GPU Question - Upgrade or No?

[LysergicSid]

So I am considering getting a new GPU, and I wanted some professional advice. My current specs are:

 

MSI X99-A Raider Motherboard

i7-5820k OC @ 4.0Ghz (stable temperature)

GTX 970

ADATA 32Gb RAM @ 2400Mhz

1 Tb M.2 SSD

 

My build is four years old now. My CPU is a bit dated in terms of speed, and I am somewhat concerned about bottle-necking. It is difficult to know without testing data.

I was planning on upgrading my GPU once the new GTX 11 series releases at the end of this month. If the CPU becomes a bottleneck in my system, however, it may be worth considering alternatives. The 10 series has also drastically dropped in price due to overstock. However, I personally feel the 11 series will have cards that are better value once they release. I have a living room TV run at 3,840x2,160 @ 60hz, but I mostly run on 1920x1080 because of the GPU limitations. I may also invest in a high refresh rate monitor in the near future, which is why I would like the extra versatility in the GPU department. 

 

My question is, presuming the leaked specs for the 11 series are marginally accurate, what do you think would be the best upgrade options for my build? I have some ideas but I wanted to see what other's perspectives are. 

[Boomwebsearch]

I would highly suggest that you watch the following video included in this post made by LinusTechTips as I think it does a good job of addressing bottlenecking. Are you running one or more programs which are having performance issues and are they graphics intensive? Bottle-necking based issues cannot be completely be avoided although you can optimize your system for it to have less of an effect on your system's performance. If you have a workload for the system having a larger need on the CPU then I would definitely focus on upgrading that first and vice versa. Although I am almost certain that the newest generation if GPUs which are to be released by Nvidia are going to cause the CPU to be a bottleneck which would lower the performance in tasks which utilize the processor and graphics to a similar extent.

 

 

[Phentos]

2 hours ago, LysergicSid said:

So I am considering getting a new GPU, and I wanted some professional advice. My current specs are:

 

MSI X99-A Raider Motherboard

i7-5820k OC @ 4.0Ghz (stable temperature)

GTX 970

ADATA 32Gb RAM @ 2400Mhz

1 Tb M.2 SSD

 

My build is four years old now. My CPU is a bit dated in terms of speed, and I am somewhat concerned about bottle-necking. It is difficult to know without testing data.

I was planning on upgrading my GPU once the new GTX 11 series releases at the end of this month. If the CPU becomes a bottleneck in my system, however, it may be worth considering alternatives. The 10 series has also drastically dropped in price due to overstock. However, I personally feel the 11 series will have cards that are better value once they release. I have a living room TV run at 3,840x2,160 @ 60hz, but I mostly run on 1920x1080 because of the GPU limitations. I may also invest in a high refresh rate monitor in the near future, which is why I would like the extra versatility in the GPU department. 

 

My question is, presuming the leaked specs for the 11 series are marginally accurate, what do you think would be the best upgrade options for my build? I have some ideas but I wanted to see what other's perspectives are. 

From what I've seen and read, an OC'ed 5820K should not bottleneck anything less than a OC'ed 1080. Even with a 1080TI the bottleneck is pretty minor. At 4K any bottleneck from a 5820K becomes irrelevant as the GPU then becomes the limiting factor. I don't expect this paradigm to change with the 11 series with the sole exception of an "1180TI" or Titan card.

[LysergicSid]

21 hours ago, Boomwebsearch said:

I would highly suggest that you watch the following video included in this post made by LinusTechTips as I think it does a good job of addressing bottlenecking. Are you running one or more programs which are having performance issues and are they graphics intensive? Bottle-necking based issues cannot be completely be avoided although you can optimize your system for it to have less of an effect on your system's performance. If you have a workload for the system having a larger need on the CPU then I would definitely focus on upgrading that first and vice versa. Although I am almost certain that the newest generation if GPUs which are to be released by Nvidia are going to cause the CPU to be a bottleneck which would lower the performance in tasks which utilize the processor and graphics to a similar extent.

 

 

Hello Boomwebsearch,

Thank you for your response. I actually already watched this video before posting my question in the first place. Watching this video is what inspired me to ask the question. I am very aware that bottlenecks are going to happen no matter what, but my question is more about my specific situation with the 5820K processor and my display.

 

Yes, if the CPU and GPU are of equal workload in a task, my CPU will certainly be a bottleneck. As Linus mentioned in the video, different display settings and monitors will change the workload distribution, which is why I posted it in the OP. In regards to your question: I am mostly asking in regards to gaming on my PC -- forgot to mention. They are very graphics intensive but also can be somewhat CPU intensive depending on the game. Sometimes I host small servers and play a client on the same machine, and it actually doesn't even max out the CPU.

 

What I'm getting at in my question is more simply: is my CPU so much of a dinosaur that it won't even make a big difference if I upgrade to a 10 series or 11 series, given my display monitor? Also, how do you think your advice will change when I get a high refresh rate monitor? (presuming the resolution is between 2k and 4k)

 

So yes, I agree that because my GPU is what's holding back the frame-rates and detail, but should I get a 10 or 11, and that is tough to find a direct answer to. My personal stance before posting this is that: the 11 series will be worth it, because they will most likely have more energy efficient technology at a cheaper price and better performance, generally speaking. My CPU will probably be fine since its clock-speed is still decent. However, I do not know everything and maybe someone has a different perspective with a better grounds for their argument than myself.

 

It would also really help if someone has any data on the situation of a 10 series with a 5820k processor. It's nice to have even some data to reference.

 

I probably was a little vague in the OP, I just didn't want to make it too detailed with extraneous information. Sorry for the lack of context.

 

Thank you for taking the time to respond and if you have an opinion about the subject, please share!

[LysergicSid]

20 hours ago, Phentos said:

From what I've seen and read, an OC'ed 5820K should not bottleneck anything less than a OC'ed 1080. Even with a 1080TI the bottleneck is pretty minor. At 4K any bottleneck from a 5820K becomes irrelevant as the GPU then becomes the limiting factor. I don't expect this paradigm to change with the 11 series with the sole exception of an "1180TI" or Titan card.

Thank You Phentos,

I appreciate you sharing your insight. That is kind of what I gathered from what I've read on various forums -- that especially with 4K the frame-rate is limited almost entirely by the GPU if you have a semi-decent CPU. I've seen a lot of anecdotes and personal experiences, but I was wondering are there any places that would have hard-data on the topic? Like the performance increase of a rig with a 5820k CPU of replacing one graphics card versus another? 

 

I mostly just reference forums like these and websites like userbenchmarks to answer most of my questions, but I was wondering if there's a better resource. It's easy to assess what performance increases there are for an individual part, but sometimes it can be complicated to predict the performance boost in a specific build.

 

Anyways, thank you for taking the time to share advice!