The rest of your system can handle the 3080, except for the power supply. Upgrade to a 750W unit from a reputable manufacturer. As for the card itself, I think the larger question is can you upgrade to a 3080, not if. Stock has been extremely limited. EVGA would probably accept your 2060 Super for the trade-up program now, but it's gonna take a few weeks for a decent amount of stock to become available.

[Moonzy]

6 minutes ago, Macko939 said:

Is 3600X going to bottleneck the 3080 hard?

at 1080p, yes, but it only means your games will run as fast as your CPU allows it, so well over 100FPS for most games.

 

6 minutes ago, Macko939 said:

550W is not enough according to 3080 specs

350W + 150-200W from your system, it's really near the full capacity of your PSU

you'll probably need an upgrade, even if its a good unit

but wait for other people more familiar with PSU to comment on this.

 

6 minutes ago, Macko939 said:

Would you do it if you could upgrade a 2060S to a 3080 for around £260?

search up your local 2nd hand sites for used 2060S, add it to £260, see if it's worth more than a new 3080.

also depends on your financial situation, how hard is it to get £260? it's up to you really

 

6 minutes ago, Macko939 said:

would there be any negative effects due to bottlenecking by CPU or would it simply put a "cap" on the max performance of the GPU?

only if you lack the threads to run the game, which you don't (6c/12t is a lot for games today)

 

personally, I would grab it if the price is right.

[Macko939]

11 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

 

 

search up your local 2nd hand sites for used 2060S, add it to £260, see if it's worth more than a new 3080.

also depends on your financial situation, how hard is it to get £260? it's up to you really

 

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

The price of a used 2060S + £260 is still well below the price of a new 3080, so I guess it's worth it? £260 isn't pocket change for sure, but it won't hurt too much especially in the long run...

The PSU is my biggest concern. I'd like to avoid getting a bigger one if I don't have to, or upgrade in the future when I am ready to go 4k.

 

 

 

11 minutes ago, bellabichon said:

The rest of your system can handle the 3080, except for the power supply. Upgrade to a 750W unit from a reputable manufacturer. As for the card itself, I think the larger question is can you upgrade to a 3080, not if. Stock has been extremely limited. EVGA would probably accept your 2060 Super for the trade-up program now, but it's gonna take a few weeks for a decent amount of stock to become available.

Yeah I've been accepted for a trade-in, but I need to wait in the queue until they're available again. 

[Moonzy]

3 minutes ago, Macko939 said:

The PSU is my biggest concern. I'd like to avoid getting a bigger one if I don't have to, or upgrade in the future when I am ready to go 4k.

resolution have little to do with PSU really

 

now, some people may scream at me, but you can limit your 3080's power consumption to lower than stock, since you dont need that much performance for 1080p anyways.

but this is a band-aid solution, the proper way is to upgrade to a capable PSU.

you really dont wanna risk burning out your entire system by a incapable PSU when it decides to die

[Panoramix97]

People wanting to buy rtx 3080 for 1080p....

 

Me with a 1070 on 1440p 0_0

[Macko939]

Looking at your feedback it looks like I'm gonna have to go with a new PSU too! is 750W OK?

[Moonzy]

2 minutes ago, Macko939 said:

Looking at your feedback it looks like I'm gonna have to go with a new PSU too! is 750W OK?

750-850W is fine, get a good PSU, you can find a list of good PSU in the Cases and Power Supplies subforum.

PSU Tier List it's called, it's pinned

 

do remember to quote when replying so i'll see it

[Macko939]

17 minutes ago, Panoramix97 said:

People wanting to buy rtx 3080 for 1080p....

 

Me with a 1070 on 1440p 0_0

To be honest, I am thinking about the upgrade simply because the step-up program makes it quite cheap for me, and I am thinking about future-proofing myself for 4k

 

 

3 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

do remember to quote when replying so i'll see it

will do!

 

 

 

So, assuming:

I get a 750-850W PSU and upgrade to 3080 and keep my 3600X (maybe OC a little perhaps?) 

 

Am I going to have a fully capable 4k setup or would the CPU be a problem? I've heard that a CPU plays a bigger role at 1080p than at 4k, is that true? 

Essentially what's going on here is that I want to upgrade the card  because I can do it for a price I am happy with (even if I need to get a new PSU) but I don't want to essentially replace my entire PC to accommodate that upgrade... I would like to be 4k capable though if I decide to go with this upgrade.

