GPU upgrade advice

[HP24]

Hello all,

 

I built my pc about 5 years ago (I think) with a Ryzen 2600 and a Gtx 1070ti but recently it's starting to struggle (COD MW2, Jedi Survivor) and I was wondering what would be a worthwhile upgrade ( I like to play at minimum 60fps at 1080p medium to high settings).

 

I only really use my desktop for gaming so I was planning on upgrading my GPU but I'm not sure what would be a decent value for money. I'd prefer not to spend over 300 GBP but I would be willing to spend more if it will last me for a few years. I've had to put quite a steep OC on my 1070ti to make COD playable, and even then the settings are rather low.

 

Secondary question, what would be the best GPU I could get before I start to get a CPU bottleneck?

 

Thanks for all your help :)

[WallacEngineering]

45 minutes ago, HP24 said:

Secondary question, what would be the best GPU I could get before I start to get a CPU bottleneck?

 

Hmmm, the biggest issue here is that anything modern and decent will bottleneck at least a little bit on the old Ryzen 2600. Its a lower-end CPU and very old at this point.

 

Also, 300 GBP isn't a whole lot for a modern GPU, you will be restricted to lower end, previous generation cards, however this will alleviate a bit of the bottleneck.

 

I would strongly consider saving for an entire new system, but if that is not possible, the AMD RX 6700-XT 12GB is really the only option anywhere near your price point.

 

The RTX 3060 non-Ti is around the same price but only offers 8GB of RAM and much lower performance. 8GB of RAM is starting to become an issue in modern games. Star Wars: Jedi Survivor is actually one of the worst games for VRAM right now, you will want more than 8GB.

 

I assume you are in the UK based on the GBP thing. This is slightly over budget but is probably the very most powerful thing the Ryzen 2600 can handle without a SIGNIFICANT bottleneck:

 

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/9K4Ycf/msi-radeon-rx-6700-xt-12-gb-mech-2x-oc-video-card-radeon-rx-6700-xt-mech-2x-12g-oc

[Bombastinator]

The most important question is to drive what?  A 1070ti is of similar speed to a 5700xt which is of similar speed to. 6600xt. There are minor differences and on the whole is slower, but but fairly close.  A video card of that power level should be good for 1080p high refresh or maybe 1440p low refresh depending.  If you’re running a 1080p monitor and you’re having trouble I suspect it’s your cpu not gpu that is the potential problem.  If you’re running 1440p you’ll likely have to do both.

[WallacEngineering]

@HP24

 

Here is what the 6700-XT will fo for you as long as you turn up settings so that the CPU isn't super bottlenecked:

 

In general, it offers about 50-75% more graphical horsepower in most games.

 

@Bombastinator I had a 5700-XT before I upgraded to this new PC just a few weeks ago (see signature). Its actually a bit faster than an RTX 2070 and only a HAIR off the 2070-Super, like literally 1-2%.

 

 

[Bombastinator]

Like I said, fairly close.  The question is what monitor are you trying to drive with this card?  All the cards mentioned are more-or less of a class these days: higher end 1080p cards. What motherboard and what bios update it has may also matter if you upgrade that instead.  You might be able to do a 5600 or 5700 which would more-or-less shoot any cpu based problems in the face.  What board you have may matter for that though.

[HP24]

13 hours ago, WallacEngineering said:

 

Hmmm, the biggest issue here is that anything modern and decent will bottleneck at least a little bit on the old Ryzen 2600. Its a lower-end CPU and very old at this point.

 

Also, 300 GBP isn't a whole lot for a modern GPU, you will be restricted to lower end, previous generation cards, however this will alleviate a bit of the bottleneck.

 

I would strongly consider saving for an entire new system, but if that is not possible, the AMD RX 6700-XT 12GB is really the only option anywhere near your price point.

 

The RTX 3060 non-Ti is around the same price but only offers 8GB of RAM and much lower performance. 8GB of RAM is starting to become an issue in modern games. Star Wars: Jedi Survivor is actually one of the worst games for VRAM right now, you will want more than 8GB.

