Can I get away with JUST upgrading my GPU?

[MazeofPines]

It's time I upgraded my GPU, and I'm wondering if someone knows if I can just upgrade the GPU and keep all my existing components,
or will I need to upgrade something else for my PC to be compatible with the new GPU?
 

Here are my current specs:

Budget (including currency): €1400 (for GPU)

Country: Ireland

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for:  
GAMES: For Honor, Kingdom Come Deliverance, SCUM
WORK: Video editing, 2D animation (TB Harmony), 3D (Blender). 

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

No peripherals needed
CPU:  Intel Core i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz, 3301 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s)
 MB: MSI X99A Raider
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980
RAM: 32GB (x4 HyperX DDR4 2134 MHz)
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO series 500GB // 
HDD: 4TB Seagate 
CHASSIS: Phanteks Eclipse 350x
PSU: Cooler Master B700 v2 700W 80 plus PSU
COOLER: Scythe Shuriken Rev.B Low-Profile CPU Cooler
MONITORS: (main) LG 27in 1920x1080 144 Hz refresh rate // (secondary) BenQn 25in 1920x1080 60 Hz

My plan is to upgrade from my GeForce GTX 980 to an RTX 3080Ti,
I'm looking for advice about whether my current components will be compatible with a GPU upgrade, or if anything might limit my experience.

Thanks

[goatedpenguin]

4 minutes ago, MazeofPines said:

It's time I upgraded my GPU, and I'm wondering if someone knows if I can just upgrade the GPU and keep all my existing components,
or will I need to upgrade something else for my PC to be compatible with the new GPU?
 

Here are my current specs:

Budget (including currency): €1400 (for GPU)

Country: Ireland

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for:  
GAMES: For Honor, Kingdom Come Deliverance, SCUM
WORK: Video editing, 2D animation (TB Harmony), 3D (Blender). 

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

No peripherals needed
CPU:  Intel Core i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz, 3301 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s)
 MB: MSI X99A Raider
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980
RAM: 32GB (x4 HyperX DDR4 2134 MHz)
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO series 500GB // 
HDD: 4TB Seagate 
CHASSIS: Phanteks Eclipse 350x
PSU: Cooler Master B700 v2 700W 80 plus PSU
COOLER: Scythe Shuriken Rev.B Low-Profile CPU Cooler
MONITORS: (main) LG 27in 1920x1080 144 Hz refresh rate // (secondary) BenQn 25in 1920x1080 60 Hz

My plan is to upgrade from my GeForce GTX 980 to an RTX 3080Ti,
I'm looking for advice about whether my current components will be compatible with a GPU upgrade, or if anything might limit my experience.

Thanks

I think it is not vice at all to go 3080ti without upgrading cpu as your current cpu is gonna be a bottleneck

[tkitch]

you should do some analysis on if your CPU cores are capping or if your GPU is capping.

 

If your CPU is your limiting factor, upgradng the GPU won't do anything.

[johnt]

I was in the same boat. I had a 5820k and bought a 3070 ti. For some reason I just felt compelled to upgrade and I kinda regret it. I say buy your GPU, test it, and see how you like it before spending more money on other components. Your PSU should be able to handle it. What do you have to lose?? Yes you are going to leave some performance on the table but so what?

 

If I might recommend a monitor upgrade along with your GPU. If you plan on sticking to 1080p panels, consider the 3070ti instead and save like half the money.

[dj_ripcord]

Just my opinion, and I am not basing this off of anything but my own experience. I do believe you will be noticing a bottleneck by trying to run a current-gen GPU with a 5th gen CPU. That's pretty old by today's standards and I don't think it will run an RTX 3080 very well.

Unfortunately, your motherboard only will support up to a 6950X. So you would be looking at both a CPU and MB upgrade in addition to your GPU upgrade.

Just my two cents. The GPU will work, but you almost certainly will be limited by your CPU.

[An0maly_76]

I agree with ripcord -- Better to be GPU bound than CPU bound.

[jaslion]

Step one is to get a much better psu. Like a rm850 at the very least. Probably wanna go higher because of step 2.

 

Step 2 overklock the snot out of your cpu those go to 4.4 ghz with ease and it's a MASSIVE performance ugprade.

 

Then well add whatever card you like it will do quite well.

[cmndr]

You'll probably be mostly fine, especially if you're running at higher resolutions. It is likely worthwhile to overclock to the CPU to around 4-4.5GHz though.

You have a 6 core CPU which SHOULD give it an edge over something older like a 6700k (only 4 cores). Similar story for more memory channels.