[Moonzy]

6 minutes ago, Macko939 said:

Am I going to have a fully capable 4k setup or would the CPU be a problem? I've heard that a CPU plays a bigger role at 1080p than at 4k, is that true?

yes

scaling up resolution doesnt really scale up CPU usage for games, usually (pretty sure there are exception to this rule)

 

8 minutes ago, Macko939 said:

I get a 750-850W PSU and upgrade to 3080 and keep my 3600X (maybe OC a little perhaps?) 

yea sure, though idk why would anyone OC a Zen 2 CPU, not much headroom and you loose the boost function

 

8 minutes ago, Macko939 said:

but I don't want to essentially replace my entire PC to accommodate that upgrade...

for now, a PSU + GPU is good enough, but you can look into upgrading to 4k60 or 1440p144/240, personally prefer the latter.

[Vishera]

1 hour ago, Moonzy said:

at 1080p, yes, but it only means your games will run as fast as your CPU allows it, so well over 100FPS for most games.

 

At 1080p the 3600X can run any game with over 100 FPS...

[Moonzy]

Just now, Vishera said:

At 1080p the 3600X can run any game with over 100 FPS...

i doubt flight sim will run at 100fps.

there are dumb games, so i wouldn't say ALL games, but MOST games.

 

unless that's not what you meant

[RejZoR]

For that money, hell yes. RTX 3080 is probably like 3x faster than that RTX 2060 Super. The upgrade would be so huge even Stevie Wonder could see it.

[Vishera]

Just now, Moonzy said:

i doubt flight sim will run at 100fps.

there are dumb games, so i wouldn't say ALL games, but MOST games.

 

unless that's not what you meant

In Microsoft's flight sim the CPU is capable of that,but you won't get there (100 FPS) if the GPU gets 40 FPS and bottlenecks it (near 100% usage).

[Moonzy]

1 hour ago, Vishera said:

In Microsoft's flight sim the CPU is capable of that,but you won't get there (100 FPS) if the GPU gets 40 FPS and bottlenecks it (near 100% usage).

i thought it was hitting the CPU hard?

 

right at the part i marked it to start, if not then 18:19

Spoiler

 

 

[Vishera]

36 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

i thought it was hitting the CPU hard?

 

right at the part i marked it to start, if not then 18:19

  Hide contents

 

 

Interesting,with the RTX 2060 Super it's GPU bound,but with the 3080 it's CPU bound due to poor optimization.

[Deli]

5 hours ago, DutchGuyTom said:

I don't agree with this. I think Moonzy's got it right on the money. 

 

Upgrading the GPU at 1080p will mean they get to play all games at the max framerate that the CPU can put out, which will be well over 100 fps. There are games where the 2060S can not run max settings at above 60 fps and this list will grow readily now that consoles have more than caught up with PC hardware. Also, if OP wants to utilize raytracing, they will now be able to do so comfortably. Finally, the 3080 will also be much more future proof than the 2060S.

 

I would make the upgrade if OP can also upgrade to a decent 750 W power-supply.

I kept my answer short. If I'm make it more detail. If OP wants to keep playing at 1080p. Upgrade to 3070 makes more sense. If he plans to move up to 1440p or 4K, well then go 3080.

 

I maintain upgrade to 3080 for 1080p is a waste of money. Just my opinion.

[Deli]

2 minutes ago, DutchGuyTom said:

Why is it a waste of money? Just because the performance at this point in time will be CPU bound does not mean there is no value in the 3080. Eventually at 1080p, the 3080 will outperform the 3070. Not only that, if OP gets the 3080 now they will be in a better position if they decide to upgrade to 1440p or 4K in the future.

 

Recommending the 3070 is also problematic since we don't even know how well it performs. To be honest, the 3080 was not so much of an improvement over the 2080 Ti that I think the 3070 will match it in performance. I anticipate it will be closer in performance to the 2080 or 2080 Super and that to me is in the "not enough of a performance increase to justify upgrading to" zone.

 

The problem is you're only thinking about the present value of upgrading and not the long term value. Now if you made the argument that since OP needs to upgrade their PSU, they should get the 3070 and spend what they saved on a better PSU, I could in theory get behind that. But I cannot from an empirical perspective agree that a 3080 is a waste of money. 

Do we really need to keep discussing this? You have your opinion. I have mine.

[Zberg]

14 hours ago, Macko939 said:

I am currently using 1080p and I have no plans yet to upgrade to 4k, yet.

 

Is 3600X going to bottleneck the 3080 hard?

Those are two good reasons not to get a 3080.  It is overkill for 1080p, and your 3600x probably would bottleneck it.  

 

I would either upgrade your monitor and consider the 3080, or just wait an get a 3070.  3070 should be a pretty good pairing with a 3600x.