 

I assume you are in the UK based on the GBP thing. This is slightly over budget but is probably the very most powerful thing the Ryzen 2600 can handle without a SIGNIFICANT bottleneck:

 

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/9K4Ycf/msi-radeon-rx-6700-xt-12-gb-mech-2x-oc-video-card-radeon-rx-6700-xt-mech-2x-12g-oc

Yeah, I initially thought that I was being CPU bottlenecked because it's the lesser of the two components but all my issues with COD stopped when I just turned down the in-game settings and OC'ed the GPU so that's what made me think that it was GPU upgrade time.

 

As for the cost, the last time I bought a GPU was this 1070ti and I got it for 185 GBP on eBay so looking at modern GPU prices has me pretty shocked, it's not necessarily that I can't spend more than 300 GBP but I would feel pretty irresponsible to do so given my personal situation.

 

Thanks for the link I'll be sure to check it out.

[HP24]

13 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

The most important question is to drive what?  A 1070ti is of similar speed to a 5700xt which is of similar speed to. 6600xt. There are minor differences and on the whole is slower, but but fairly close.  A video card of that power level should be good for 1080p high refresh or maybe 1440p low refresh depending.  If you’re running a 1080p monitor and you’re having trouble I suspect it’s your cpu not gpu that is the potential problem.  If you’re running 1440p you’ll likely have to do both.

I'd be driving a 1080p 24' 144HZ display as of now. As I said in another response I thought it was a GPU issue because when I turned the settings down in COD and then OC'ed the 1070ti it stopped stuttering and became shockingly playable in comparison

[HP24]

13 hours ago, WallacEngineering said:

@HP24

 

Here is what the 6700-XT will fo for you as long as you turn up settings so that the CPU isn't super bottlenecked:

 

In general, it offers about 50-75% more graphical horsepower in most games.

Ah I see, that's the sort of upgrade I'd be looking for, do you think I would see those sorts of performance increases even with my current CPU or would it bottleneck?

[HP24]

13 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Like I said, fairly close.  The question is what monitor are you trying to drive with this card?  All the cards mentioned are more-or less of a class these days: higher end 1080p cards. What motherboard and what bios update it has may also matter if you upgrade that instead.  You might be able to do a 5600 or 5700 which would more-or-less shoot any cpu based problems in the face.  What board you have may matter for that though.

I currently have a B450 board so I don't think I have a direct upgrade path unless I update the bios which would allow me to go to Zen 2? 

[WallacEngineering]

32 minutes ago, HP24 said:

Ah I see, that's the sort of upgrade I'd be looking for, do you think I would see those sorts of performance increases even with my current CPU or would it bottleneck?

It depends on your settings. If you crank visual details, it will show a huge difference over the 1070-Ti, however at higher FPS and lower resolution, the bottleneck will rear its ugly head.

[NekoBubbles]

We're probably looking at the most budget upgrade with a perfmon boost. Right now that would be hashing it out in the used 3060 RTX's if you want nvidia and the 6700XTX is the AMD equivalent atm. Both used in the current market would run you though SUPER SUPER close to your budget fyi. Now there maybe a slight VERY SLIGHT CPU bottle neck but this would be a great baby step towards eventually just fully upgrading the rest of your PC's kit. 

[Bombastinator]

4 hours ago, HP24 said:

I currently have a B450 board so I don't think I have a direct upgrade path unless I update the bios which would allow me to go to Zen 2? 

Almost all b450s work fine with ryzen3.  It’s the 3 series boards that are iffy.  Got to have the bios update of course.  Easy enough to do though.

[HP24]

7 hours ago, NekoBubbles said:

We're probably looking at the most budget upgrade with a perfmon boost. Right now that would be hashing it out in the used 3060 RTX's if you want nvidia and the 6700XTX is the AMD equivalent atm. Both used in the current market would run you though SUPER SUPER close to your budget fyi. Now there maybe a slight VERY SLIGHT CPU bottle neck but this would be a great baby step towards eventually just fully upgrading the rest of your PC's kit. 