At 4K with a 3080 it's basically a 20-way tie for performance. The old 4 core CPU is only a few percent slower than the top of the line 12900k.

 

On a similar note, at 1080p... not THAT far off either.


 

If I had to guess, you'll usually get about 75-85% of the performance vs if you had something newer like a 5800x or 12600k. I wouldn't be surprised if frame consistency is a bit worse though.

These figures are from around 2 weeks ago so they're fresh. On the 1080p page, the WORST "average" shown was 77FPS. So your worst case scenario should be more than fine.

Source: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-ryzen-5-5600/15.html

[Jorgemeister]

I would go for it, worst case scenario you end up with better performance but getting bottleneck by the processor, and you were always going to upgrade CPU+MOBO+RAM+PSU ahead, maybe you even win some time to wait for the new gen of processors

[johnt]

I'm going to add that it really depends on what you play and how much performance you want. If you perpetually play uncapped frames on everything then you should probably upgrade everything. It gets too hot in the summer for me to care about chasing frame rates, so I cap my frames to 60fps or so and my 3070ti runs games at like 70% and 50 to 60C depending on the game.

[cmndr]

21 minutes ago, johnt said:

I'm going to add that it really depends on what you play and how much performance you want. If you perpetually play uncapped frames on everything then you should probably upgrade everything. It gets too hot in the summer for me to care about chasing frame rates, so I cap my frames to 60fps or so and my 3070ti runs games at like 70% and 50 to 60C depending on the game.

bit of a tangent to this topic but you can also limit the TDP of your video card as well. In a lot of cases you can cut the power draw by like a third and still get 90% of the performance.

I did it to my 2080 and I feel it makes a difference when it comes to heat and fan noise. Has basically 0 impact on the games (like 10-20 years old) that I play since my monitor caps at 4K 120Hz.

[MazeofPines]

Wow! Thanks a lot for the responses guys, 
I've a lot to think about here, I do eventually plan to upgrade most everything, just can't afford it right now  

Sounds like i'll try overclocking CPU and buy a solid GPU, with the end goal of upgrading the rest

Cheers!

[goatedpenguin]

If you strongly think you do only want to upgrade your gpu only I highly recommend that u upgrade your psi to overclcok your cpu to at least compensate for the bottleneck if you are comfortable with it but I strongly think you should upgrade your pc as a whole

[goatedpenguin]

1 minute ago, MazeofPines said:

Wow! Thanks a lot for the responses guys, 
I've a lot to think about here, I do eventually plan to upgrade most everything, just can't afford it right now  

Sounds like i'll try overclocking CPU and buy a solid GPU, with the end goal of upgrading the rest

Cheers!

Ok that’s fine and happy overclocking your cpu

[MazeofPines]

What Watt PSU should I be looking for if i'm upgrading to 3080Ti and overclocking the CPU?

[Ryuikko]

5 minutes ago, MazeofPines said:

What Watt PSU should I be looking for if i'm upgrading to 3080Ti and overclocking the CPU?

I'd agree what @jaslionsaid and to get a quality 850 watt at the very least for the cpu oc. I'd personally say a 1000w psu for 3080ti transient power spikes but 9 times out of 10 a quality 850 would be fine 

[johnt]

8 minutes ago, MazeofPines said:

What Watt PSU should I be looking for if i'm upgrading to 3080Ti and overclocking the CPU?

Just use your 700w and see where it gets you. I wouldn't push your CPU more than 4.0 GHz and then you should comfortably maintain the 3080ti. Honestly these folks telling you to buy a better PSU instead of a new monitor for a 3080ti is causing issues in my soul lol

[cmndr]

21 minutes ago, MazeofPines said:

What Watt PSU should I be looking for if i'm upgrading to 3080Ti and overclocking the CPU?

If you want to take a short-term shortcut (especially since you would be a little heavy on the GPU side anyway) you could probably just lower the TDP limit on the GPU.  If the peak power draw of your GPU is something like 350W on its own, you could probably get away with just lowering it to 250-300W or so. You'd give up very little performance.

https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/msi-afterburner-beta-download.html

 

For what it's worth a lot of good 700W PSUs SHOULD be fine for the 3080Ti, though it is admitedly borderline. The issue isn't so much the sustained load but rather the transient peaks (very quick power surges). Some PSUs handle those better than others (imagine a 500W ATX 3.0 PSU being able to shoot to 750W for 1/10th of a second without problem).

