Upgrading my RTX 2080 to 7900XT / XTX

[Geertdv]

Hi guys,

 

My trusty MSI RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio isn't really cutting it anymore. I play on a 34" AW3420DW (3440x1440, 120FPS) monitor.

 

I want to upgrade my GPU but facing a couple of questions. How much bottleneck is to be expected if I upgrade with keeping my current CPU. Also will my power supply be sufficient? 

 

Specs:

MSI Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon
Intel i7 9700k (stock)
be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4
MSI RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio
Corsair Vengeance DDR4 16GB 3200mhz
be quiet! Straight Power 11 750w
Intel 660p 1TB m2.ssd

 

Thanks!

[DoctorNick]

1 minute ago, Geertdv said:

Hi guys,

 

My trusty MSI RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio isn't really cutting it anymore. I play on a 34" AW3420DW (3440x1440, 120FPS) monitor.

 

I want to upgrade my GPU but facing a couple of questions. How much bottleneck is to be expected if I upgrade with keeping my current CPU. Also will my power supply be sufficient? 

 

Specs:

MSI Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon
Intel i7 9700k (stock)
be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4
MSI RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio
Corsair Vengeance DDR4 16GB 3200mhz
be quiet! Straight Power 11 750w
Intel 660p 1TB m2.ssd

 

Thanks!

PSU is fine. Bottleneck shouldn't be too bad at that resolution. I would go with the 7900 XTX as it's better value after the price cut IMO

[Geertdv]

1 minute ago, DoctorNick said:

PSU is fine. Bottleneck shouldn't be too bad at that resolution. I would go with the 7900 XTX as it's better value after the price cut IMO

Thank you for the quick response! I read a lot about the XTX needing a 850w minumum. Do I need to undervolt the GPU with my PSU?

[Dukesilver27-]

PSU should be okay, but if you upgrade the CPU later, depending on what CPU it is, might want to upgrade the PSU.

Bottleneck in this case would be very dependent on the game, more CPU intensive games would certainly have bottleneck even in 4K/UW 1440P.

Maybe if you don't enable FSR and enable RT on certain games, bottleneck won't be noticeable or eliminated all together.

[Geertdv]

2 minutes ago, Dukesilver27- said:

PSU should be okay, but if you upgrade the CPU later, depending on what CPU it is, might want to upgrade the PSU.

Bottleneck in this case would be very dependent on the game, more CPU intensive games would certainly have bottleneck even in 4K/UW 1440P.

Maybe if you don't enable FSR and enable RT on certain games, bottleneck won't be noticeable or eliminated all together.

 

Thanks for the quick reply! RT stands for RayTracing? I am not planning on using that.

[Dukesilver27-]

CP2077, Spider-man Remastered with RT enabled and FSR, maybe Starfield, BG3 would have some bottleneck, depending on the settings.

BG3 in ACT3 is quite bad, my GPU usage is sub 50% while CPU at 100%.

 

My 12400 and 6800 XT in 1440p have a bit of CPU bottleneck in all the titles above, 9700K with 7900XTX is somewhat comparable, 9700K being a bit slower than 12400 while 7900XTX is much faster than 6800 XT. So you will have worse bottleneck than me.

[Geertdv]

7 minutes ago, Dukesilver27- said:

CP2077, Spider-man Remastered with RT enabled and FSR, maybe Starfield, BG3 would have some bottleneck, depending on the settings.

BG3 in ACT3 is quite bad, my GPU usage is sub 50% while CPU at 100%.

 

My 12400 and 6800 XT in 1440p have a bit of CPU bottleneck in all the titles above, 9700K with 7900XTX is somewhat comparable, 9700K being a bit slower than 12400 while 7900XTX is much faster than 6800 XT. So you will have worse bottleneck than me.

Great info, ty. Maybe it's worth considering upgrading my whole rig then, but goes against my values on upgrading GPU first and do the rest later. 

[Dukesilver27-]

To be clear, they are all still above 60 fps and no stuttering, so I'd say it's still pretty enjoyable.

Starfield even with max everything and FSR, could not get above 70 fps even when nothing is happening, game issue.

CP2077 looks and plays a lot better than Starfield, high 90s fps without FSR and RT, again still very enjoyable.

Spider-man above 60 fps even with RT and max settings, so still enjoyable.

