Is it a bad idea to upgrade my GTX 1080 to RTX 3070 LHR when RTX 4000 series is coming?

jacques1mouton1 · August 3, 2022

Budget (including currency): GPU only: ZAR: 13 000 (roughly 777 USD). Full PC: ZAR: 30 000 (roughly 1800 USD)

Country: South Africa

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Games exclusively (including VR)

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):

Existing parts (never mined on):

i7 6700k (AIO watercooled)

16 Gb 3200 MHz RAM

Zotac GTX1080

800W Antec PSU

Resolution target: 1440p, 60 - 144 fps depending on the game.

All my peripherals are still good.

We all know how difficult it has been to buy pc parts the last 2 years. I was planning on waiting for the new releases from AMD (cpu) and NVidia (gpu) before upgrading later this year and basically replacing the whole computer, but now I found what I believe to be a really good deal on a RTX 370 LHR for ZAR 10 300 (roughly 615 USD). When I originally bought my 1080 new it cost ZAR 12 500 in 2017.

Retailers in South Africa seem to be heavily discounting RTX 3000 series GPUs in anticipation for the new 4000 release. What is your opinion, get a good deal now or wait for new releases with the possibility of not being able to get one or paying significantly more? I will probably also be able to sell my 1080 for a larger amount now compared to a few months from now. With gaming I don't think my CPU will be too much of a bottleneck until I upgrade it later in the year.

porina · August 3, 2022

We don't really know what the future will bring. If you get the 3070 it'll be a great step up from a 1080. You'll have plenty of performance for anything at 1440p as well as RTX. I'm using one for 4k and it is more 60fps tier there depending on the title.

The problem with waiting is we don't know how the new cards will perform, at what price. Will they be available or will we see a repeat of Ampere launch? Some have speculated they might start at the higher end so it could end up costing much more than a 3070. Do you need more performance than a 3070? A hypothetical similar 4060 might come much later. It would be nice to move on from a 6700k though, as IMO 6 cores is the performance entry level for modern games and 8 cores isn't much of a stretch and see you good for years to come.

PDifolco · August 3, 2022

Well imo it's not a great idea to upgrade a 1080 to 3070 *anyway* because the perf gain isn't that great, you may get around +30% perf which is not massive, 80fps to 60 or 130 to 100... and it'll cost you maybe $350 ($650 new 3070 to sell $300 used 1080)

Alex Atkin UK · August 3, 2022

9 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

Well imo it's not a great idea to upgrade a 1080 to 3070 *anyway* because the perf gain isn't that great, you may get around +30% perf which is not massive, 80fps to 60 or 130 to 100... and it'll cost you maybe $350 ($650 new 3070 to sell $300 used 1080)

You are thinking of the GTX 1080 Ti, the difference is much bigger from a GTX 1080 to RTX 3070.

_Omega_ · August 3, 2022

9 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

Well imo it's not a great idea to upgrade a 1080 to 3070 *anyway* because the perf gain isn't that great, you may get around +30% perf which is not massive, 80fps to 60 or 130 to 100... and it'll cost you maybe $350 ($650 new 3070 to sell $300 used 1080)

I'm upgrading from a 1080 to a 6700XT, i still want to sell my 1080 while it got at least some value. (And it's a EVGA FTW Hybrid and I worry that the AiO breaks at some point and I can only resell it for parts ;))

jacques1mouton1 · August 3, 2022

6 hours ago, porina said:

We don't really know what the future will bring. If you get the 3070 it'll be a great step up from a 1080. You'll have plenty of performance for anything at 1440p as well as RTX. I'm using one for 4k and it is more 60fps tier there depending on the title.

The problem with waiting is we don't know how the new cards will perform, at what price. Will they be available or will we see a repeat of Ampere launch? Some have speculated they might start at the higher end so it could end up costing much more than a 3070. Do you need more performance than a 3070? A hypothetical similar 4060 might come much later. It would be nice to move on from a 6700k though, as IMO 6 cores is the performance entry level for modern games and 8 cores isn't much of a stretch and see you good for years to come.

Well for better or worse I decided to get the 3070. There are a few games where my 1080 is struggling to meet fps at 1440p. I am mainly afraid that I won't be able to get a new gpu soon at all due to either pricing or availability in my country. I have been looking to upgrade for 2 years and this price drop was exactly what I needed.

As for the cpu, I will deal with the bottleneck for now and upgrade when the next generation comes out later this year. Cpus has for some reason much better availability in my country so I am not worried about waiting for that.

Thank you very much for the input.

jacques1mouton1 · August 3, 2022

6 hours ago, PDifolco said:

Well imo it's not a great idea to upgrade a 1080 to 3070 *anyway* because the perf gain isn't that great, you may get around +30% perf which is not massive, 80fps to 60 or 130 to 100... and it'll cost you maybe $350 ($650 new 3070 to sell $300 used 1080)

Unfortunately that 30% increase can give me a bump from barely 50 fps in cyberpunk to 80 fps. I know this is a bad example for performance as the game is so poorly optimized. But I have been putting off playing some other games as well with more eye candy since my 1080 can't give me the performance that I am looking for anyway. It will be nice to play Cyberpunk with any shadows at all and no amd sfx shimmer.