There's probably SOME value in holding off a PSU upgrade until ATX 3.0 PSUs start rolling out anyway. A decent PSU SHOULD be able to last you years and years anyway (including your current one). Note I have not researched your specific PSU model in particular so try to do a little bit of fact checking.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/631851/atx-3-0-explained-why-intel-gave-power-supplies-their-first-overhaul-in-20-years.html

 

https://wccftech.com/msi-next-gen-meg-power-supplies-are-atx-3-0-standard-ready-designed-to-sustain-3x-power-excursions-next-gen-gpus/

 

Intel, nVidia and a few others have all worked towards this spec and it SHOULD cut confusion in the future AND reduce the need for overkill PSUs (buying a 1000W PSU for a system that spends 99.999% of its life well below 1000W)

[jaslion]

40 minutes ago, johnt said:

Just use your 700w and see where it gets you. I wouldn't push your CPU more than 4.0 GHz and then you should comfortably maintain the 3080ti. Honestly these folks telling you to buy a better PSU instead of a new monitor for a 3080ti is causing issues in my soul lol

NO. It's a b700. That is a psu you DO NOT want to overload. It is so cheap it only does 230v. DO NOT USE A 3080 ON THAT.

[jaslion]

37 minutes ago, cmndr said:

If you want to take a short-term shortcut (especially since you would be a little heavy on the GPU side anyway) you could probably just lower the TDP limit on the GPU.  If the peak power draw of your GPU is something like 350W on its own, you could probably get away with just lowering it to 250-300W or so. You'd give up very little performance.

https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/msi-afterburner-beta-download.html

 

For what it's worth a lot of good 700W PSUs SHOULD be fine for the 3080Ti, though it is admitedly borderline. The issue isn't so much the sustained load but rather the transient peaks (very quick power surges). Some PSUs handle those better than others (imagine a 500W ATX 3.0 PSU being able to shoot to 750W for 1/10th of a second without problem).

There's probably SOME value in holding off a PSU upgrade until ATX 3.0 PSUs start rolling out anyway. A decent PSU SHOULD be able to last you years and years anyway (including your current one). Note I have not researched your specific PSU model in particular so try to do a little bit of fact checking.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/631851/atx-3-0-explained-why-intel-gave-power-supplies-their-first-overhaul-in-20-years.html

 

https://wccftech.com/msi-next-gen-meg-power-supplies-are-atx-3-0-standard-ready-designed-to-sustain-3x-power-excursions-next-gen-gpus/

 

Intel, nVidia and a few others have all worked towards this spec and it SHOULD cut confusion in the future AND reduce the need for overkill PSUs (buying a 1000W PSU for a system that spends 99.999% of its life well below 1000W)

The b700 is anything but a good psu. It was made to be as cheap as possible.

[cmndr]

6 minutes ago, jaslion said:

NO. It's a b700. That is a psu you DO NOT want to overload. It is so cheap it only does 230v. DO NOT USE A 3080 ON THAT.

If you live in Europe that doesn't matter and could be a slight plus.

I'm not saying it's a great PSU but not having redundant circuitry is usually a good thing.

[jaslion]

10 minutes ago, cmndr said:

If you live in Europe that doesn't matter and could be a slight plus.

I'm not saying it's a great PSU but not having redundant circuitry is usually a good thing.

It's not a plus it's such a basic feature it being removed is concerning. This psu is TERRIBLE. It's on of the only E TIER units. it has practically no protection and can easily go up in actual flames.

 

DO NOT PUSH THIS THING.

 

Like just scroll down it's there B2 (so B700 V2)

 

 

Op don't do it replace it or you will end up with a DEAD computer.

[cmndr]

Fair. As stated, I didn't look up that specific unit.

I also am biased towards assuming that others cheap out in the same ways that I cheap out (the last time I "cheaped" out on a PSU I believe it was in the B tier on that list). The difference between something in the B tier (on sale) and the E tier (every day low price) is a few dollars.

[jaslion]

13 minutes ago, cmndr said:

Fair. As stated, I didn't look up that specific unit.

I also am biased towards assuming that others cheap out in the same ways that I cheap out (the last time I "cheaped" out on a PSU I believe it was in the B tier on that list). The difference between something in the B tier (on sale) and the E tier (every day low price) is a few dollars.

Thing is this psu when new wasn't priced low. More mid tier. When it came out it was competing with the corsair cx series and all the b series had over the cx was a higher wattage number by 50-100.

[cmndr]

13 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Thing is this psu when new wasn't priced low. More mid tier. When it came out it was competing with the corsair cx series and all the b series had over the cx was a higher wattage number by 50-100.

I believe it. My reference point for a "meh" PSU is basically a corsair CX - which "works"

I'd still expect a PSU to not blow up at its rated wattage if it passes 80 plus, since it needs to be 80% efficient at that level for the duration of the certification.