 

Point is, I'd say try it first, you might not need to upgrade the CPU yet, again, this is very depending on your game choices and preference. But as I said, your bottleneck would be worse than mine, with potential of stuttering.

[191x7]

25 minutes ago, Geertdv said:

Hi guys,

 

My trusty MSI RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio isn't really cutting it anymore. I play on a 34" AW3420DW (3440x1440, 120FPS) monitor.

 

I want to upgrade my GPU but facing a couple of questions. How much bottleneck is to be expected if I upgrade with keeping my current CPU. Also will my power supply be sufficient? 

 

Specs:

MSI Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon
Intel i7 9700k (stock)
be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4
MSI RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio
Corsair Vengeance DDR4 16GB 3200mhz
be quiet! Straight Power 11 750w
Intel 660p 1TB m2.ssd

 

Thanks!

2080 ~= 3070 ~= 4060 => you need a stronger GPU for modern games on 3440x1440 but the card should still be able to do with some sacrifices.

 

9700K = 8 cores, no HyperThreading; it's like a Ryzen 3700X with SMT disabled or a Ryzen 3600 with SMT.

This is, in my personal opinion, but also in my expert opinion, holding you back more than the GPU.

 

Upgrading the GPU would result in a "stutter fest" experience, having huge framerate variations (spikey frame time graphs).

 

Not to go too wide on the subject, let's just say that a new CPU (platform) would let you drive the max out of the 2080 and provide the smoothest experience a 2080 can do while a GPU upgrade would result in the CPU holding the new GPU back quite often - you'd have higher frame rates, but also harder drops and the GPU would often be underutilized.

 

TL;DR => upgrade your CPU&MBO (and potentially RAM) first. Way better experience.

[Brooksie359]

49 minutes ago, Dukesilver27- said:

CP2077, Spider-man Remastered with RT enabled and FSR, maybe Starfield, BG3 would have some bottleneck, depending on the settings.

BG3 in ACT3 is quite bad, my GPU usage is sub 50% while CPU at 100%.

 

My 12400 and 6800 XT in 1440p have a bit of CPU bottleneck in all the titles above, 9700K with 7900XTX is somewhat comparable, 9700K being a bit slower than 12400 while 7900XTX is much faster than 6800 XT. So you will have worse bottleneck than me.

The i7 9700k isn't a bit slower than the 12400. It's alot slower. As someone who had a 8700k I would say that the 9700k is going to hold back anything more than a 2080 tbh unless at 4k and even then only 8 threads means your 1% lows are going to be much worse. I mean the 8700k held back my 2080ti in some games. Also keep in mind the r5 3600 actually aged better than the i7 8700k and i7 9700k so while they were similar performance on release, now the R5 3600 is actually faster than the old i7s. I think this is partly due to security vulnerabilities patches nerfing performance. 

[Dukesilver27-]

29 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

The i7 9700k isn't a bit slower than the 12400. It's alot slower. As someone who had a 8700k I would say that the 9700k is going to hold back anything more than a 2080 tbh unless at 4k and even then only 8 threads means your 1% lows are going to be much worse. I mean the 8700k held back my 2080ti in some games. Also keep in mind the r5 3600 actually aged better than the i7 8700k and i7 9700k so while they were similar performance on release, now the R5 3600 is actually faster than the old i7s. I think this is partly due to security vulnerabilities patches nerfing performance. 

I was basing it on 3600 actually, from the benchmarks I've seen, about 10-15% slower IIRC, so I put it on a bit instead of a lot. But regardless, as I said, how much bottleneck is still depending on how he plays his games. With some potential of stuttering when FPS output from the GPU is a lot higher, and definitely a lot worse than mine.

[Geertdv]

Thanks for all the input guys. I might need te reconsider upgrading the lot. 

[Brooksie359]

5 hours ago, Geertdv said:

Thanks for all the input guys. I might need te reconsider upgrading the lot. 

Yeah it's a bit unlucky and lucky at the same time. When you bought your cpu we didn't really see any improvements in cpu performance other than more cores for years at point and now cpu performance has made huge leaps in the last couple of generations and has really made older cpus look alot worse in comparison. On the bright side is that there are plenty of very meaningful cpu upgrades for you to choose from that are way faster than your current cpu. Also games have really gone along way in using all the extra cores some of these cpus have making lesser core and thread count cpus struggle in some newer titles.