Ah I see, I think balance is key for me here because I don't want to waste money on a really good GPU if my CPU is going to bottleneck it but equally not sure if a full upgrade is worth it, I'm honestly even considering buying an Xbox as it might work out cheaper for a better experience, especially since I only use it for gaming

[Bombastinator]

38 minutes ago, HP24 said:

Ah I see, I think balance is key for me here because I don't want to waste money on a really good GPU if my CPU is going to bottleneck it but equally not sure if a full upgrade is worth it, I'm honestly even considering buying an Xbox as it might work out cheaper for a better experience, especially since I only use it for gaming

The ryzen3 (rather than th ryzen3d chips) are all under $200 atm.  Even a used 3600x would be a big bump.  Might as well go with ryzen3 as it’s not that much more and your board will take it though.  A 5600 will mean no bottleneck period for anything currently out.  There may be an issue vs a 5700 come a few years when the ps5/XboxX is starting to EOL.  That won’t be for a while though. Some b450 boards are fine with an 8 core chip and some aren’t.  You probably need to find out what your board will take and be happy.

[WallacEngineering]

4 hours ago, HP24 said:

Ah I see, I think balance is key for me here because I don't want to waste money on a really good GPU if my CPU is going to bottleneck it but equally not sure if a full upgrade is worth it, I'm honestly even considering buying an Xbox as it might work out cheaper for a better experience, especially since I only use it for gaming

 

Honestly, it won't bottleneck at higher settings. In the real world, almost nobody actually ever sees bottlenecks. You might be one of the very few who sees a small bottleneck throwing a 6700-XT into a Ryzen 2700 system at higher FPS.

 

But at like 100 FPS and lower (higher settings) you just won't see anything. CPU bottlenecks happen when FPS is so high, that the CPU can't keep up with how fast the GPU is rendering frames.

 

This is how and why major hardware reviewers test CPU gaming performance. They get a massively powerful GPU (RTX 4090 right now) and put the games on 1080p medium-high settings. In theroy, the 4090 could run like literally 1000 FPS, but the CPU just can't handle that much information coming through that quickly.

 

You could run an RTX 4090 with your Ryzen 2700 and see only a small bottleneck if you crank 4K resolution to Ultra settings with Ray-Tracing and force that frame rate to come down.

 

The point is - if you upgrade your GPU only, just push higher settings. If you upgrade your CPU too - then you might as well wait and by an entire new system.

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, WallacEngineering said:

 

Honestly, it won't bottleneck at higher settings. In the real world, almost nobody actually ever sees bottlenecks. You might be one of the very few who sees a small bottleneck throwing a 6700-XT into a Ryzen 2700 system at higher FPS.

 

But at like 100 FPS and lower (higher settings) you just won't see anything. CPU bottlenecks happen when FPS is so high, that the CPU can't keep up with how fast the GPU is rendering frames.

 

This is how and why major hardware reviewers test CPU gaming performance. They get a massively powerful GPU (RTX 4090 right now) and put the games on 1080p medium-high settings. In theroy, the 4090 could run like literally 1000 FPS, but the CPU just can't handle that much information coming through that quickly.

 

You could run an RTX 4090 with your Ryzen 2700 and see only a small bottleneck if you crank 4K resolution to Ultra settings with Ray-Tracing and force that frame rate to come down.

 

The point is - if you upgrade your GPU only, just push higher settings. If you upgrade your CPU too - then you might as well wait and by an entire new system.

Depends.  Am4 is still quite functional.  A 2700 is slower than a ps5/XboxX which has a hotted up 2700, whereas a 3600x is faster but is 6/12 instead of 8/16 as most games are aimed and the consoles they represent a minimum bar.  Getting over that bar can make a big difference. There is an argument for making the thing games capable, and then waiting for the next iteration of the consoles to see what comes up.  The chances a very very high that nothing available now or in the next year will even be able to play whatever the console vendors settle on.  A ps5/XboxX is more-or-less a hotted up 2700 with a 5700xt video card.  So beat that and you’re golden as long as they are current.  Companies COULD make games that need more powerful hardware, but they most likely won’t.  Myself I did a 12700 (mostly because I got a reaaaaly good deal on the cpu) and a 3800xt.  I could have gone higher, but I didn’t see any reason to. It’s comfortably faster than anything a current console can put out so it will work fine until the consoles change.  If I was building something today I might go 5700x and a some AMD 3 series card.  So far everything in the 4 series with the exception of the 4090 is awful and that’s overpriced.  Was just watching a video on hardware unboxed comparing the 3950 and the 4070 as they’re currently the same price.  With ray tracing off the 3950 crushed it.  With ray tracing on it was about where it should be.  Since most games don’t have worthwhile ray tracing currently, the 3950 is the winner imho.

Edited May 24, 2023 by Bombastinator